ShackDeck
Sign in
Download Free Now
What to listen to · Amateur radio
FT8 on 17 metres: 18100 kHz by day
A daytime WARC band between 20 and 15 m: no contests, fewer stations, long paths while the sun is up. FT8 on 18100 kHz is the quiet way to hear the same DX as on 20 m without the crowd.
What you hear
The FT8 chorus described in the main article, thinner and better behaved. On 18100 kHz a dozen stripes make a good day, and each one is more likely to be far away: the band favours long paths and discards the short ones.
Who transmits and why
17 m is one of the three WARC bands given to amateurs at the 1979 conference, and by common agreement contests are never held there, so the operators are people who want a quiet DX contact rather than a score. Expeditions like it for the same reason. FT8 is the most used mode on the band, because with few stations the ability to decode weak ones matters more.
When and where to listen
Daylight hours, from mid-morning to early evening, and best in the years around a solar maximum, when the ionosphere supports the higher frequencies. In winter it opens late and closes early; in summer it can last into the evening. From Europe, mornings favour Asia, afternoons Africa and the Americas. Receivers anywhere work, but the band is empty at night. The dial is 18100 kHz, USB.
In ShackDeck
Station catalogue → Amateur radio → FT8 17 m. The program picks a receiver that covers 18100 kHz, sets FT8 mode and decodes every fifteen seconds into the On air list and the map; no receiver, antenna or account of your own is needed.