Although JT65 is quite slow (each transmit cycle lasts about 45 seconds), it is a very effective way of making long distance contacts using low power and modest antennas. Running just 15 watts, I could be heard as far away as Alaska, Argentina, and Japan, according to the PSK Reporter website (see screenshot below). It takes about six minutes to make one QSO. JT65 is a slow mode, much slower than PSK31.
You can see where he called me in the screenshot on right. And, within another short time, I had a Canadian station, VA3MJR, replying to my call. Within a short time, I was transmitting a CQ with JT65 on 20 metres, on 14.076 Mhz. JT65-HF and JT9-1 on 10m are calling I think. Sunspot count today is 76 (decent) and 20-30MHz conditions are supposed to be normal so there could well be some F2 (as well as Es) on 10m today. Of course, JT65 and JT9 are proper QSO modes. With a quick change of the settings, everything was working and I was able to transmit. JT9-1 is a narrower bandwidth mode than JT65-HF and is about 2dB worse than WSPR. So within a short time, Doug was sitting in the "hot seat", showing me how it's done!! We had a little bit of difficulty getting the software to key the PTT via the SB-2000 interface, until I finally realised that it was looking for the wrong COM port.
In stepped my good friend, Doug, EI2CN, who visited the shack tonight, and who has recently begun using this mode himself. I could decode received signals, but could not transmit.
Although I had installed the JT65-HF software some time ago, I hadn't been able to figure out how to use it properly. I worked my first few contacts using the low power, long distance, digital mode known as JT65. Tonight marked another milestone in the shack of EI2KC.