Multiviewer Blog Spot

organizers Clarifications CQ WW 2010

had originally understood that the rules of the competition CQ WW CW 2010 had a category SO SB 10 Mts QRP (A) . A reference in the Yahoo group LU-CG referencing the letter of the rules as they are published made me understand that strictly speaking the category Assisted SO SB categorized not by power, ie HP, LP QRP and competing together. This really is bad news for whoever is the benefit of the operator assisted mode, I now know that is rather marginal, in any way sufficient to compensate for the difference in power. Especially between HP and QRP. Yet that is precisely what is done in competitions such as the ARRL DX CW where OS / SB together consolidate all powers.
But then an old entry in the same group LU-CG questioned this interpretation, asked in the forum with no response.
To cut to the chase I wrote a note to Cox Bob (K3EST) who is the director of the competition which I politely replied:
---- Respuesta de Bob (K3EST) ----
Dear Pedro,
Thank you for your letter.
Yes, there are several new separate categories as follows:

• HP all band
• HP all band assisted
• HP single band
• HP single band assisted
• LP all band
• LP all band assisted
• LP single band
• LP single band assisted
• QRP all band
• QRP all band assisted
• QRP single band
• QRP single band assisted

The HP/LP all and single band will be listed as they always have been (low power with an *).The HP/LP all band and single band assisted will be listed under assisted (low power with an *)The QRP/assisted will be listed under QRP with assisted having an *.
So, there are several new categories: LP assisted AB and SB and QRP assisted.I hope this answers your question.
If you have any more questions please let me know.
73Bob, K3EST
Response ---- End Bob (K3EST) ----
The answer is very specific and leaves little room for doubt, it remains to be seen as a contest of such prestige and level of participation makes such a change in the rules and do not bother to publish it.
In any case it re-establishes expectations WW at first be claimed in category Mts SO SB 10 (A) QRP. To be consistent
moved the needle I have this expectation of a result because the way I measure the output is in terms of improvement over my own performance regardless of how it classifies me, at the same time the number of participants are not so great. If you take a reference say I had a very similar score to that achieved by those who claimed at the tap category Mts QRP SO SB 10 would have gone to the point that the 2nd WW in that category (I do not think, again, that the status of assisted much things change in a way QRP). This way of measuring
made when it appeared he consolidated all power and I lost in the table in a distant 9th place that had no effect.
To be consistent this clarification in the opposite direction does not change things too much. This year I will be able to participate SO SB 10 Mts QRP and try to get 10% more points, and competitors say what position that puts me.

Shaved And Bottomless

From VU / Land

Again the twists of fate and needs of the work I have brought to the exotic India, the city of Pune (Poona as the locals prefer to name it) to be precise , where I'll be the next day. This time I came

lighter portable equipment because only brought with me my Yaesu VX-3R. So far I have been lucky to hear anything on repeater or simplex, or VHF or UHF. Pune is a relatively big town (about 4M people) as inactivity is worrying. The only thing you may hear are emissions "spurious " on UHF than they seem to be monitors household. VHF there is even a sign that looks like a radio transport in transmitting. My almost "fluid" Hindi management allows me to deduce that they are transmitting a game of Cricket (which is the national sport that makes all crazy here). Actually, my Hindi is not more than a dozen words, but it's a bet with a good chance that any radio broadcast where the speaker is to be a screaming match cricket. The signal is modulated at 145,700 MHz WFM, if a lady is a spurious spurious because it gets S9 +40 dB.

asked in a local forum ( HamRadioIndia.com ) and colleagues loose to qrz.com mail addresses but neither had any response.

The last trip I came with the HF station (FT817 and portable antennas) but with poor results because he was facing a power station that made me spend a lot of problems with electrical noise (rain or was dry). Now I'm back at the hotel so if I generate the same problem at least I did not bring as much gear.

Country of infinite contrasts, exquisite food and good people.

Can People With Hip Replacements Go Snowboarding?

AATest Bye Bye! Driver Version

Throughout the implementation process up my station contester've been using the program AATest DXSoft Suite. At first I was very attracted to the relative wealth of specific functions of competitions, much more than logging programs for general purpose I used with disastrous results in the first contest I participated, but at the same time learning a complexity much less than impressive N1MM program.
The other thing that attracted me was his very good integration with the suite of programs that includes filter (CwGet), keyboard CW (CwType), keyboard PSK (TrueTTY) and CAT controller (HamPort). While this program
served me well most of the time as I was becoming more intense use began to show significant limitations. On the one hand, the program has no documentation, is a mess in this regard. To see how to use it must resort to the respective forum on Yahoo and search DXSoft single tickets in recent years where there are (sometimes) the configuration tips the different forms, there is not a miserable help.
Second support is very, very, poor. Things in the N1MM taken for granted such as updating rules of competitions, support for questions and program fixes are in this case provided little late and never. During the contest WAE QTC such mode is poorly implemented and that made me lose an entire sequence of 10 QTC on which recovery the authors never deigned to answer or give any suggestions on how to fix it.
already when I made the conclusions of 2010 identified the need to migrate my N1MM station for this reason, it is no coincidence that has the overwhelming degree of acceptance and use it.
However, the possibility of using the controller with OmniRig SO2R (supported by AATest but not N1MM) differed a little decision to make the change and faced the ARRL International DX with it. Beyond
not have been, precisely because of the very poor documentation, a good decision because in the end I could not use with OmniRig, this configuration found at the end of the contest was over of 100 QSO completely corrupt. That is the fourth part of my performance in the contest will be vaporized by the program unstable, does not adequately protect the data and not providing minimum measures to warn when faced with issues of integrity. By not doing periodic backups during the contest only managed to obtain several sets of equally corrupt copy.
And I have made clear that this does not change my life from the standpoint of competition, more than 100 QSO participated more or less did not move significantly in the standings, but beyond that there are 100 peers which granted the point in the contest and now it stands a Backrests how robust is the platform on which to work. Someday I will make 2000 QSO and not 400, and nothing seems to indicate that they will have the same problem or more serious. To end the call for help in the forum respectively the authors took notice of the problem. The platform has just shown that does not meet minimum stability criteria apart from other problems.
The advantages of integration are related, I have yet to resolve how to integrate CAT with N1MM preserving the possibility of tuning from the waterfall filter, otherwise N1MM and driver management foresees SO2R, CW keyboard and integrates well with other packages if the case may need to operate digital modes or implement a "parrot" for SSB.
is a little intimidating to stand opposite the N1MM are nearly 400 pages of documentation, but at this point I begin to assess the excess over the lack documentation.
will be a matter of using as an emulator MorseRunner N1MM integrated with the practice to take the latter. Bye Bye AATest
So, it has served me well so far but has had it more!

Electronic Signature On Cover Letter

KISS for SO2R

In a previous post I shared the preliminary design for a controller SO2R (Single Operator 2 Radios) general purpose. In making this design a series of mistakes I made. The first and was on the way conceptual the contest logging program I used ( AATest ) handled the SO2R. Assumed that via OmniRig and was not well, so now I know it makes much sense technically but it remains clear that you can not build a station around components so poorly documented and supported as this contest logger.

The second mistake I made was to make a project too complex for a first attempt, basically needed a driver for CW SO2R and made a multimode (although there is no opportunity on the horizon in providing use of anything other than CW .) The result was a prototype very complicated, with lots of wiring, fitting and very difficult to walk (which I finally managed shortly before the ARRL DX Contest International). Only to run into the problem before and was not working as it should from the problems of understanding as they used the AATest. Literally

during the competition I built a prototype of a controller much simpler but the truth showed strong engineering approach called KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid! Keep it simple stupid). Indeed

signal only has the PTT / Key from the lines RTS / DTR serial port and a control signal RIG1/RIG2 used to toggle whether the above go to a team or the other. The design is trivially simple, the signal from RS-232 serial port is set to its level by two NPN transistors, a third signal is used to commute before rig1 rig2 through a relay or two investors.

Moreover a simple audio connection route the sound output from rig1 the left ear while the rig2 makes the right ear. The latter is a simple "Y" can be used either directly from the output of the transceiver and the output of the sound card after processing the signals digitally.

To further simplify use two soundcards, one for and one for rig1 rig2, running an instance of the filter ( CwGet ) on each plate simultaneously.

The simplicity of design has a price, it is very difficult to equalize the output volume of the transceivers (or filter) for the volume on one ear does not predominate over the other.

The other problem is that it is easy to mute a channel (requires a few clicks on the PC) and to not take practice with the technique is not easy to listen to two QSO simultaneously, at least I could not in the first use.

However if I used it to follow two run simultaneously when operated on for a while "stealing" S & P of which were S & P and also throughout the contest to keep the runs coming on very strong stations.