Winlink with Vara FM, TM-D710G & DRA-50

Posted on May 28, 2021 by Bob Beatty

After getting my VHF antenna back up in the air, I was able to hook my Kenwood TM-D-710G up via a DRA-50 Digital Radio Adapter to my PC.  I downloaded a copy of VARA-FM, and used Winlink to receive my first message via a VARA-FM station (N1ASA-10 on 145.050)

On the TM-D710G, I verified that my radio was setup for B-side external data (Menu 918), which is the right-hand side of the display.  I then changed to 9600 bps data speed (Menu 919).  {ED: I can never remember how to enter the menu, and the trick is to press the “F” button, the push the big knob in (the VFO/Channel knob).  That will bring up a list of all the menus in the radio, and 918 and 919 are in the “AUX” menu}.

On VARA-FM, under Settings/VARA Setup, I changed the FM System to “WIDE” (Setup is also the menu where you put in the license key).

Under Settings/SoundCard, the Device Input was set to “Microphone (USB PnP Sound Device)”, and the Output was set to “Speakers (USB PnP Sound Device)”.

Finally, under Settings/PTT, I selected PTT via “RA-Board” to match my DRA-50 board.

According to the log, with N1ASA in Narrow mode, and my system in Wide mode, we transferred at almost 5600 bps.

And a “Ping” looks like this:

A Drive Level Calibration was run and produced the following:

Posted in VARA_FM, Winlink | Tagged | 4 Comments

Winlink Pandemic Pause

Posted on May 22, 2021 by Bob Beatty

I discovered today that I had not used Winlink Express since late 2019, and therefore I could no longer log in.  Restoring things was simple, I just made a Telnet connection and the system restored me.

With that accomplished it was time complete the upgrades and to install a new high-performance modem, VARA-HF.  It does have a free evaluation mode that will run at reduced throughput, but I decided to purchase a license ($69) and am awaiting details on how to enable it.

Despite my username expiring out, upgrading to the latest Winlink Express was simple and retained all my prior settings for my K3s.  All I had to do was configure the VARA-HF soundcard settings, close it down, then open Winlink Express (which automatically launches VARA-HF).  Gone was the older internal Winlink Modem, replaced by a “Vara HF Winlink” choice.  Opening that presented me with the familiar “Session” window, and I was able to update the forecast and channels via the internet.

I found a familiar station in Nova Scotia on 40m, and quickly established a connection via RF VE1YZ.  A tweak of the TX modulation level and I was on the air!

 

Posted in Digital Mode, RMS, Winlink | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Mapping fellow hams in your area

Posted on May 9, 2021 by robert

I ran across a brief post from Jim, N3JT, in the January 2021 Solid Copy (CWops magazine), that described a online mapping tool that shows hams around the point you choose.  I chose FN41fn, and saw the following (after zooming out a bit):

Pretty cool tool!  Available here:  https://haminfo.tetranz.com/map

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Armed Forces Day – Worked NSS & NFA

Posted on May 8, 2021 by Bob Beatty

The Naval Academy station was transmitting on 7,535.0 KHz, while listening to 7,028.0 KHz.  I was able to work NSS on CW today at 17:46 UTC.  (Subsequently worked NSS on SSB 7.536.5/7.197 MHz, and NAF on SSB 7.542/7.275 MHz)

Boy, is it hard to get a non-ham call and frequency logged in DXkeeper (but doable).  I understand QSLs can be exchanged through K3LU, their QSL manager.

Posted in Armed Forces Day, CW | Leave a comment

New Member of CWops

Posted on May 8, 2021 by Bob Beatty

I was pleased to hear yesterday that I had been nominated and sponsored for membership in CWops.  I’m member 2903.

I’ve been active for the past seven weeks in their CWT (mini contests that run every Wednesday at 1300, 1900 & 0300Z (actually Thursday in the states).  I suspect that helped to get recognized.

Since I love teaching, and their mission is education and getting folks involved in Morse Code, I am thinking of helping this fall.

 

Posted in CW, CWops, CWT, Morse Code | Leave a comment

Cranking out those Qs in LotW

Posted on April 29, 2021 by Bob Beatty

From time to time I will post my LotW counts as a record of what has been going on over time.  The last time I posted was in January of 2020, when I had reached 8,000 confirmations and August of 2019 when I had 11,000 entries.

By the way, LotW had 1 Billion QSOs in the database in December of 2018.  So in the 28 months since then, LotW has added another 350 million QSOs, a rate of about 12.5 million QSOs a month!

So here we are in April of 2021, and I’ve added another 2,000 QSOs, and 1,000 Confirmations:

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Slowly improving at CWT

Posted on April 28, 2021 by Bob Beatty

The CWOps group runs a mini contest called CW Test (CWT) on Wednesdays.  I’ve participated in the last five and have found a slow but steady improvement in my score.  So far I’ve been in the Search & Pounce mode, but I’m starting to recognize call signs of those not running 40 WPM and up the first time.  I still get thrown a bit by the short-codes used for the membership numbers like A=1, T=0, N=9, etc.

No matter what, it’s a bunch of fun and I look forward to it each week.  I’ve managed to bump into N3JT, Jim Talens, CWops member #1 in the contest a few times now (my hand starts to shake when I work him).  Someday I will try the 0300Z event to see what 80m and 160m are like.

Edited: I actually tried the 0300Z CWT last night for the first time (it starts at 11 PM local time on Wednesday night).  I was amazed at how busy 40m was.  80m was not quite as productive, but there were still plenty of stations to work.  I used my Flex6000M with the Maestro remote head in my bedroom and headphones to avoid waking my wife up.  I was scribbling calls, times, membership numbers, and frequencies down fast and furious.  Sort of fun to run a contest in my jammies!

Posted in CW, CWops, CWT | Leave a comment

POTA Platinum Activator

Posted on April 20, 2021 by Bob Beatty

After completing an activation of two new parks on April 13th, my RI park count increased to 40, earning the Platinum Activator Award

With the advent of nice weather, the number of outdoor things that have been taking up time have reduced the amount of time I can spend on POTA, but the goal still remains to do 50 of the state’s parks by year end.

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Hotspot Updated to 4.1.4

Posted on April 19, 2021 by robert

It’s nice to have a hobby like Amateur Radio in retirement as it can keep you very busy.  There is always something new to do, or you might rotate through various aspects of the hobby as your interest comes and goes.

Such is the case with my local HotSpot, which went off air late last fall following some unintentional renovations to the shack (like so many hams, my gear is in the furnace room).  I finally got around to setting things up again, but once I got things going I quickly discovered that my version 3.4.17 software was out of date, and DMR was no longer working.

The DMR issue turned out to be a need for a personal password to be setup with Brandmeister (theyve been having issues with folks spoofing callsigns using the default password).  Even after doing that, things still didn’t work, so I took the steps to upgrade the firmware to version 4.1.4.  That required setting up a complete new microSD card with the latest image.  It was easy to do with the help of Toshen KE0FHS’s excellent website.  Rather than try to restore things from my backup (I did have one), I figured I would  just set things up from scratch.  Within an hour or two I had things running.  In addition, I enabled YSF, which I had turned off.

I now remember why I turned off YSF — the FCS002/90 Americalink is VERY busy, so it is back off for now, but at least it works!

Posted in D-Star, Digital Mode, DMR, FUSION, PiStar, YSF | Leave a comment

Added my FlexRadio 6600-M to DXLabs

Posted on April 12, 2021 by Bob Beatty

I have been using DXLabs for my log for years (after giving up on HDR for many reasons).  My Elecraft K3s was the first radio I used (I love its full break-in on CW).  My Yaesu FTDX-101MP followed quickly (fairly typical COM port setup).  But I never added in my FlexRadio 6600M until today.

The process turned out to be very simple and completely documented in Dave’s excellent Wiki.  I just made sure to start SmartSDR running, then followed the instructions.  Within a couple of minutes, I was connected.

I immediately noted that the sensitivity of the Flex dropped — like another radio had been added (and in fact, that’s what happened).  I shut down SmartSDR (killing the panadapter on the PC screen) and everything was back to “normal”.  After that point I didn’t have to restart SDR, even as I started and stopped DXLabs or power-cycled the PC.  I haven’t tried shutting the FlexRadio down yet (bitter experience has taught me that shutting the Flex down can sometimes do nasty things, like corrupt an internal SD card), so perhaps the SDR software needs to be running to establish the initial connection, and isn’t required subsequently (at least for DXCommander and DXKeeper’s purposes).

Posted in DXLabs, FlexRadio | Leave a comment