This weekend is the IARU HF championship - a contest for both SSB and CW for the 24 hours commencing 12:00 UTC on Saturday the 11th of July. Bodo in Nigeria (see previous post) would be active as 5N0HQ and I was hoping I might get a contact at some point over the period of the contest.
I set about working a few stations, initially on SSB but then moved to 15m CW where I’d seen 5N0HQ spotted. Although I wasn’t putting out a huge signal I was concerned when no one, not a single station, responded to my calls on CW. I should mention at this point that having made some SSB, RTTY and PSK31 contacts since getting the FT-950 setup, I still hadn’t logged a single CW contact. I began to wonder if all was well with my interface configuration.
I’m using the CwType software by Sergei (UA9OV) for sending contest exchanges. This communicates with the radio via a MyDel SB-2000 radio interface unit which also handle rig control and RTTY FSK keying, as well as audio in and out. Although it seemed to be keying the rig and I was hearing the CW tone in my headset, on closer inspection the radio was just sending a steady tone and wasn’t being keyed to send the CW characters. It turns out I had the wrong setting in the CwType software - the PTT port pin was set to RTS when it should be set to ‘NONE’. Keying is then via the DTR pin to send the CW characters. Having made that change I got a response from the next station called…and several more after that.
So having made the change and realised the error of my ways, I’ll be back on the hunt for Bodo in his 5N0HQ guise. I fear I may have missed my best chance of a 20m contact but I’ll see what I can do if he pops up on 40m this evening. At least now I’m sure the setup is working as expected so any failure to log him now will be down to the propagation gods!
Dean Amateur Radio 5N0HQ, CW, CWType, FT-950, IARU, RTTY, SB-2000, SSB, technology, UA9OV
…with the FT-950 are in the log but it wasn’t all plain sailing! Despite leaving it all in a working state when I powered off last night, turning it on this evening intent on meeting Richard (M0SNR) on 6m for a quick RTTY sked resulted very much in a ‘back to square one’ type scenario - nothing would work!
To cut a long story short the problem appears to have been 6m. Whenever the radio was set to transmit on 6m it would stay in transmit even if the PC software sent a PTT off command. HRD wouldn’t unkey the transmit, neither would MMTTY. Only unplugging the USB cable to the interfce box (the SB-2000) would force the radio back to receive mode.
I’m going to see what others on the HRD forums and the FT-950 Yahoo user group think about this but I suspect RFI on 6m getting the interface software or low level COM port driver into a bad state.
The good news was I made a few contacts tonight once I had figured out what the problem was. At 20:02 UTC I had a short PSK31 QSO using the Digipan software with HA1FB (Feri) and at 20:32 UTC I had a RTTY QSO with OH1LWZ (Hannu) using the MMTTY software. I do eventually hope to use DM780 for PSK31 but I will continue to use MMTTY for RTTY even though this does mean you have to close the HRD software because they both use the same COM port. Not ideal but I am prepared to put up with it for the sake of using MMTTY and FSK keying.
I have more work to do but the first thing I’ll check tomorrow is that tonights settings are still ok when I power it all back up again after shutting it down tonight!
Dean Amateur Radio computers, DM780, FT-950, HRD, PSK31, RTTY, SB-2000, technology, Yaesu
I have received email notification from Martin Lynch & Sons that my Yaesu FT-950 was dispatched today. It should arrive tomorrow while I am out at work so I’ll look forward to unpacking it and getting it setup tomorrow night.
There is a new radio-to-computer interface box being shipped with the radio, the MyDel SB-2000, this enables PSK31 and other soundcard data modes, FSK RTTY, CW keying and rig control. It’s going to be an ongoing setup and configuration exercise through the rest of the week and into the weekend but it’s good to know that the radio is finally on its way!
Dean Amateur Radio, Blog CW, FSK, FT-950, PSK31, RTTY, SB-2000, Yaesu
…are blowing through amateur radio station G0RIF! I have made the decision to finally commit to getting a radio that I believe will be with me for a very long time, a Yaesu FT-950 (pictured). The reason? Digital IF filtering! For too long I have put up with adjacent channel interference, even with the 500Hz filter in the TS-480. With the FT-950 (with the PEP updates) this will be [mostly*] a thing of the past.
In addition I am now moving to a ’single radio setup’ with a single interface unit (MyDel SB-2000) for PSK31 and other soundcard data modes, FSK RTTY, CW keying and rig control.
Yaesu FT-950 HF/6m transceiver
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To that end I have agreed a sale on my TS-480SAT that has been a faithful servant for the past few years, mainly used for RTTY and CW.
Other gear for sale includes my LDG AT-200Pro auto antenna tuner, my SignaLink USB radio interface, my Rigblaster Plug & Play radio interface and my Yaesu FT-857 radio, used primarily for portable operating.
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The net result of this change will be that I have one radio (the FT-950) with one interface unit (the SB-2000) and one antenna tuner (the SEM Tranzmatch - see earlier posts for details). The FT-897D currently in use as the primary PSK31 set (and standby HF rig) will then be used for portable work (as and when required) and will retain it’s role as a spare HF set.
* I do accept that even modern digital IF filtering has its limitations and that there will still be occasional circumstances where signals are so close together (or when one is particularly strong) when interference may still occur. I believe that such occurences will be significantly fewer with the FT-950 than with the TS-480.
Dean Amateur Radio, Life..., Pictures FT-857, FT-950, G0RIF, PSK31, Rigblaster, RTTY, SB-2000, SEM TranZmatch, SignaLink, Yaesu