Three more issues...

[ZB2ham]

Dear BG7YOZ

I have been using FT8CN for some months now. I have had some problems, and these are now resolved. FT8CN is very impressive. I am amazed at what it does, and so well. What follows is not criticism, merely suggestions for a better (for me at least!) user experience.

There are three items;

1. The addition of a free text option. I appreciate FT8 is not a conversation mode, but I often have a pile-up and it would be useful to send a message such as “ZB2MD QRT” or “ZB2MD QSY 21.300” which of course also implies a change of mode to SSB.

2. Non-scrolling. Occasionally the FT8CN does NOT scroll, and it might take a few cycles to notice, by which time the QSO has moved on. I might be sending RR73 repeatedly despite the other station having sent 73s.

The most serious of the issues reported here;

3. FT8CN takes control! When the bands are quiet with few stations, FT8CN does an excellent job automatically, tracking the progress of a QSO and sending the next appropriate message. When I have a pile-up, it is a completely different matter.

I may be in QSO with Station A, and I am ready to send “Station A ZB2MD R-10”. Just before that message gets transmitted, Station B calls me and FT8CN IMMEDIATELY changes from the QSO with Station A and begins a QSO with Station B. I then find myself holding two QSOs at the same time. The only way I can stop this is to stop transmission so that the string to Station B is NOT transmitted, but I have not transmitted to Station A either. I prepare to send the wanted string to Station A, only to find that FT8CN at the last moment chooses to respond to Station C who has just called me. At times when I have chosen NOT to correct this, to see what happens, I find FT8CN has started numerous QSOs but does not progress with any of them, as long as new stations keep calling.

Is there a means of locking FT8CN to the QSO that I choose to continue with, rather than have FT8CN override my choice?

Many thanks for your patience and attention.

[bg7yoz]

hi，@ZB2ham

很高兴您对FT8CN的评价。

1. 关于自由文本。FT8CN支持自由文本（从0.83开始就已经支持了），在“Calling”界面，长按“CQ”按钮，切换自由文本模式。 参见快速手册： FT8CN Quick Guide v0.89.pdf

2. Non-scrolling. 您是指在消息列表不滚动？当消息列表在底部时，消息会自动向上滚动，当您向下滑动消息列表时，FT8CN为了方便您浏览消息，消息列表不会自动滚动最新的消息，防止干扰您浏览消息。还是指接收到对方的消息消息，FT8CN不会及时回复？这个问题确实存在，这是个bug，当使用“Deep decode”解码模式时，会有这个问题产生。请使用“Fast decode”模式。这个问题将在0.91中解决。

3.关于控制的问题。FT8CN的自动程序逻辑比较简单，今后会尽量完善，希望能实现您的需求。

73！

BG7YOz

[ZB2ham]

As ever, your responses are prompt and comprehensive.

1. I see that free text is available, many thanks - I had not discovered it
2. The non-scrolling may be down to me - I shall analyse what I do more closely to see exactly under what conditions it happens.
3. I look forward to a better implementation of FT8CN taking control, in later updates.

All the three issues I had raised in an earlier post have been sorted with the release of v0.90

Many thanks again, Ken Ruiz, ZB2MD