Posted: 1/8/2011 7:29:14 PM EDT
I didn't participate in the PODXS 070 Club PSKFest contest today, but did have several new PSK31 DX contacts. Several were on 15m, a band I haven't used much until now. 
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very nice work! ar-jedi Thanks. The more I use PSK31, the more I like it. I've learned more about HRD & DM780 along the way also. Like having the keyboard set up to TX immediately when anything is typed and automatically going back to RX when complete. Makes "Rag Chew" contacts more personable than only using canned macros exclusively. Auto logbook entries for HRD/DM780 and eQSL are nice features too. Quoted:
I've made some amazing DX contacts with PSK-31 Once by accident, I worked Russia with 5 watts Were you using QRP power on another mode and forgot to increase it to your normal PSK31 power level? I could see that happening easily. 
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PSK31 is like the Glock of digital modes. There are so many signals out there with even middling propagation conditions it's hard not to make a good contact. When I fire up 14070, 10140 or 7035 and find 3KHz of PSK31 signals all jammed together it's trivially easy to make contacts. And what other mode allows one to receive and monitor some 50 signals simultaneously, then instantly jump on the one you want with an automated call?
I'm not trying to diminish your achievement. It clearly takes some time and effort to make that many contacts. However each single contact isn't that hard by itself. I tend to get bored after about two of them. I even find myself ignoring U.S. call signs. And I don't have a very Gucci setup. 10 over S9 urban noise, 100W, low dipole (25'). It is a BIG dipole, though 
I would encourage people to try other modes (and not Olivia, either!) I try to troll 2-5KHz above the PSK spots. MT63-500 is enjoying a resurgence of late, with people calling 5KHz above the popular PSK freq's. Try 160M, too. |
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I saw people posting on here so I went down to the radio room and listened for a bit but could not hear anyone calling CQ. Besides that, there wa someone on 340 that was blasting out out a 15 over signal. I can work PSK if anyone's interested.
Icom Pro-2 and a Rig blaster |
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PSK31 is like the Glock of digital modes. There are so many signals out there with even middling propagation conditions it's hard not to make a good contact. When I fire up 14070, 10140 or 7035 and find 3KHz of PSK31 signals all jammed together it's trivially easy to make contacts. And what other mode allows one to receive and monitor some 50 signals simultaneously, then instantly jump on the one you want with an automated call? I'm not trying to diminish your achievement. It clearly takes some time and effort to make that many contacts. However each single contact isn't that hard by itself. I tend to get bored after about two of them. I even find myself ignoring U.S. call signs. And I don't have a very Gucci setup. 10 over S9 urban noise, 100W, low dipole (25'). It is a BIG dipole, though
I would encourage people to try other modes (and not Olivia, either!) I try to troll 2-5KHz above the PSK spots. MT63-500 is enjoying a resurgence of late, with people calling 5KHz above the popular PSK freq's. Try 160M, too. Curious to hear why you don't like Olivia. |
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I just find Olivia so mundane. It's probably the next most popular sound card mode after PSK. And it's so slooooooow. It does work quite well for those tough PSK contacts that don't work out, if you've got the spectrum, and for tough conditions in general. I've been trying to work more Contestia lately, which has approximately the same link margin performance as Olivia but at twice the speed in the same bandwidth. You only get capital letters, though. MFSK16, which used to be popular but no longer is, really rips right along speed-wise with only a slight degradation in link margin performance. People spoiled by PSK and Olivia find it tough to tune, though. MT63-500 has moderate speed and really great performance in fading conditions due to it's extensive FEC. The downside to the FEC is a 12 second latency. People used to other modes will fiddle and fiddle with the tuning, never copy anything and wonder why. For MT63 set it and be patient. The copy will come. It does need to be tuned to +/-100Hz, though. MT63-1000 has even better performance. It's rippin' fast and can move a lot of data under very poor conditions which is why a lot of emcom guys use it, at the expense of bandwidth, of course.
My favorite QSOs are rippin' fast MT63-1000 on 80M when it's just NVIS propagation and the band is relatively unoccupied. Not DX, but just fun to see it work because of it's "tactical" nature. Been getting some MT63-500 DX lately, but not a lot. You've got to admit, people like convenience, and a waterfall full of many tens of PSK signals without retuning is very compelling to a lot of people. PSKReporter has good "hero factor", too, when you see yourself being detected everywhere on the planet
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My new favorite QSL card. Just worked this one on 20m PSK31. http://home.comcast.net/~gregbell/V51LZ QSL Card.jpg that must be a new projection, have not see it before. 
ar-jedi |
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PSKReporter was a new one for me. I guess I need to study more. Slanky had a screen shot of PSKReporter in his HF radio purchase thread... http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b233/djslanky/firstreception-jan4th-2011.png For some reason that screen shot looks different that what I had pulled up on the web. I guess the "10 mins" flag comes from things you personally hear. Or maybe I just need to fire it up and see how it works. |
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Ok, I'm going to admit I was about to call PSK-Fail because last night I couldn't get anything to work. I was on 40m and I didn't hear much more than CW, nothing was on my waterfall, PSK Reporter showed me as hearing no one etc.
Fast forward to today, 20m, lots of settings changed and the SUPER BROSWER!!!! At least I'm seeing something decoded. 
This is almost as fun as WSPR if you're just doing reception reports. The difference being with WSPR you could accept the fact someone else was out there but couldn't be sure any communication would be possible. Wtih this you can be pretty sure you'd be able to converse. |
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Just call CQ a few times on PSK and even if nobody answers, just wait 5 or 10 minutes and the reports will start popping up on the PSKReporter web site. I keep trying this and get nothing. Well I did last night and got nothing. Maybe I'll try this morning while I "work" 5 ft away from my station. 
Is there any chance some of these guys are running bot stations on PSK? I see the guy from Cuba on,.... well since I've been watching. He always seems to say the same thing. It's long but that doesn't mean it isn't a macro. |
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Just call CQ a few times on PSK and even if nobody answers, just wait 5 or 10 minutes and the reports will start popping up on the PSKReporter web site. I keep trying this and get nothing. You did check the 'send updates' checkbox in the PSKReporter setup? |
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Just call CQ a few times on PSK and even if nobody answers, just wait 5 or 10 minutes and the reports will start popping up on the PSKReporter web site. I keep trying this and get nothing. You did check the 'send updates' checkbox in the PSKReporter setup? Yeah, my reception reports are there, I'm not sending RF. I'm keying, the laptop will make squeals but I don't think I see power going out. I'm defintely not being heard by anyone. I'm still thinking about what it could be. The interface works as I've been using it for Packet and WSPR. This is weird. |
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Shesh... look what all I missed while I was gone today. Seems like 20m was really open! http://lh4.ggpht.com/_s0XdCkLUF28/TTJYPELFoLI/AAAAAAAACzY/JRYo_lvFgN8/s800/PSK-2.JPG That's a perfect visualization of 20 is waaaay open...
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