WriteLog
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: [WriteLog] CW direct keying

To: "Joe Subich, W4TV" <lists@subich.com>, writelog@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [WriteLog] CW direct keying
From: "Darren Collins (G0TSM)" <daz@g0tsm.com>
Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2014 10:09:31 +0100
List-post: <writelog@contesting.com">mailto:writelog@contesting.com>
Hi Joe,
The USB interface for direct CW keying is an old Prolific PL2030-H and the options you mentioned aren't shown for that port. I'll come back to this later as I mentioned that I only used this interface as the Winkey in the the data interface locked up but was ok again after unplugging for 24hours. However the serial port options are listed for the RTTY port which is an FTI USB inbuilt into the data interface. I've set up all my holiday/vacation kit as it was in SV5, running 0% power into a dummy load and RXing on my main station. Now I can see why I had a lot of repeats on RTTY! I was actually using RTTYrite to key the FSK. As each message is sent the first 2 or 3 characters are incorrectly sent each time, even if adding more spaces at the start. I have amended the settings you suggested and latency/buffers were already set as per the Writelog manual, but there is no change. As a test I then used MMTTY to key the FSK via the EXTFSK DLL and that keys perfectly. So I'm pretty much sorted with RTTY, I have to remember next time not to key directly from RTTYrite but to use the MMTTY EXTFSK.

73 Darren G0TSM

On 10/07/2014 15:08, Joe Subich, W4TV wrote:

Darren,

If your interface is USB based try some of all of the following:

Open Windows Device Manager and select the COM port created by
your interface.  Double click to open Properties, select the Port
Settings tab and click "Advanced".

1) try reducing the Transmit and Receive buffer sizes - with CW
   and software FSK you are only transferring a very few bytes
   at a time.  The default 4096 byte buffers may be too big.
2) Reduce the "Latency Timer"
3) increase the Write Timeout slightly
4) Make sure "Serial Printer" and "Enable Selective Suspend"
   are *NOT* checked.

Finally *never* use bit banged CW or FSK if you have a mass storage
device connected - including "thumb" or "jump" drives, external USB
hard drives or optical drives, USB camera, etc.  Mass Storage devices
set very large buffers and high Latency Timer ("slot size") to optimize
large data transfers and can greatly impact the fine timing necessary
for accurate CW or RTTY.

Note much of this has been posted in the past and part of it may be in
the WriteLog help files.

73,

   ... Joe, W4TV


On 2014-07-09 3:51 PM, Darren Collins (G0TSM) wrote:
I re-hooked up the direct keying interface and tried changing the
priority in the Windows task manager, but it made no difference, same
issue kept cropping up, even with anti-virus disabled on the
near-vannilla Win7 32bit installation. Incidentally it is the same for
RTTY but is harder to hear the problem when TXing, the rtty QSOs were
taking longer due to callers repeating their exchanges as I was sending
un-decodable replies.
As a test I tried Logger32 directly keying the same interface in CW and
RTTY (it's a dual rtty/cw direct keying interface) and that ran smoothly
so i'll need to do some more investigating.

73 Darren G0TSM



On 06/07/2014 21:59, Darren Collins (G0TSM) wrote:
Wayne,
Thanks for replying... Luckily the Winkey unit has sprung back into
life after being disconnected for 24hrs, but i'll try your suggestion
on direct keying tomorrow.

73 Darren (SV5/)G0TSM

On 06/07/2014 18:30, Wayne, W5XD wrote:
my Winkey compatible interface has failed, luckily
I have a spare directkeying interface which is just an
opto-isolater type. It works fine but everynow and then
it will just go crazy and it sounds like rig is being
keyed very fast with rough choppy CW.
This is a tough one. The reason WinKey exists is exactly the situation
you're in. Its not COM port settings that are your problem. Your
problem is
tasks that Windows thinks are higher priority than WriteLog and its CW
timers. It might be possible to track them down, but its not easy. I
would
start with virus checkers--turn them all off. (Why? they tend to install themselves as being higher priority than anything else on the machine.)

I would at least have a look at the Processes tab of the Windows Task
Manager (right click in your Start Menu bar, and choose Task manager)
and
sort by "CPU". See if something is running that you recognize and see
if you
an figure out how to turn it off.

You might even try sorting that same panel by Image Name, find
WriteL32.exe,
right click on it, and raise its priority. I have never tried that.
But I
don't think it can hurt anything.

Wayne, W5XD

_______________________________________________
WriteLog mailing list
WriteLog@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/writelog
WriteLog on the web:  http://www.writelog.com/

_______________________________________________
WriteLog mailing list
WriteLog@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/writelog
WriteLog on the web:  http://www.writelog.com/

_______________________________________________
WriteLog mailing list
WriteLog@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/writelog
WriteLog on the web:  http://www.writelog.com/


_______________________________________________
WriteLog mailing list
WriteLog@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/writelog
WriteLog on the web:  http://www.writelog.com/

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>