I concur with Jay on the CW. I no longer own a paddle. Using Alt-K for custom
messages has become second nature, and it works the same remote as local.
The remote rig does a good job on the audio. My main complaint is that it
takes a lot of extra cabling that needs to be changed when I want to operate
locally. It also uses a bunch of unique cables when I generally comply with a
"no custom cables" rule at the station. With WL, there are no extra comm ports
needed and it uses cabling that is already there. I built a small box that
switches the Mic/HP Out from the radio to either the headset or the computer.
All I need to do to change between remote operation and actually being there is
to throw a single switch.
The remote rig is expensive and makes it harder to operate remote from multiple
locations without carrying a bunch of stuff around.
One advantage I have is the entire rest of the station (rotors, antenna
selection, beverage direction, SS amps, wattmeter, SO2r switching) is already
automated and controlled entirely from the keyboard and mouse. What I needed
was a solution for remote audio and passing serial traffic. Having this
integrated into a remote enabled WL is a very attractive solution for me.
As for compression and limited bandwidth, I should be OK on either end. It
looks like anything over 1mbs will do. Latency generally, and latency spikes
in particular have been the bigger problem
Tom
-----Original Message-----
From: WriteLog <writelog-bounces@contesting.com> On Behalf Of Jay
Sent: Monday, December 03, 2018 5:17 PM
To: Writelog <writelog@contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [WriteLog] I hereby claim to be the world record holder for...
Having both a remote station which is 100% home brewed and also having done
some contesting at W4AAW the M/M remote contesting station these are easy
enough to overcome.
In a contest which is what after all contesting software is used for there is
no need what-so-ever to use a paddle and little reason to deal with sidetone
either. Nearly all is handled with preset buffers sent by function keys or by
keyboard entry if necessary. I did a brief test in SS CW using Writelog
remote. The first QSO with Randy 5ZD didn't come off very well as he asked for
a repeat of something and I didn't have the messages setup correctly. But we
did get the rather complicated exchange done in any case.
Most went flawlessly.
Same situation with another recent test when I worked Chris KL9A who was in TI.
He presented at the local club and said it was no problem copying my call at
50. So I hit the old increase speed to 50 and volla Chris of course QSL'd all.
There are few that can copy WS7I at 50 WPM. Barry W2UP, and Trey KKN and a few
others to include Chris.
Having a latency adjustment like RemAud has is a great idea and pretty much
handles slow pings. My ping to w4aaw who is in Virginia is 110 which is fairly
horrible. Yet easily adjusted out. Writelog has its compression setting on
the control site side.
One note is that when you have lurkers on your audio stream it really eats up
the audio which we have found at W4AAW.
Writelog's new interface is awesome for the radio's that it supports. Looking
forward to seeing more on the SW12! As I may need to implement that as my
switching is rather strange at my remote.
Jay WS7I
On 12/3/2018 4:22 PM, Joe Subich, W4TV wrote:
>
> > The big difference between the two designs is that
> > a) WriteLog accomplishes the sound-to-internet interface requiring
> > Windows PCs on both ends, while
> > b) RemoteRig requires a dedicated hardware device at both ends.> It
> is reasonable to guess that the dedicated hardware would never
>> lose out, quality-wise, to the general purpose PC hardware. But at
>> that point you can't guess you have to actually test and find out.
>
> The real difference will be in the available level of compression (to
> handle bandwidth limited links) and *latency* in that compression.
> The question is whether general purpose PCs can equal dedicated
> hardware optimized to prioritize compression with low latency.
>
> The other issue will be CW performance ... latency between paddle
> closures and CW output as well as remote (from the rig) vs. local
> (from the operator's PC/keyer) sidetone. Significant sidetone delay
> (remote source) makes sending manual CW difficult. Excessive latency
> (combined audio latency and paddle closure to RF output) makes "timing
> a pile-up" an issue.
>
> Some of the delays are within the control of the hardware/software
> developer (processing/compression latency) while some are not (network
> delays - aka. "ping time").
>
> 73,
>
> ... Joe, W4TV
>
>
> On 2018-12-03 6:47 PM, Wayne, W5XD wrote:
>> On 12/3/2018 1:13 PM, Tom Georgens wrote:
>>> If Wayne can match the audio quality of the Remote Rig, this is the
>>> best and cheapest solution.
>> On this comparison between RemoteRig and WriteLog Remote Control,
>> I'll say up front I do not know whether one design has a fundamental
>> quality advantage over the other. I take this opportunity anyway to
>> comment on the differences between the two architectures.
>>
>> At the conceptual level, the two are trying to accomplish the same
>> task for audio. To summarize: take RX audio at the remote station,
>> digitize it, pack it into a standard internet-ready form, and get it
>> through the internet interface at the remote (cable router, fiber,
>> what-have-you), out onto the open internet. Reverse the process at
>> the control site to make it audible to the operator. The mic audio for SSB
>> is very similar.
>> It differs only in details like flowing in the opposite direction,
>> you never need more than one channel, etc.
>>
>> The big difference between the two designs is that a)WriteLog
>> accomplishes the sound-to-internet interface requiring Windows PCs on
>> both ends, while b)RemoteRig requires a dedicated hardware device at
>> both ends.
>> It is reasonable to guess that the dedicated hardware would never
>> lose out, quality-wise, to the general purpose PC hardware. But at
>> that point you can't guess you have to actually test and find out.
>>
>> But carefully consider the following details.
>>
>> One advantage that the Remote Rig only appears to have, but might
>> not, is that modern rigs digitize internally and WriteLog gets its
>> input from such rigs over USB. For an example, WriteLog gets RX audio
>> from a K3S as-digitized by the rig and there is no reason, without
>> testing, to assume RemoteRig can do any better at digitizing. For
>> such a rig any quality difference comes down to a question of whether
>> a Windows PC can do a better job of getting the packet onto the
>> internet (and undoing the process on the remote end.)
>>
>> WriteLog being on the Windows PC has to compete with what that PC
>> might otherwise think is a cool thing to be doing at the time
>> (everyone's
>> favorite: upgrading Windows 10 when you least expect!) But, being on
>> the Windows PC, means certain mass market advantages might come into play:
>> like a $150 musician's USB interface that happens to do exactly what
>> the control site operator might need. It is reasonable to guess that
>> such a mass market device would do at least as good a job with audio
>> at the control site as the RemoteRig device does.
>>
>> And, of course, there is always the problem of software quality. No
>> matter how good the hardware is for either design, does WriteLog
>> actually implement a transfer scheme that works in the real world as
>> well as RemoteRig? Someone besides me has to answer that question.
>>
>> And please note I have carefully limited my comments here to the
>> quality of the audio transfer. If you're actually putting together a
>> remoting solution, you have to consider cost, ease of implementation,
>> who besides you might want to control your remote, etc. etc. etc.
>>
>> Wayne, W5XD
>>
>>
>
>
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>
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