There is propably nothing more polarizing in our ham radio comunity than FT8! Since the invention of FT8 by Joe Taylor K1JT and his team, there is litterly no week without some post on facebook, twitter or elswhere that FT8 or Jow Taylor killed ham radio. Really?
Everyone has seen these sharepics dozends of times somewehre, right?
Oldtimers may remember that once (many years ago) sideband killed amateur radio, the AM guys said.
I personally remember that the loss of CW exams killed ham radio, the CW guys said.
I also remember that entry level licence (Class-E in Germany) killd ham radio, the B-Licence holders said.
Letting E-Class licence holders onto HF was even more evil!
Now – yet again – ham radio is beeing killed another time (!) – now by Joe and his devil FT8.
I am not an „FT8- FANBOY“ at all. I do operate FT8 but I prefer SSB and RTTY. I like CW and between 30%-40% of my QSOs are CW.
My professional work is DATA – so why we are not looking into some data?
The data source I am looking at is QSOs uploaded into clublog since Jan 2010.
- The first oberservation on this chart I made is that the major CQWW contests create huge spikes in QSOs uploaded in September for RTTY (light blue), October SSB (blue) and by far the most QSOs come in from CW (orange) in November. So these major contests seem to be a big driver in QSO numbers. Month without these events are way down! So contesting defenetly does not kill ham radio.
- The maximum of total QSOs is around 2014 – 2015. This is also the maximum of the last sunspot cycle.
- FT8 (orange) kicks in after June 2017 and there is a fast increase in FT-8 QSOs – but NOT a fast decline in CW or SSB!
- CW and SSB stay kind of stable from 2016 – 2025!!
- You can compare this with the percentage chart from above yourself.
5 SSB + 5 CW + 5 Other results in 33.3% SSB + 33.3% CW + 33.3% other.
5 SSB + 5 CW + 5 Other + 10 FT8 = results in 20% SSB + 20% CW + 20% Other + 40% FT8!
nobody stole anything – FT8 added a LOT!
Lets put some trend lines in.
It becomes even clearer when you look at the anual data.
QSO’s without FT8 and FT4 in Million QSO’s uploaded per year.
Before 2014 it was a tight battle between Phone and CW. Intrestingly the phone decline from 2014 was steeper than CW. But it is fair to say the numbers between 2010 and 2024 for the main modes phone and CW are between 12 and 20 Million QSO’s per year and we are stable well above 15 million in CW and slightly up 15 million on phone since a few years.
So where is the big decline now when FT8 came in and killed Hamradio?
Can you see on this chart when FT8 started? It was 2017!
So what happend really?
FT8 added 30.000.000 to 50.000.000 QSO’s per year that were not here otherwise!
I am sure that it not just added QSOs – it also added active hams that were not on the air otherwise.
This is just data points by QSOs counts, but to me this is what matters. The hobby is not listening to white noise on empty bands – its about finding ways to communicate and enjoy the radio. If I do not like SSTV for example – i simply don’t operate SSTV, but I would also leave the people alone who enjoy what they are doing! If you don’t like FT8 – fine for me – don’t do it then, but please stop telling other operators that their „mode“ is BAD for hamradio and the community.
I personally know many many people with a balcony antennas, or a small wires that would not be on ham radio without FT8 at all.
The average age in our hobby is increasing. The bound to the clubs like RSGB, DARC, ARRL and others are declining. Many OM’s will go QRT or SK over the next 10-20 years …
Just be happy of someone who buys a cheap china radio and puts his small wire up.
73 and good dx
Helmut DF7EE
Are you interested in contesting? JOIN THE RRDXA!
