WSPR vs. FT8

Over the past week or so, I've slowly been coming around to the idea of using FT8, together with online reporting at pskreporter, as a fast alternative to WSPR.

Whilst FT8 provides the benefits of high-speed, high-frequency probing of propagation conditions, it is very significantly less sensitive than WSPR.  The latest version of WSPR yields positive reception at SNRs down to -34dB.  FT8 offers reception only down to -24dB - a difference of 10dB, or a factor of ten less than WSPR.

FT8 reports can be downloaded from pskreporter as an adif file.  This can be opened as a text file in a spreadsheet package, which needs only basic skills in order to separate the fields and create an ordered table.  More advanced skills are needed to create a table of reports from only one station.  But it's a lot more protracted than simply interrogating the WSPR database online.

Where pskreporter is better than WSPR is in the sheer number of FT8 operators, relative to WSPR users.  There may be about 300 active WSPR users on the more popular bands, whilst FT8 yields over 1000.  The worked experience of FT8 vs. WSPR on, say, 15m, is that you could well see nothing on the WSPR frequency over some time, whilst you might immediately return several FT8 reports.

The other very useful aspect of pskreporter is that you get tabulated or mapped reports, with signal levels, in near-real time.  This is also the case with WSPR, but pskreporter is more immediate in some sense - and it doesn't keep breaking down, as WSPRnet is very prone to do.

So, for now, WSPR remains the gold standard in weak signal antenna and propagation testing.  Both modes can, of course, complement one another, and FT8 may well reach deeper into the noise in future iterations.