(I tried to post a similar set of questions a few days ago but it never
showed up...)
I'm just about ready to dive into SO2R RTTY contesting - primary rig is an
FT-920; the second rig will be a FT-100. Plan is to use the FT-920 for a
run station, and the FT-100 for S&P. Of course I'll be running low power. I
use WriteLog as my contest logger.
Questions:
* I have only one power supply, an Astron 35A. Will that be sufficient for
running both rigs?? Seems like it should be OK since I'm only transmitting
on one rig at a time. Will add an auxiliary cooling fan on the supply.
* My antenna "farm" consists of a tribander on a rooftop tower, up about 35
ft, a 40m Delta loop in the back yard, with the top around 35 ft, and an
80m dipole, next to the 40m loop. I've recently added a Butternut vertical,
which is located within about 15 ft of both the 40m loop and 80m dipole.
When I transmit on either the loop or dipole, my Autek SWR/Power meter
attached to the Butternut goes absolutely nuts - which must mean a lot of
RF being conducted down the feedline. Similar results on the loop and/or
dipole when transmitting on the vertical. As long as I'm careful to keep
the two rigs off of the same band, do I need to worry about this? I can't
afford to blow up a rig, and I can't afford (yet) to buy bandpass filters.
* I presently use a DXP-38 with the FT-920 and will use the soundcard and
WinRTTY on the second rig. I don't have enough serial ports on the
contesting PC to support two rigs plus the DXP-38, so am thinking of using
the soundcard on left and right channels for both rigs - the PC is a
Pentium 166, already a bit marginal for running Writelog and I'm worried
that adding the extra load on the soundcard will push it over the edge.
Would like to hear from anyone running two channel soundcard RTTY in
Writelog as to how much load it puts on the system.
* Is anyone running SO2R on two separate (networked) PCs? I could do that
pretty easily but I'm not sure how to "guarantee" that I only transmit on
one rig at a time when they're networked. On a single PC, it's enforced by
Writelog, but I don't think it is enforced across the network. What are the
pros/cons of SO2R with 2 PCs?
Also would appreciate any other advice, web page links, etc. - the current
plan is to be ready to go SO2R for the Roundup in a few weeks...
73,
-Marty NW0L
martyt@pobox.com
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