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G0FTD > BEACON 04.05.03 19:30l 75 Lines 3485 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 7E1227G0FTD
Read: DB0FHN GUEST
Subj: My reception tests DK0WCY
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Sent: 030426/1735Z @:GB7SXE.#38.GBR.EU #:17739 [Hastings] FBB7.00i $:7E1227G0FT
From: G0FTD@GB7SXE.#38.GBR.EU
To : BEACON@WW
NOTE: This is sent as info only. It only represents my experiences !
I don't class myself as a data guru - far from it, so I my inexperience
may show :-)
Right then, another day and another set of tests.
Remember the solar data is sent from DK0WCY on 10.144Mhz in cw,psk31,rtty.
I received feedback from an old chum of mine - G4TZX who gave it a whirl.
He used Mixw software and had *excellent reception of all 3 modes*. He sent
me his log and I judged that PSK31 came first place, second was rtty with
almost near perfect reception and cw came last but he fared considerably
better than me ! Same order as me but all modes fared somewhat better
than my setup.
Today I tried using Radioraft. This is a DOS program that requires a 486
or better to run it.
On cw I still found it a disaster, despite fiddling with every filtering
method I have it still produced a largely unsatisfactory method of getting
the solar data. I never have had much luck with auto cw decoders - maybe
its me :-) One thing I found was that Radioraft *apparently* appears to
like a cw pitch of around 900Hz as opposed to Hamcom (DOS) of 500Hz for
best results. If like me you use a proper narrow cw filter it can sometimes
prevent having a higher pitch cw tone with severe signal attenuation.
I definatly think I'll stick to using the best cw decoder there is, the
human brain !
RTTY with Radioraft was superb. I was amazed at how quickly its auto
tune worked. The advantage of Radioraft is that unlike Hamcom you can
just tune in the signal regardless of the frequency of the audio tones
and it will lock on. In my config I had already told it to use 45baud
in the Baudot mode and just tuned for best signal and it locked in
remarkably fast. With Hamcom it is necessary to make sure the audio
tones match what Hamcom prefers. These can be changed but if your looking
for a 1 off reception of the solar data without setting it up first then
you may be dissapointed. There's only 1 rtty transmission per hour
(about 22 mins past the hour).
As an aside to the beacon today we have been blessed with a RTTY contest.
I had a tune around 21Mhz where there were lots of rtty signals.
Now this is where I found the auto audio tones feature to be a bit of a
pain. Because as soon as it had locked onto 1 signal, another came up
near the frequency and it locked onto that ! I'm not sure if the auto
audio tones feature can be turned off. I was pleased I had purchased
the narrow cw and rtty filter for my IC706, it makes a big difference.
Radioraft does'nt do PSK31 neither does it do fax or sstv, looks like I'm
still relying on good old JVFAX for that.
Anyway I think the idea of having a beacon transmit solar data is a
good one. I wonder what ever happened to the RSGB beacon GAM1 ? Hmm I
seem to recall they had to close it down because of tvi unless anyone
knows different ? (At the same time can anyone tell me the reasons why
the 6m beacon and the digipeater also closed down ? Again I seem to
recall that was put down to tvi also !)
Also if like me you use the olde worlde DOS program called Miniprop for
propagation prediction then make sure you use the solar flux number
instead of the sunspot number. This is because the way the sunspot
count was calculated changed a few years ago and is'nt compatable with
the the old system is seems. (If anyone has better info I'll be pleased
to recieve it).
Good stuff this HF radio innit ?
- Andy -
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