D-Star Illegal in France

It looks like ARCEP, the communications regulator in France, has determined that D-Star is an Illegal digital mode. They have several reasons stated. I do agree with one part of their findings. Quote "ARCEP says AMBE vocoder is using patents, licences and proprietary undisclosed specifications that are against art. 1.56 of ITU Radiocommunications Rules." I see this as a problem, but I am happy to know that there are some Hams working on an open source fix for this problem.

For more info: http://draf.asso.fr/index.php?post/2010/06/28/D-STAR-situation-in-France

USB Sound Card

I have been looking at USB sound cards. I have heard that it is better to run a separate sound card for digital modes to keep windows sounds of the air. This is a good idea and I guess that is what SignaLink interfaces' have going for them. I have always built my own or just recently started using the SCI-6 PC Sound Card Interface Kit from Unified Microsystems. This USB sound card makes a cleaner waterfall display than my laptops built in sound card. I am very impressed with the quality of this sound card. Only time will tell if it is durable enough to last. This sound card was less than $4.00 shipped. These can be found on Ebay and some other places on the Web.

Product Description:


USB 2.0/1.1/1.0 Compliant.
Plug and play USB device, Auto driver installation.
Drive two channels speakers directly.
Support 3D positional sound and virtual 5.1 Channel soundtrack.
Digital Class-B power amplifier inside.
LED Status indicator
Works with Windows Vista/XP//2000/ME/98SE

AGWPE Upgrade Avaliable

AGWPE has a new version ready for download. The new version is ver 2010.414. This version works a lot better for my RMS station. It seems to decode the packets better and seems more robust. If you have not upgraded yet, please do so. The way I upgraded was by deleting the old version and installing the new program. I then had to enter my information into AGWPE and restart the program. It work the first time out. This is a great program made even better.

http://www.sv2agw.com/ham/agwpe.htm
http://www.sv2agw.com/downloads/default.htm

New Winlink Client Software Released

RMS Express for Winlink 2000 has been released. It is a radio email client that includes support for the new sound card mode Winmor. It also has support for HF Pactor, VHF/UHF packet and direct telnet to WL2K CMS servers. I have started experimenting with this mode and it looks to be quite interesting. It has a learning curve but comes with some good documentation. Get your feet wet with this and move to the future. I will comment on this mode after I have had some time to try it out.

http://www.winlink.org/WINMOR
http://www.winlink.org/ClientSoftware

ARRL Files Comments with FCC Regarding Spread Spectrum Issues

06/14/2010

"In response to a 2006 ARRL Petition regarding spread spectrum issues, the FCC released a Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) on March 16 (WT Docket No 10-62), proposing to amend Part 97 to facilitate the use of spread spectrum communications technologies by eliminating the requirement that amateur stations use automatic power control (APC) to reduce transmitter power when the station transmits a spread spectrum (SS) emission and reducing the maximum transmitter power output when transmitting a SS emission. The ARRL filed comments on this matter on June 14, 2010."

Read more here:

http://www.arrl.org/

I am glad the ARRL and the FCC are trying to help Spread Spectrum grow. I am all for the elimination of the requirement that amateur stations use automatic power control (APC) to reduce transmitter power. I do not agree with reducing from 100 W PEP output power to 10 W. I think this will continue to hurt the advancement of SS.

Winlink 2000 RMS Upgrade

I have updated my Winlink RMS with some new equipment. I added a Yaesu FT-2800m that has 65 watts out. I also added a new Radio Shack 15-Amp Power Supply 22-508. These additions should increase the coverage area. My mobile testing showed som areas that had below average coverage. I will be doing another round of testing to see if the coverage did increase.

http://www.yaesu.com/indexVS.cfm

NBEMS Message Software - FLMSG

FLmsg is a simple forms management editor for ICS-213 (emergency management reports) and Radiogram (NTS messages). It is the latest software for FLdigi NBEMS system. The user prepares and views all data files from the single user interface dialog box. The Radiogram tab has a check button that will force all of the fields to be tested for correctness. The Message text will then be converted to upper case. Periods and commas will be converted to the stop character character, "X".  I think this check feature is the best part of the Radiogram tab. It gives you the correct check number for your Radiogram automatically. This program along with FLdigi-FLarq will help to improve traffic on the digital nets. You need to be running FLdigi 3.20.11.

Here's the help file:
http://www.w1hkj.com/flmsg-help/index.html

Download available here:
http://www.w1hkj.com/alpha/flmsg/
flmsg-0.9.03_setup.exe is the windows version

AGWmonitor

I have found a program that is very usefull in running and testing Winlink RMS nodes. The program is AGWmonitor by the same creator of AGWPE. This program works great. You can see all the traffic on the frequency. It is good for finding out if the frequency is too crowded or not. It will also list all stations that are heard. The best feature is that it works at the same time as your RMS or Paclink program does.


http://www.sv2agw.com/ham/agwmon.htm

What your PSK31 signal should look like

Here is some information and some pictures of different quality PSK31 signals as they appear in your waterfall. You will not be able to see your trace, but you can ask the person you are talking to how yours looks. This should also help you to help others in how their traces look. It is important to have as clean of signal as you can. You must also be careful not to transmit computer sounds.



Look at the traces between the two red lines.



This first one is of a very good signal:

The second one is the typical signal you will see:

This is the one you do not want:

Here are some tips for a clean signal:



1. Tune the rig for normal output on CW.
2. Change to the appropriate sideband setting (USB for PSK31 is standard)
3. Turn off the speech processor and leave it off
4. Set the audio control of the rig as you would for normal SSB operation
5. Set the PSK software to Transmit, with no data being transmitted.
6. Adjust the audio output from the soundcard so that the RF power output from the rig is no more than 25% of the cw output. (e.g. 25 watts for a 100 watt rig) There should be no ALC indication at this power level.



Pictures from and more info:
 
 http://www.rsq-info.net/Station-Setup-Checklist.html

PSKMeter

This is an interesting little kit for PSK31 or PSK63, a PSKMeter. The kit is from KF6VSG and he states on his web site:

"Our solution has been to develop a microprocessor-based RF signal sampler that periodically checks your RF output, computes its IMD locally, and automatically sets the sound card's audio level to provide the highest RF output with minimum distortion."

I may have to purchase this kit and try it out. It looks simple to build and if it preforms as stated would be a very good tool for PSK31. It runs on Windows 95 and newer.

Check it out at:

 http://www.ssiserver.com/info/pskmeter/