Posted: 4/29/2009 11:07:49 AM EDT
| Got PSK working finally had to fight with my rig blaster and software. Got two contacts so far one in Raleigh NC about 1K miles and one in Central Texas 500+ Miles which was interesting. Hope to see some of you there one of these days. |
| I'm trying out MixW and liking it so far taking it one step at a time I guess. I'm really enjoying HF and saving to get a radio at home as opposed to having to use the ones at the ham club at work. That being said I'm fairly lucky in that I have a radio available through work that I can use. |
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PSK is fun for a little while. The problem that I tend to have with it is that 90% of the people you'll find to talk to use macros for their responses, which really isn't that interesting. I could view their QRZ page and get the same info faster.
On the other hand, it's a great mode for fast contacts. Next to CW and RTTY, PSK is my favorite contesting mode. RTTY wins because it's faster. With PSK I can listen to music or watch tv and have a couple of beers while operating without missing a thing. I've won no less than 3 contests using that strategy 
BTW, check out DM780. It comes with Ham Radio Delux (free). It's by far the best digicom program I've come across. |
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Quoted: PSK is fun for a little while. The problem that I tend to have with it is that 90% of the people you'll find to talk to use macros for their responses, which really isn't that interesting. I could view their QRZ page and get the same info faster. On the other hand, it's a great mode for fast contacts. Next to CW and RTTY, PSK is my favorite contesting mode. RTTY wins because it's faster. With PSK I can listen to music or watch tv and have a couple of beers while operating without missing a thing. I've won no less than 3 contests using that strategy BTW, check out DM780. It comes with Ham Radio Delux (free). It's by far the best digicom program I've come across. While I love HRD for most everything else, I still use Digipan for PSK. Simple and the multi-channel scrolling doesn't bug the crap out of me like it does on DM780. |
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Hey, that strategy has worked for winning 3 PSK and 1 RTTY contest! ham radio and beer –– perfect together? ar-jedi 
The only problem is my CW-fu drops off pretty rapidly after about 2 beers. Pre-beer I can copy 30wpm, after first beer it's down to about 25, after the second beer it's down to 18 or so, 3rd takes us to 12 and so on. For some reason I can still send clean code while falling-down drunk
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What type of radio and software? IC-7000 with DM-780. It used to work with the 718 but it's been about 6 mos since I've been on HF. I have some cobwebs to dust off regarding the digital modes. Tried Olivia for grins but didn't see anything in the waterfall. ETA: I see the problem, now I just need to remember the solution as I've had it before. The CI-V is keying the rig. However, the PTT on the PnP isn't coming on so the audio isn't passing from the soundcard thru the Rigblaster to the radio. I listened with phones and it's definitely kicking out the audio. Now I just need to get the RB to play nice. |
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John, I think I was around 7072.
Sounds good Travis. I talked to WMR today but the guy I talked to said I needed someone else and he wasn't in yet. Apparently there's something peculiar about HRD. He suggested getting it working with WinPSK first and then trying HRD. He said it was definitely odd that the PTT wasn't going on the RB itself. |
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I have a Rigblaster Plug & Play sitting here, along with an adapter cable to the Icom 718. It also plugs in directly to my Yaesu FT-897.
Which radios are you guys running with the your Rigblaster P&P's? Which programs? I have Ham Radio Deluxe / DM 780. How does this compare to MixW? PSK31 is something I certainly want to do. |
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DM780 is a great program and will work very well for PSK and Olivia. It has tremendous automation including automatic eQSL support. If you have a CAT or CI-V interface to your PC DM780 is very tightly integrated with Ham Radio Deluxe (HRD) and so you will likely install both and get all of the benefits of HRD PC rig control. I have this setup and it is simply fantastic.
DM780 has one Achilles Heel: it has no provision for sound card calibration. Therefore if your sound card is off somewhat (most are) you may have problems with MFSK modes. The solution to this is to use either fldigi or MixW. fldigi is free. It has rudimentary rig control. You can interface it to HRD by enabling the HRD virtual serial control port which emulates a Kenwood radio. I operate a lot of MFSK and so use HRD/fldigi. I even remote my station to my laptop over wireless having set up an old POS tower PC to act as a server near the radio. Calibration is supposed to come in HRD/DM780 v5 due out this summer. I am looking forward to it. Don't limit yourself to PSK. Olivia and MFSK are great modes. Also make use of the various submodes. Make contact with PSK31? Switch to PSK63 for speed if conditions are good. Same for the other modes. PSK31 is very popular for DX because it is so easy to work: you can cram a huge pile-up into 3KHz so you don't have to spin the dial, AFC is supported making it easy to tune on the waterfall and speed is low but not too low so there is no typing speed pressure. It is not that robust though. Olivia is popular for really crappy band conditions. 500/16 is dog slow but very robust. 500/8 is sort of OK speed-wise. MFSK16 is darn fast and almost as good as Olivia 500/8. MT63 is screaming fast but must be tuned very carefully with a carefully calibrated sound card. Look for the wider band stuff (Olivia, PSK63, etc.) about 1 or 2KHz above the usual PSK band spots. |
Well now, this is just ticking me off. You can see that my Plug N Pray is assigned to COM6.
Yet WinPSK doesn't recognize it so I can't configure PTT there, either. Once again I'm left just receiving. 
ETA: Hmm, ok, re-reading the manual I need to use the 13-pin accessory jack not the 6-pin data jack. I did that and when I Tx I do see power out on the radio. However, the PTT light on the P&P still doesn't light and I don't know if anyone is really hearing me. Maybe we can try it out tomorrow. |
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I have a Rigblaster Plug & Play sitting here, along with an adapter cable to the Icom 718. It also plugs in directly to my Yaesu FT-897. Which radios are you guys running with the your Rigblaster P&P's? Which programs? I have Ham Radio Deluxe / DM 780. How does this compare to MixW? PSK31 is something I certainly want to do. I'm using MixW with a Yaesu FT-897 through a Rigblaster P&P so if you need set up help let me know. I am short 1 cat cable from being able to use Ham Radio Deluxe with the radio. |
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Well now, this is just ticking me off. You can see that my Plug N Pray is assigned to COM6. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v386/fotomonkey/radio/digital/control-panel.jpg Yet WinPSK doesn't recognize it so I can't configure PTT there, either. Once again I'm left just receiving. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v386/fotomonkey/radio/digital/winpsk-settings.jpg
ETA: Hmm, ok, re-reading the manual I need to use the 13-pin accessory jack not the 6-pin data jack. I did that and when I Tx I do see power out on the radio. However, the PTT light on the P&P still doesn't light and I don't know if anyone is really hearing me. Maybe we can try it out tomorrow. Is this in Ham Radio Deluxe? Try MixW it seemed to set up easily. |
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It's WinPSK. The guy at West Mountain recommended I try it and once I get it working to then go back to HRD. I haven't tried MixW in a while but I'll download it again tonight. It's odd that the software doesn't even recognize the COM port.
I did get the PTT to light on the P&P last night. I connected using RTS. This just led to another problem because the radio was stuck transmitting and wouldn't stop. 
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Roger. Called WMR again today. The guy I spoke with this time was a royal ass. Almost to the point that I wanted to tell him where he could stick his P & P.
ETA: Mr. WMR Douchbag can stick it up his ass. I just unplugged the mic from the radio and it cleared it up. Oddly enough now it still works even with the mic plugged back in. However, contrary to what the jerk said I used DM-780 WITH HRD, not standalone, and just finished up a QSO with a Canadian station. |
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Thought I'd give a little update. Since getting the Rigblaster working again I've talked to several Canadian stations, Mexico, Cuba, and Russia.
Also, how's this for customer service from a third-party? I posted my Rigblaster woes on the HRD forum and got a call last night from one of the posters. He'd had so much trouble getting his stuff working that he actually tracked me down and called me to make sure I'd gotten everything working. Maybe WMR could follow his lead. 
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