HAM INFORMATION

This page contains information which has been presented in SCARC club meetings and/or has been found useful by its members.

FIELD DAY SCORES - SKI COUNTRY ARC

 

HANGING, ENABLING AND/OR ASSIGNING COMPORTS TO YOUR XP COMPUTER

1.   Click “Start” in lower left hand corner
2.   Click control panel
3.   Click System
4.   Click Hardware
5.   Click Devise Manager
6.   Scroll down to Ports (Com & LPT)
7.   Click the “Plus” sign beside Ports to expand
8.   Highlight a USB port and right click
9.   Click Properties
10.  Click Port Settings (here you can also change baud rates)
11.  Click Advanced and in the lower left corner is a drop down menu where you can check port status and or name a port
12.  Now go back to #9 above and
13. Click “Devise Usage” and here you can enable or disable this Port
Presented at the 11-15-08 SCARC meeting by Pat Fitzgerald (pat@glenwoodbrokers.com).

SETTING UP PSK 31 – A BRIEF INTRODUCTION

FIRST OF ALL: why should you care about this? Well for one thing, with the bands in poor shape PSK gets through like you won’t believe. For example, at 10:00 at night for all apparent  scenarios it appears that 20 meters is dead-no CW, no Phone no nothing, but tune to 14.070, follow the directions we give you and wow-there are SIGNALS! 

After many experimentations with various PSK interfaces which this computer un-savvy ham was unable to make work, I happened on a QST article (April 2008) on the Tigertronics Signalink USB interface (www.tigertronics.com) and had it working in less than an hour . What follows is a oversimplified run down on how to set up and run PSK 31 with the interface (ps-it also works with RTTY, SSTV, Echo Link and APRS)

1. Consult the documentation that came with your radio. Many of the newer radios have a special mode setting for digital communication; example: the Icom Pro III is USB D  or LSB D, the Yaesu FT 897 is menu controlled as menu #038, select PSK 31 L or U.

2. Your radio documentation will also specify a baud rate, which will be somewhere between 4800 and 19,600. Set it to the specified rate, later experiment and see how high a rate it will work with, the higher the working rate, the faster the response time. Now lets set up the interface.

3. The first thing is to wire the jumpers to match your type of radio, you will only need to do this once unless you change radios. Look over the jumper diagrams carefully, install them, check again, and then check again. Guess why I am saying this!

4. Now the computer; Connect the USB jack to your computer and to the USB, connect the supplied jack from the Signalink to the radio (you must specify which type of cable for your radio when you order)

5. Windows will automatically detect and recognize and set up for this link.

6. Sound card set up: Start >Control Panel>dbl click Sounds and Audio Device Properties, click audio tab, select your computers built in sound card in sound playback and recording, now OK out back to your desk top screen.

7. Set audio levels: make sure that the Signalink is connected to your computer and radio, set the signal link TX control to minimu, the RX control to 50%, the Delay control to minimum.

8. Start your communication program, I will be demonstrating Digipan (freesoftware for the download). Click configure, soundcard, pull down “USB Audio Codec this is Signalinks built in sound card/

9. Set the radio mic gain to 50%, set radio forward gain, sometimes labeled RF power to maximum (adjust later), make sure speech processor and VOX are turned off.

10. Adjust Transmit Audio: Start>programs>accessories>multimedia or entertainment>volume control, from the option menu select Properties.

11. In Mixer Devise drop down select USBAudio Codec.

12. In the Adjust volume for select “Playback

13. In Show Following Volume Controls check speaker and wave, others don’t matter, then click OK.

14. Volume control panel will open, speaker control to  100%, wave control to 50%, make sure they are not muted, other controls can be muted, now back out of this window to your communication program.

15. Select tune or transmit on your communication program, radio should transmit and the Signalink PTT light will glow, now adjust the Signalink TX button to about 25 watts aprox-some experimentation here depending on the type of antenna you are using, 25 watts works great with my beam, now turn off the transmit function of your sound card.

16. Experiment with the Signalink RX control if receive audio seems light.

17. Now a quick look at what is out there for PSK 31 signals!

SCARC contact: Pat Fitzgerald (pat@glenwoodbrokers.com)