Data Modes Revisited

My favorite radio mode is undoubtedly CW and I am normally very happy to have the sound of morse constantly playing in my shack. But, after the recent RSGB UK AFC Phone Contest on 80 meters, I found that my brain was in desperate need of some peace and quiet. Even those sweet da di dahs irritated my ears, but, I still needed my radio.

Data modes have one distinct advantage over other modes in that you can switch the speaker off and just look at a waterfall of signals so I decided to give them a try again.

It has been several years since I last tried data modes and even then, I got them to work and then dropped them after several qso's, returning to my beloved CW. It came as no surprise therefore that when I connected the Yaesu FT897 via a G4ZLP TTL CAT Interface and a SignaLink USB Sound Card to my old laptop that I could see signals on the screen but could not transmit. Specifically, I could not get the PTT activated on the Sound Card.

I was trying to use N1MM Contest logging software and Fldigi for PSK and whilst I have used N1MM several times a year without problem, Fldigi was a new install. It seemed reasonable to me therefore to assume that was where the problem lay.

After much time reading the instructions for both N1MM and Fldigi my brain was starting to rebel and I was nearly ready to give radio a rest for a while. In situations like these the best course of action is usually to revert to the last known point at which things worked. I knew that I had previously used PSK with Ham Radio Deluxe (HRD) so booted that up fully expecting it to work. However it looked like I was in for a disappointing day!

Recently I had decided to concentrate on two Contest logging programmes, Minos for VHF and N!MM for HF along with my new WinKey. On my very old laptop I had manually reconfigured the ports so that N1MM and WinKey could work on it. HRD was configured to use Port 12 so that was the problem. I quickly selected the correct port but still no joy,

Beginning to despair I was wondering what else there was to tweak. Only the Windows sound mixer was left so I opened that up and at first glance all the correct choices had been made but on closer inspection the master volume control was only set at 50%. Not willing to mess about any longer I just pushed that up to maximum and hey presto, there was enough signal to activate the PTT on the Sound Card. I was in business again.

It was not long before I discovered why I had not spent very long on PSK before. Despite being one of the "more conversational" digital modes it is still very much Macro driven, especially when you are as slow and inaccurate typist as me. I had recently spent quite a long time sorting out the Macros on N1MM for an HF CW Contest so  had some idea of what I wanted to achieve.

HRD comes with some sets of ready made macros but on closer inspection some of them are a bit weird - wishing others a nice Christmas in 2003 etc. They also use pre-entered station data that was extremely out of date or totally irrelevant. I did end up having a pleasant evening on 80 meters making a qso, tweaking the macros and then another qso until I had the macros reasonably sorted out. 

I try to use the macros as an aid to typing rather than a full blown F1, F2, F3 sort of conversation. Conditions on 80 meters that night must have been very good as I ended up with a good batch of qso's using just 10 watts to my trap dipole. I would have been pleased with evenings work on CW using my more usual 50 to 75 watts.

Fired up with this success I then started to think about the UKCC 80m data Contest in February so started to see how Contest logging worked on HRD. It was not until I had "logged" three imaginary qso's that I found out that I had sent eqsl's automatically to 3 stations that I had in fact not worked. Two were SDARS members so I will apologize to them personally but to G3PYE/P I apologize. You are not going crazy it is just me getting ready to work you in the next data contest - I hope!

73 De Jim - G0HGH

Fortunate antenna problem!

With all of the high winds we have been experiencing lately I was not surprised that one arm of my bamboo 10/15 meter trap dipole broke off close to the central support. It turned out that it was only inserted about half an inch into the central support so it was not very surprising that it broke. The antenna wire stopped the bamboo pole from going too far so no further damage was done.

The repair was easy to make and the dipole is now much stronger than it was before but when I tried to pump up the Scam 12 mast I found it would not take in any air and I could not raise the mast to check the antenna. I had not planned to use the mast until the first UK AC Contest of the year on Tuesday so I think I would have been mildly upset if I had discovered that problem just before the start of the contest.

I have a compressor in the shed that I use to pump the mast up. Being in the shed and muffled under a work bench keeps it reasonably quiet so that it does not disturb the neighbours if I need to re-pressurise the mast in order to lower it after a UK AC Contest at around 23.00. 

The compressor has a 15 meter length of hose to the mast which is slightly too long so I had just made a couple of coils and stuffed them under the shed out of the way. All I could hear above the compressor working was the hiss of escaping air coming from under the shed. Upon closer examination a short section of the reinforced air hose had been gnawed through and all of my precious air was escaping. 

I quickly shortened the hose but, not having any air hose fittings, I managed to source some aluminium tubing that fitted tightly inside the air hose and secured a short length into the hose with a couple of jubilee clips.

Now the hose is routed safely away from the shed with no surplus coils and hopefully away from whatever is living underneath it. I don't begrudge the little critter a nice warm home but I am not so charitable about its jaw exercise workout upon my air hose.

As my longer  HF dipole for 80/40 is supported on a different pole on the side of the house I was not planning on raising the Scam mast until just before the next VHF Contest. So all in all a bit of a fortunate problem solved with time to spare.

I just hope that the winds subside a bit before this coming Tuesday. The forecast is not very optimistic. Good luck to all Contesters and operators for 2014.

73 de Jim G0HGH