On 3 Dec 00, Marty Tippin wrote:
>
> (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.
>
Don't know the rigs' specs, but you're probably OK. Does this
Astron have a meter so you can tell how much current you're
drawing? If not, just feel the heat sink after a few minutes. If it's
pretty hot, I'd get nervous. If not, don't worry about it.
> * 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.
>
When I first ventured into SO2R I tried a vertical for radio 2. It
sucked, big time!
I would never try SO2R without stubs or bandpass filters (or both).
If you look at the math, for worst case - The separation due to
polarization difference is about 15-20 db. Running 100 W, that's 1
W at the radio. 1W at 50 ohms is about 7 volts at the rig's SO-239.
I think that's too much. 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?
>
This is how I do it. Writelog with soundcard decode on radio 1 and
HAL P38 on radio 2. Yes, Writelog does enforce only 1 transmit
signal across the network. Look under Setup: RTTY Single Tx
Lockout.
GL/Barry
--
Barry Kutner, W2UP Internet: w2up@mindspring.com
Newtown, PA FRC alternate: barry@w2up.wells.com
--
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