Has anybody used CT with packet in a single op setup with two radios? I
tried that this weekend and ended up settling for not having CT control
the radio directly.
Here's the setup - 2 940s, only one has the interface board (for now).
switch box for the mic and headset
one computer with CT 7.23
I was using one radio as the run station (I get comfortable using one
hand or the other to tune the RIT and I don't like to switch - actually
I usually go split and use the main knob as the RIT). The other radio
had the amp that is easier to bandswitch, and was primarily for search
and pounce operations, and getting packet spots on other bands. It
seemed best to hook the computer interface into the multiplier radio,
since more spots would likely show for other bands than the current run
band.
Unfortunately, CT thought that the multiplier radio was the only radio.
I started the contest on 20. The first mult I went after was on 10, so
I grabbed the spot into the 940 - no problem. But, when I went back to
the run radio I had to manually change the log back to 20. This caused
CT to change the multiplier radio to 20 meters, so it was now receiving
on the band I was transmitting on. We scorched a couple of 930 front
ends pretty good once trying to have two guys work mults on the same
band in a multi single, so I didn't want to leave the 2nd 940 on 20, so
I hit the bandswitch and sent it back to 10, which caused CT to change
my log back to 10. For about 30 very confused minutes I ended up
manually editing every 20 meter QSO from 10 back to 20 after it was
logged in - but it was pretty obvious that that was not going to cut it.
Finally, very frustrated (and annoyed at myself that I had not tested
the setup thoroughly enough before the contest started) - I ended up
restarting CT and telling it I had no radio connection. I spent the
rest of the contest manually QSYing to the packet spots - not the worst
thing in the world but not what I had in mind, either.
Has anybody else tried a setup like this? Any ideas? Is there
something in the CT manual I just missed, or does CT always assume a
single op is using only one radio?
Ron DeBry WA6DGX
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