FT8call overnight & FT8call 0.7 news

Left my computer running overnight because I have some videocard issues that lock W10. It seems it didn't lock last night and it spotted all the stations received. When I did a allcall? early this morning I saw only KP3FT did receive me, reading his info I was surprised that the stations runs only 5W. So I send a pop up message, hopefully he did receive it. I was also surprised VU2RPS was calling earlier in the night. Overall, despite some negative comments from people that don't know what it is all about,  I see a increased interest in FT8call. It is nice to see global (QRP) communication is possible although the software is not intended for DX. It is all about the coverage of you portable station. Jordan KN4CRD does a great job creating this software. In a few days there will be a new version with exciting features. This is what Jordan wrote:

And here's what I've been working on in 0.7 (and it's right around the corner):

* I've built a compression algorithm for standard QSO text which means that we'll see some increases in throughput. Up until now, FT8Call has been limited to about 10WPM. With the new compression mechanism, we'll see 10WPM as the minimum, 20WPM peak on some sentences, with most averaging at about 15WPM. Very exciting!
* I've built a manual time synchronization mechanism so you will be able to sync your time manually without having to use an internet time server. (You'll just click the sync button at the start or end of an observed transmit cycle). Here's a sneak peek what that will look like: https://widefido.wistia.com/medias/73c390bacd
* I've also build a new BEACON behavior called BEACON ACK. It will replace ALLCALL? to automatically report to you who hears your BEACONs. And, those stations will be displayed with an indicator in the heard list so you know who can hear you.
* And a bunch more!

Version 0.7 and should be wrapped up here in the next few days. I appreciate your patience :) Let me know if there's anything I can do to help in the meantime.

Cheers y'all!

Best,
Jordan / KN4CRD

The manual sync option is the best invention of them all. I already wrote that in a worst case scenario there is no internet or GPS for time sync. The manual sync will overcome that. It doesn't matter if the opposite station is not in sync as well as long as both of your stations are synchronized.

And the biggest surprise of it all....will the mode still be known as FT8call? I know Jordan is searching or already has a new name for it. I wonder if it will be implemented in version 0.7?

Just a few days.....I can't wait...