More RTTY

Monday at work wasn't too bad and I still felt energetic after Supper so here I am in the shack working on My RTTY setup. I've decided to concentrate on the Yaesu RTTY setup and wait with the Kenwood because of the sound card issues. The PC I'm using with the Yaesu setup has a RS232 com board I added and it works Ok but seems to lose the last settings after power off. This means I need to always check Playback control properties or start a program like "Digipan" and set waterfall drive properties. It always wants to use "mic" instead of "line in". Beats Me why!
For most contests I use N1MM logger and for the RTTY portion, N1MM works well with MMTTY. In the config of N1MM, I just needed to direct the logger to bring up the RTTY engine from MMTTY. Sounds complicated and quite frankly I needed help the first time to get it working. Some of the help files in the logger should be a good starting point. Since this is a different PC since the last RTTY contest I needed to set up all new parameters. Changing from AFSK to FSK only required a change in the TX field.
The major change ended up being the macros-- all wrong! I spent quite awhile retyping them and saving to file. I also tested them when I was done into a dummy load- its diddleing and i also caught several typos. I'm getting close to being ready for Saturday! The club I'm a member of will probably have a pre-test to check out Our set-ups! Hope i find the time to participate!
73--Tim

RTTY Interfaces..continued

I finished assembling both homemade interfaces- the original interface needed the FSK keying circuit added and the new interface needed final assembly. For the FSK keying and in fact all PTT keying circuits I use Opto-isolators. The old interface had no room on the original circuit board so I added a very small universal board with the opto IC,resistor and LED indicator. I did need to add addtional wiring thru My RS232 switchbox and another wire pair to the radio Din connector.
The new box is strictly for the Kenwood TS-850 and I just needed to finish mounting parts and adding all the wiring interconnects. This interface turned out OK, although I would like to have added level control for the transmit to the radio and PTT inhibit ( simple switch). Ran out of parts and wanted to finish-maybe a future addition.
The older modified interface is for both Yaesu radios and after hooking it back up was disappointed to not see hardly any activity on "Digipan"-although the radio was hopping with PSK signals!
This PC has had several upgrades and upon remembering this I went back to square one to set it up. I needed to go thru the Config menu to setup waterfall,transmit and com ports.The setting for the waterfall Soundcard settings was using the mic input instead of line in. Now I had signals and was ready to try RTTY . I use MMTTY and a good tutorial to set up this program is online at AA5AU's website. I highly recommend it! Since the settings vary alot depending on radio and interface, I won't go into detail except to note for FSK keying, make sure follow the FSK setup and not the AFSK!! Now I was decoding the "diddles" and could hear the shifting tones on transmit, something I could not hear before setting up MMTTY for FSK keying.
Next I wanted to try the interface for the Kenwood radio and everything appeared OK except all I've been able to decode thru Digipan is garbage characters. Not trusting My interface, I hooked it to a laptop and right away had good characters. I've had issues with bad soundcards and drivers so this will be My next step.....but now the weekend is almost over so time to focus on the work week ahead. Remember-next weekend is ARRL RTTY RU!!!
73---Tim

At Year's end...

It has been a busy Christmas, but enjoyable. My family is healthy and happy and 2010 was a good year. I hope 2011 is healthy,happy and prosperous to all. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
I finished the interface to the Yaesu FT-950 and I am trying to find time to finish the Kenwood interface. Next weekend is RTTY Roundup contest starting at 12 noon on Saturday for Me.Lots to do to get ready- maybe will be able to find some time to participate!
We had a rain storm yesterday which made everthing an icy mess but it was warm enough it fell to the ground instead of covering trees and antennas--so it could have been worse! Temperature has dropped and now its snowing! Have to love winter to live up here- I do!!
73---Tim

RTTY Interfaces

Besides everything else happening during the Christmas season, I've been trying to finish building two Digital/PSK/RTTY interfaces. The light colored box is an interface I made for several older radios for PSK and SSTV. I use a RS232 switchbox to switch between different radios and it has worked well for many years with only minor modifications. The black box is a new project for just My Kenwood Ts-850 and mostly will be for RTTY, although all the other digital modes can also be used with it-even CW !

Both boxes use similiar circuits with level adjustment,isolation audio transformers and optical isolator IC's for all PTT/RTTY circuits. I just finished modifying the original gray box for RTTY and My Yaesu FT-950 and it appears to work. After the holidays will have a better chance to test it.

Speaking of the Holidays-- Merry Christmas!!

73--Tim

RAC Winter Contest 2010

The RAC winter Contest is one of My favorites because of the casual attitude and the "Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays" addition to most exchanges.Our Canadian neighbors seem to enjoy just the fact so many VE's and VA's are on the air at the same time! This contest runs for 24 hours and it started at My location at 6:00 PM CST Friday and ended at 6:00PM CST Saturday. My goal this year was to have a minimum 50 contacts and maybe all 14 RAC official stations in the log. The official stations would be difficult for a SSB only station, but I would give a good try.

I started Friday night scanning the bands until I finally found activity on 40m.My first contact was VY2RAC but I quickly decided 40m was not full of contesters so I switched to 75m and did a S & P effort. After several breaks from the radio I eventually ended up on 160m where My inverted "L" performed nicely. Not alot of contacts on 160m and I called it a night with about same number of contacts on Friday I had for all of last Years contest--all S & P.

Saturday was not what I expected-- was not feeling 100% and actually spent time on the couch watching the UMD Bulldogs win the title game against Delta! Later in the afternoon I was able to again try the contest and spent time on 20m. I didn't hear any activity on 10m and 15m and was not able to participate when conditions again would have shifted towards 40 and 75m. This contest was fun but I again didn't spend enough time to rack up a better score but the bands seemed to be in good shape and I was able to use three different antennas. The Inverted "L" for 160m, 260 ft dipole for 75m and the butternut HF6V vertical for 20m and 40m and all three performed well. i actually broke some pile-ups and didn't feel like a peashooter station at times. One station even commented on My 20 over 9 signal and I commented on his 30-40 over 9 signal--must have been a pipeline! One other fact- USA and Dx for Me were also scoring opportunities giving 2 points-Nice! I ended up contacting 6 of the 14 RAC special stations! Several on multiple bands.

Results--- QSOs Pts Sec

56 612 18
Score : 11,016

73---Tim