6metre Transequatorial DX 50.313 FT8 as of 1st October, 2025

 some good 6metre Transequatorial DX today on 50.313 FT8 as per vkspotter.com

DX Spots for VK0DS as of 11th Dec 2023

 DX Spots for VK0DS as of 11th Dec 2023 from dxheat.com DX cluster

and from :
DXSCAPE
DXSCAPE Database search result at 0413Z:

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Callsign=VK0DS Band=ALL Reporter=WW Number=20 Search_before=2023-12-11


Callsigns     YY/MM/DD UTC     FREQ   Remarks                         Reporter
=================================================================================
VK0DS         23/12/10 0610Z  14183.0 no copy                         JM2HBO-9  
VK0DS         23/12/10 0601Z  14183.0 ANZA DX NET                     3D2BT     
VK0DS         23/12/10 0321Z  14074.0 TNX - FANTASTIC QSO ! 73        CT1FMX    
VK0DS         23/12/10 0239Z  14075.8 FT8 Tks DX 73! -10dB            PP5FMM    
VK0DS         23/12/09 1120Z 144140.0 JN86/EME/MC81 tnx dave          S51ZO     
VK0DS         23/12/08 1349Z 210754.0 FT-8 +02                        VK3ATL    
VK0DS         23/12/03 0942Z  21074.0 FT8                             JE5HTN-9  
VK0DS         23/12/03 0922Z  21074.0 FT8                             JA1TPY-#  
VK0DS         23/12/02 2313Z  28180.0                                 K5ABD     
VK0DS         23/12/02 1341Z  14000.0 QRV 23.nov.-dec.24,DAVIS-BASE,  DL8JS     
VK0DS         23/12/02 1324Z  14074.0 FT8 Davis Station in Antarctic  JH7RTQ-#  
VK0DS         23/12/01 2325Z  14240.0                                 K5ABD     
VK0DS         23/12/01 0135Z  14074.0 guess where from !!             VK7XX     
VK0DS         23/11/30 2314Z  14200.0                                 K5ABD     
VK0DS         23/11/19 0950Z  14074.0 FT8 +450                        JH7RTQ-#  
VK0DS         23/11/18 1200Z  14074.0 Antarctica                      JM1HJG-#  
   VK0DS         23/10/31 1355Z  14074.0 Call correction                 JH7RTQ-#    

VK0DS         23/10/24 1011Z  21074.0 FT8 　Antarctica          JR1CBC-#  

VK0DS         23/10/24 0702Z  14076.1 FT8                             PY2APK    
VK0DS         23/10/24 0659Z  14074.5 FT8                             PY2APK  

WSJT-X FT8 update

 I ran this WSJT-X on my Linux Mint laptop on 50.313 in FT8 mode for a few days, amazed at what it decoded,  from here in Sydney (VK2)  decoding stations VK1,2,3,4,5,6,7, plus ZL1,2  this is not using a 5 or 6 element 6metre yagi, no, this is  from using my 40m HF dipole, through the Icom 756 Pro2's antenna tuner, with s5 noise level, the FT8 does the trick of pulling signals out of the noise.  Even a SWL can throw a bit of wire out in the backyard and decode these signals.  

It's not hard to think  what you can get with a couple phased arrays up a mast, in a low noise environment. No reason not to get the America's or Europe with proper 6metre setup. Great fun, I can't wait to go out in the country and try it from a low noise floor environment. It's too damned noisy in the city suburbs with all these damned houses with solar panels with noisy inverters running all day. Tired of listening to high noise level on HF  and 50 Mhz, thanks to fxxxing Greenies and their fxxxing solar panels polluting the RF spectrum.

WSJT-X 2.5.4 running on Linux Mint 20.3

 I finally got around to installing latest WSJT-X, both on my Windows10 laptop and also on my Linux Mint laptop, these are old hand-me-down laptops,  the Linux Mint laptop is an old ASUS N550J 2015 model I think, it was my XYL's MS Windows10 laptop which became unbearably slow and useless, so I took it and installed Linux on it, I tried a few different versions, but settled on LinuxMint as it is derived from Ubuntu and Ubuntu derived from Debian. Anyway, the old ASUS has a new lease on life, it is fast again.  I have in the past ran WSJT on  various Linux platforms, on old Dell servers, I had deliberately  gone about  compiling and testing WSJT on  the various Linux derivations and documenting it. Anyway, I finally put some antennas up at home, since moving house, I thought lets try some actual weak signal radio activities.  

Next, I downloaded the .deb files for WSJT-X 2.5.4 and installed on Linux Mint 20.3 this was just too easy, much easier than the old days of manually compiling against different version of Linux, now days  it is  as easy installing on Linux, (since it based on QT5,) as it is for  installing on a MS-Windows 10 laptop.

Next step, connect the TigerTronics USB SignalLink interface to my IC-756PROII transceiver and the other end into the USB of the Linux Mint laptop, to make sure it was found and defined as a linux device, I ran a couple commands from terminal window, such as lsusb command to show the USB devices,  and used the Sound application in Linux Mint to see the input and output sound devices were identified and could see it displayed and I could test the interface.

I read some forums, I can see quite a few hams complaining that they  could not get their SignalLink devices to work on LinuxMint, I can't understand it, as I found it so easy. I can't imagine what the hell they were doing, (or not doing),  to make it work, it was just so damned easy. Maybe they just using some old crappy PC or laptop.

Anyway, I had it all installed and configured and plugged into the transceiver and before I even realised it, the thing was decoding  FT8 on 50.313MHz, which blew me away, as I couldn't even hear anything like a signal coming from the radio, yet, I was decoding callsigns and messages from other hams. This is what I call weak signal Dxing!

Next step, I better read the WSJT-X documentation to see how I start replying to people on FT8. A few years I was at Dave VK2JDS's place watching JT65 on 23cm EME, which was impressive as it is, but FT8 is pushing the boundaries even further.