Bob,
I am relatively new to SO2R - about 2 years ago but went the automated
route using from Day 1 using 3 USB ports on the computer. My SO2R box and
Antenna and decoding and switching are kits that I assembled.
I picked 2 routes for automation - one for the antennas and the other for
the band pass filter switching. This ensured that I could use the Alt-F9
feature of N1MMLogger to cycle between antennas on each band where I had
multiple antennas available.
Radios: IC-746PRO x 2, SB-200 amps
CAT: ICom OPC-478U and another homebrew - uses 2 USB ports on computer
SO2R Interface: YCCC SO2R+ Box using a single USB cable to the computer (Tx
and Rx switching on CW, SSB, RTTY)
Route 1: N1MLogger -> Computer -> YCCC SO2R+ -> KK1L band Decoder -> KK1L
2x6 Antenna Switch for any antenna any radio
Route 2: Radio Band Level Outputs -> Top Ten Bad Decoder x 2 -> ICE 419 BPF
x 2
This has a failure point in that the CAT has to be functional to ensure the
antennas are on the right band as I found out this past weekend when the
CAT on one radio died.
References:
YCCC SO2R+ Box: http://www.k1xm.org/SO2R/index.html
KK1L Bad Decoder and Antenna Switch:
http://home.comcast.net/~kk1l/kk1l_2x6switch/index.html
73 de Prasad VU2PTT
On Wed, Nov 27, 2013 at 2:36 AM, Bob Shohet, KQ2M <kq2m@kq2m.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am using two FT1000MP’s for SO2R and would like to use the band output
> from the radios to
> automatically electronically switch all antennas, amps and filters every
> time I change bands rather
> than the tiring/inefficient manual “switching by hand” that I have been
> using for the past 26 years.
>
> I would appreciate hearing from SO2R ops what amps, antenna switches,
> “boxes” and /or
> other devices that they use to accomplish this fully automatic switching
> which would be necessary
> on both phone and cw. Also, if there is a particular contest logging
> program that you have found
> to be especially useful and well-integrated with all of this switching,
> please tell me as well.
>
> Reliability and durability are of paramount importance to me as I do not
> want failures
> occurring due to RF, cheap components and/or questionable or short-sighted
> design issues.
>
> I would appreciate any thoughts and experiences with products, vendors and
> station design
> either on or off the reflector.
>
> Thanks in advance for your help.
>
> 73
>
>
> Bob KQ2M
>
> kq2m@kq2m.com
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>
--
73 de Prasad VU2PTT, W2PTT (ex-AF6DV)
ARSI, ARRL, FOC, CWOPS, 5BDXCC
NCDXF, INDEXA, SCCC, EUPSK, MARC
ARRL DXCC Card Checker
Contest & Awards Manager - ARSI www.arsi.info
Coordinator - VU Contest Group www.vucg.org
Webmaster - Logger32 www.logger32.net
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