I forgot some hints to make your FT-8/4 rates faster and more successful.

Time:
Make sure your computer clock is as dead on correct time as possible!? Well Sorta......
It changes quickly! Last night at 10PM mine was 10 ms fast.
But just now the morning checking it's quite a bit more fast. TOO Fast.

I try to be between 50 and 100 ms fast.
That may sound counter productive when all the paperwork says you should try to have your time be as close to dead on as possible. They say the further off from dead on the less chances of being decoded happens. And yes that is true.
You get too far off from sync with everyone else and you percentage of being decoded drops off a cliff!

I see some degradation at +100ms, but barely noticeable, and at +150ms, it seems rates drop like 50% and it gets really bad any higher! Of course all this timing also all depends on what the majority of people on the air what their timings are!
If everyone else is running fast, then if you are dead on you end up being slow and that is VERY BAD!!!!
Even just 50ms slow and you are lucky to get any answers to your calls at all!

So watch the waterfall also. See how peoples signals are spacing with the timing lines? Adjust as needed, so you will be transmitting that 50 to 100 ms early.

Now why would I want to do this? If I am on purpose loosing a small percentage of being decoded? It is all on how the software works.? This of course mainly only applies to you answering someone's CQ. You CQing this does not apply.

The software by default after it finishes CQing listens for callers.
If you are the only caller and he hears ya, of course he works ya!

But what happens if you end up being one of 20 calling him, and yes that's not uncommon.
Who does he end up working if he is running his software in default mode which like 90% of people do.

By default he answers to the First station he decoded. Ding Ding Ding Ding
see the reason to be just a little faster than everyone else?
If you end up being the first he decodes you will be who he calls.

That's one way to increase your rate.

Next, is a setting in your system.? Say you are CQing, and people call you. again One person, no problem, you work him.
But if again 20 called, Who do you answer? And remember you got seconds to decide.? One thing I do is to activate this feature.

Here you have three choices,
Last Decoded:, where the last station you decoded is who it will answer.
Distance: this one is great for contests that you get more points the further the station is away!
And for Field Day or 99% of other contests or even every day to day operation, I use
Signal Strength:
Choose this and the strongest signal is who you will answer. Being the strongest obviously will help you make the complete contact with as few repeats as possible.

How about when you are running S&P Search And Pounce where you are looking for people CQing and calling them.
A cycle has ended and you are looking at this!

Who do you choose to call? Remember you got like no seconds to waste. especially in FT-4,
And you are using FT-4 right!? he he he.? But honestly who do you choose to call?
Remember first decoded usually wins the contact!
Take too long to decide and you will loose being not first decoded. and have to wait for the next
Chance to call them, at least then the computer will decide when to call, and hopefully be ahead of everyone else.

I ignore That window! I use this one!

Many things are happening in this window,

First, each cycle this is populated with what it heard. AND In this case it is told to ONLY show me stations CQing!
AND
To ONLY show me stations I have not worked yet. do not show me any others. Or anyone NOT CQing.
AND
To sort them in order of signal strength strongest at the top.
AND
Color Code them. All here are in BLUE because I was using the Field Day parameters.
There are no Mults in FD so all the stations are in BLUE. And good to work.
But if this was a contest with mults, and say the station F4JRC is a new Mult,
F4JRC, would be in RED, and you would click on him first! Simply clicking on his call starts the calling process.

So when answering CQ's 99% of the time you would sit there with you mouse already in the top window,
and as soon as the recv cycle loads you don't even look at who the top call is you just "Click" and ur calling them.
No delay at all so odds are you are first to be decoded again?
The only time you'd move you mouse is if a RED New Mult showed up. And you'd call him at the next chance.

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Now Thursday Night is a Great chance to try all this out and or get practice.
Every Thursday evening is the NCCC FT-4 Sprint.
DETAILS:
The Northern California?Club is again pleased to sponsor our weekly FT4 Sprint, aka FT4NS (NCCC?Sprint).?? This contest is held every Friday UTC between 0100Z and 0130Z (Thursday evening in North America). Non-North American stations are welcome to participate. No logs are necessary; please submit your score to??using the "NCCC?FT4 Sprint" template.
Contest to use in the logger is the NCCC_FT4Sprint one.? ?

Last week, we had? posted scores, all of them with 18 Qs or more. NOT BAD fo a 30 minute window.? From the East Coast, both 10? and 15m were open to JA- quite a change from past weeks.??

The RSGB FT International Day Contest is coming up on April 5.? Its a 12 or 24 hour contest, and a lot of fun!? Mults are DXCC per band- hope to see some more activity from US.

FT4 NS Sprint Rules are posted at?

See you on the screen!

Frequencies 1839, 3575, 7047.5, 14080, 21140, 28180, 50318

Hope to see some of you there!? I'll be on either 15 or 40,

Probably if the band is open try 15 for 15 min and then go to 40 for the second half.

Joe WB9SBD