I've requested this feature once or twice before, but I'd like to plead for
it again. I think it will make a significant improvement in SO2R operability
and score:
When using the Auto Restart feature, the typical case is to have a CQ going
on one radio and be tuning the second radio. Frequently, you come across a
station on the second radio that's sending quite slowly, and common practice
is to slow down when sending your call. This is very awkward for several
reasons. First, you can't tell what speed you last used on the second
radio -- only the speed for the selected radio is shown. You have no idea
whether the speed set for the second radio is reasonable or not (unless you
have a real good memory at 3:00 AM.) If you want to see the speed and/or
change it, you have to stop the CQ on the run radio, move transmit focus to
the second radio, and use the ALT F9/F10 keys to adjust the speed. That
defeats the purpose of the Auto Restart feature because you have to stop the
CQ.
Of course, you can try to use the ALT F9/F10 keys to change the speed after
hitting F4 to send your call on the second radio, but it's very difficult to
do this quickly enough, especially when the second radio has previously been
set to a high speed. You can try to use the speed pot, but often it doesn't
respond quickly enough. Even if you manage to slow the speed with the keys
or pot, a very slow operator will get confused because part of the call came
through fast. I had to do a lot of repeats in SS because of this.
Dealing with this problem costs time. I suspect it particularly bad in SS,
but affects other contests as well.
Solutions:
1. There's plenty of room on the status bar to display the speed for both
radios. For example, "L: 30 WPM, R: 36 WPM."
2. How about allowing SHIFT-ALT-F9/F10 to alter the speed of the second
radio? I realize that there can be up to four radios, so this is not a
symetrical solution. I guess there's only one L and one R, so the two
sequences could apply just to those radios. A better option that I would
find acceptable (but maybe others wouldn't) would be to apply the ALT-F9/F10
keys to the radio with keyboard focus.
73, Dick WC1M
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