Passing along an invite: The North Texas Microwave Society is holding an FT-8 informal net on 2 meters (144.174 USB) starting about 7:30 pm central time on all Monday’s. There are some folks on the air prior to that for tuning and band condition checking. This is all done to hopefully increase traffic on 2 meters.

This does require a radio setup that can do FT-8 on VHF/2 meters. A horizontal antenna is preferred but any antenna can be used to get on the air. I use a home made horizontal loop like this: https://www.sharkclub.org/links/antennas/2m-ssb-loop/2m-loop.htm It is on a push up pole near 30 foot AGL. 200 plus mile long contacts are not hard with it. Some others use beams. Beams are great but not a requirement. It is on a push up pole near 30 foot AGL. 200 plus mile long contacts are not hard with it. Some others use beams. Beams are great but not a requirement. Their web site is: http://ntms.org/ More information on other informal nets for 222 and 432 is there. I just wanted to get this information out to more folks to se if anybody else wants to do or can do FT-8 on 2 meters. A great place to check FT-8 propagation is: https://pskreporter.info/pskmap.html Fill in the blanks: 2M, signals, sent/rcvd, anyone, blank, ft8, 15 minutes. Last week there were two guys, one in Austin and one in Houston, that made contact with Florida during our net time. I tried but propagation did not make it for me.

73’s
See you on the bands. WR5AY