[SEDXC] Goings-on with KS4Q Cluster

[Ernie]

Those users that are using 1200 baud with SAW5, please note that it is now
on 145.69 MHz.

Some other traffic creeped onto 145.63 MHz and there was an occasional
spurious signal on the channel that seemed to drown things out.  Some users
mentioned that they had trouble with this 1200 bps port.

I also replaced the ringo ranger that was up there with a Diamond F-22A.

All TNCs are MFJ-1270C models.  On each of the four TNCs I put a jumper on
'Jumper J' which is not the default setting.  Putting a jumper on 'J' causes
the TNC to output flat instead of 'pre-emphasized' audio....which is better
for data.  If you listen to the actual audio you might be able to note that
it does sound a little different.

Those of you with MFJ or other kinds of TNC might want to experiment with
'pre-emphasis' versus no emphasis.  Also, some 2 meter radios have a tone
setting of sorts which can be a bass or treble boost.  I know the ICOM 229H
has such a setting.

Verified all deviation settings with a deviation meter.

Thanks to Tony KD4K for his help on this.

On the telnet side, I've noticed with some changes that some users are now
staying connected on telnet for days at a time without use of a auto
reconnection program such as the AR-User program by VE7CC.  Of all the
things I recently did, I'm still not sure what one thing improved
connectivity.  Since this is not a think tank here and we are concerned most
of all with results, I'm happy to just see it maintaing reliable
connections.

Those of you that missed it the first time around, the telnet address for
the cluster is:

dx.ks4q.net  or telnet://dx.ks4q.net

No longer can you specify port 7300.  With the router changeout I did, I
lost the ability to have both ports 23 and 7300 open.

This weekend is the CQWW contest.  I'll be down at NQ4I's for the effort.
We'll see how well the RF side of the cluster can keep up with 1200 plus
spots an hour.

Those of you most interested in maintaining a connection to the RF side of
the cluster might want to limit your spots to just W/VE and it might keep
things more manageable!

Lastly, I promise not to monkey around anymore with the cluster any time
soon.

73, Ernie KS4Q