AmateurRadio.com

HRD DM-780

Another day in the shack but not really on the radio as so much as setting up the radio. I decided to take the plunge and go head first into setting up a digi mode. PSK was my weapon of choice. I did some looking over of notes last night to get my mind into it. The software I have preloaded on the PC is  Julian's Kcomm, fldigi and HRD's  DM-780.  One of the trying tests for me is to get the radio to communicate with the
software. I was not disappointed.... figuring out the com port, stop bits, CAT settings,

Kcomm with fldigi

handshake or not....and the list goes on was a challenge. Then there is the sound card setup and settings!! Some of the troubles I ran into were.....not being able to get the K3 to key up when the software said it should. After overcoming that  the K3 had no problem keying up but then would not un-key at the end of the macro!!! After solving those two hurdles I then had troubles getting the 5 watts output I wanted to have. It turned out to be a jungle of sound card tuning and radio tweaking. I was not sure how I did it but I am now able to have a solid 5 watts out on all bands and simply adjust the K3's power control if I want to increase the power. I won't try to figure out what I did as when I do for some reason I un-configure  the configured. The software I decided to stick with was DM-780. Kcomm is great and works well with the

fldigi with flr

K3 radio. The setup of communication between the radio and software was the easiest of all the software I dealt with. I was not able to get the waterfall going I did integrate fldigi waterfall but it seemed to run as two separate programs. I was getting frustrated at this point and really never looked into getting around this issue. One great feature of Kcomm are the macro's that control aspects of the K3.  With running fldigi on it's own I was not able to get the K3 out of transmit when the macro was done sending....again frustration was setting in. I am sticking with DM-780 but have to do some reading on how to customize the macros and some other minor settings.

Some weeks ago I blogged that I was installing Ubuntu on my laptop as I was going to give another operating system a try. It's been over a month now and the learning curve has been slow. It's not because Ubuntu is difficult and arduous it is Bill Gates who has a firm hold on me.  We all learn new things different ways and the trick is to find how best you learn.  As for me the best way I learn things depends on what I am trying to learn. When it comes to operating systems...well.... it has and always been the Windows systems.  When one of Bill's OS's where changed there was the frustration factor of just trying to make it work. This is where I am at with Ubuntu; I have downloaded some programs and once downloaded for the life of me I can't find them. It occurred to me the other day that I am looking for these programs with a Windows mindset.  I began to head over to Youtube to check out some learning videos. The problem here was I would have to keep stopping,
trying what they said then getting back to the Youtube video and then back to the same spot in Ubuntu again. That was just a receipe for frustration as this game plan was far from smooth going. It was off to some user groups but that turned out most of the time to be a hunting trip. I would end up going to so many links that the original question was forgotten and at my age that process does not take  long.  I came to the conclusion the written word in the form of books was the way to go to solve this monkey on my back.   I hope to become more familiar with the Ubuntu OS now and get past the wall I have come up against. Over the Christmas break I will be taking a leisurely approach with the help of some books and hands on learning to get Ubuntu in check.

The CQWW DX CW contest was a blast and before the contest I did some thinking as to how I could best take advantage of the computers that I have at VE3WDM. I brain stormed the week before and came up with the idea that my main desktop PC would run my K3, logging program and propagation stuff. I could use a net book laptop to look at QRZ.COM, email and so on. So it was decided one monitor would look after the main PC "stuff" and the other would be hooked up to the net book and run the other "stuff". This plan worked great and I
was able to multi-task during the contest between two computers using two nice LCD monitors. The next day after the contest the net-book was snuggled in it's case and it was time to use

During the contest with both monitors

both LCD monitors on the main PC as it always had been done....As the PC booted up the one monitor display read "not connected". I then preceded to connect reconnect and change out the video cables but nothing had worked. I was still getting the "not connected" message floating around. I then in WinXP had a look at my video card. Maybe I just had to tell the PC to recognize the other monitor again. In the process of trying a dual monitor setting I did not read the warning that was counting down from 15 seconds. I just said "ok". Well now both monitors were blank with the message "not connected" Well that went well!!! It was off to Google to solve my troubles. Seems the net-book could had changed the monitor refresh rate and or resolution settings. Settings the main PC was not able to recognize and thus the message "not connected". According the the advice derived from Google searches I have to boot in VGA only mode. It was simple, I was told "wait for the Windows logo to appear and press F8". Easy if both monitors were not blank!!! So began the many restarts guessing when to press F8. Well in time I was successful and was able to get into VGA mode and repair both monitors. All is working well now and lesson learned. It turns out the net-book changed both the refresh rate and the resolution.

This week has been dedicated to setting up for the CQ WW DX CW contest this weekend. Making sure the contest logger works (N1MM), try out the CW macros along with the K3, test out the antenna on all the bands and finally make up some goals. I find by doing some prep work before the contest Murphy does not rear his head as often during the contest. Early last week my Tigertronics Signalink USB came in and it was my ticket to get into the digital world. Years ago I had a Yaesu  FT-1000MP MKV I had the Rigblaster Pro along side it. I dabbled in PSK and was into RTTY contesting at that time. I had hopes of setting things up and getting on the surf board of Digital communications last weekend.
Well that dream was short lived, the memories came back of sound card setup, adjusting the ALC level and basically getting everything just right for the digital engine to purrrr. Over the weekend the setup was not purrrring at all it was more of a hisssssss.  The connections between my K3 and Signalink were smooth going. The PC recognized the on board sound card in the Signalink. At first I ran into some trouble setting up the CAT connection between the K3 and software  (Ham radio delux's digital master 780) I was able to decode PSK signals with Digital Master, in transmit with the K3 set at 100 watts I was able to use the TX control on the Signalink to raise the output power to what I wanted (5 watts). The unresolved problem is I am not able to get any ALC reading on the K3. I know the ALC is very important to a clean signal. I have given up trying to solve this problem at this time. I am as I said concentrating on the CQ WW DX CW contest. 

I have a Toshiba A300 laptop in which most of my blogging is done on. The only trouble it gave me was  for some reason the HD failed. Not a problem it was sent in for repairs and came back with a new HD and it's been fine ever since. The operating system is the 64 bit Vista. Now this is another story  I found it took forever to boot up. I am talking about 3-5 minutes to get to the point were I was able to use the laptop. It would also stop and think every so often and I would just have to sit and wait. Shutting down was no problem that was done in under 30 seconds. To remedy this problem I tried just about everything and it just did not seem to do the trick. On the home P.C I have WinXP and have had no troubles with it at all. It runs smooth and does not get hung up. These are the only two Windows operating systems I have had really any exposure too.  As for the Laptop I was either going to re-install Vista, try loading XP or do the radical and go with Linux!! I was not sure how XP was going to work out on the laptop and figured Vista was just going to act the same way.  So that idea was put  on the back burner, I noticed on the Internet that Linux Ubuntu
could be loaded on my laptop along side Windows. Kinda have two OS's on one machine. Now I am not a fan of doing this for the long term and I don't think it is meant for that. It was a way of  test driving Ubantu 11.10 and see how I liked it and how the laptop liked it. An installer called Wubi allows you to install Ubuntu on a Windows machine.  If  you don't care for Linux it can be removed also using Wubi. If you want to go ahead and install Linux Ubuntu using Wubi just follow the step by step instructions   found on the Internet. There was no need for any fancy computer whiz bong knowledge it was similar to installing any windows program. Before you know it Uantu was up and running and each time I started the laptop I was asked if I wanted to load Windows or Ubuntu?? The first thing I noticed was it sure did load  faster than Vista and that was a BIG plus. For a few days I gave Ubuntu a test drive. I had only done things the Windows way so the desktop and how programs were launched took some getting used to.  I kept reading "take time to get used to Ubuntu it's not Windows" I went to YouTube to check out some tutorials on the operating system to learn more. This was were I thought I ran into my first Ubuntu troubles. At YouTube I was greeted with the messages "Adobe flash is required to view YouTube" The flash upgrade was painless and was a matter of just clicking on a link. The needed update was downloaded and installed then YouTube was up and running.  After playing with Ubuntu for a weekend it was time to take the plunge and remove Vista and do a perminant install of Linux Ubuntu on my laptop. There are step by step instructions for this as well on the Internet.  So after a week what is my impression of Ubantu....it's loads in 20 seconds compared to Vista's 3-5 minutes. It comes complete with a word processing program, spread sheet, a power point type program, workspace switcher were you can have four windows going at once and switch between them. You can run windows programs by using a program called wine. I have not venture down this road yet. One thing I did notice was it eats up the laptop battery time but there is something out there in Linux land to help that along. As times goes on I will continue to learn more. Have not tried it yet with any ham radio programs but my laptop was never used for that.