On 8/27/2022 8:06 AM, JP Tucson, AZ wrote:

The GS should be made to be filled in as a mandatory, or wsjtx just won't TX! IMHO.

Since the earliest days of ham radio awards, the requirement for a QSO are exchange of callsigns and one other piece of information, and both stations copying R from the other. It doesn't matter what that piece of information is, and for most of the history of ham radio, it has been an RST or RS signal report. It doesn't have to be, it could be names, grids, states.

WSJT started out life as a new tool for weak signal work on VHF/UHF, where major awards are based on gridsquares, anyone doing weak signal work is using rather directional antennas, and the gridsquare tells us where to point them. There is nothing sacred about the gridsquare.

When 6M is open to JA, almost all JA stations call with a signal report. There are hams working on merchant ships that don't transmit their grids; I can learn their grids from PSKReporter, and will learn it from LOTW if the other station enters their grid with LOTW upload.

73, Jim K9YC