On March 15, Joe Taylor K1JT gave a talk on the new digital mode FT4 to the Fair Lawn amateur radio club

“Soon after the “FT8 Roundup” held on December 1-2, 2018, we started serious work on a faster, more contest-friendly digital mode that can compete with RTTY-contesting QSO rates while preserving many of the benefits of FT8. The result is FT4 — a new digital mode specifically designed for radio contesting.

Over the past month a small group of volunteers have been conducting on-the-air tests of FT4. The early tests were very successful and helped us to make a number of important design decisions. We believe FT4 has considerable promise for its intended purpose.

We’ll soon be ready for testing by a larger group. If you might be interested in participating and offering your considered feedback, please read the descriptive document “The FT4 Protocol for Digital Contesting”
http://physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/k1jt/FT4_Protocol.pdf

We plan to post downloadable installation packages for WSJT-X 2.1.0-rc5
on April 29. The document linked above includes
– Instructions for installing WSJT-X 2.1.0-rc5 and FT4 configuration
– Operating instructions for FT4
– Basic description of the FT4 protocol, modulation, and waveform
– Detailed sensitivity measurements for FT4 under a wide variety of simulated propagation
conditions
– Schedule for upcoming test sessions

Please consider helping us to make FT4 a successful mode for digital contesting

With best wishes and 73,
— Joe K1JT, Steve K9AN, and Bill G4WJS“