[Skimmertalk] Newbie Question

[Joe]

I joined this group yesterday, and waited to see the level of activity, 
before asking a question.  Not seeing any yet I'm guessing the level 
isn't very high so here goes the question.

I'm constantly trying to get new people into contesting, or even 
operating on HF even. Most of the newbies in this area came into Amateur 
Radio because of the "Public Service" aspect. Which is fine. but it 
seems like thats all they also know about this hugely varied thing we 
are involved in.

As I said I'm constantly pushing contesting to new people to expose them 
to something different other than Skywarn, or communications at parades 
etc. And have had not too bad success with it too.  And I wanted to 
expose some of them to CW too, I love CW 90%+ of my operating is CW, and 
contesting I'm probably a 50/50 between phone and CW,   Almost none of 
these have any experience at all with it. So I thought showing them CW 
with skimmer say in Nov SS coming up might be some fun.

BUT I do not know what if I have a problem or not.

This is basic bare bones system here. The latest trial skimmer 
installed,  radio is NOT computer capable a old kenwood TS-430S

nothing special hookup wise too, just a cable from headphone jack of the 
radio to the mic in on the computer. I run this setup with many other 
programs DL-Fldigi, RTTY programs, CW Get, etc. All work great!

So I'm running it in the 3Khz mode, ya know just the standard audio 
passband mode.

But I'm getting a spurious effect that i havent seen in any of these 
other programs.

I have the audio levels set right, not too loud etc. It's decoding stuff 
that I can't even hear, and thats pretty incredible because I'm an old 
school Moonbounce guy where I'm good at copying signals deep in the mud, 
so good job on this programs ability to dig signals out of the mud.

OK now for the problem. at first I thought it was a defect of the 
Kenwood, Obviously when I transmit,, the side tone from the Kenwood goes 
into the skimmer too.  But it's level is way down, barely audible ( I 
use the side tone from the WinKeyer for the side tone source so it is 
constant regardless of the volume setting on the kenwood)

When I'd transmit Id see in the waterfall where I'd expect it to appear 
the signal trace of the sidetone. But I would also see 3 or 4 evenly 
spaced traces like harmonics say up in the waterfall also and it even 
decodes them too. so my call appears like 4 times in the window after 
transmitting.

OK I thought OK cheap sidetone system, probably kinda squarewave with 
harmonics right?

BUT...........  and there always is a BUT isn't there?

If I use the standard filter on the Kenwood,, 90% of the time it's OK,  
But if i turn on the narrow CW filter to help weed out a really weak 
signal that is getting pounded by a nearby strong signal, and the agc in 
the rig even on fast is blocking out the weak signal. so I apply the 
Narrow CW filter, and it's kinda cool you can actually see in the 
waterfall the passband by the audio and precicely tune the IF shift to 
center it into Skimmers window.

BUT........  there is that word again.

BUT,, even tho the signal is weak, I get the same effect as my sidetone, 
there are multiple traces of the signal it is hearing. It isn't a 
overloading thing because the signal is barely audible. But there ends 
up being 3 or 4 traces and decodes in the waterfall of this one signal.

What was even worse this happens also sometimes when I'm using the 
standard wide filter also. And thats really bad I was like listening to 
a pile up on 40 last night, and it was a typical pileup. many many 
signals,  But it was many many signals X 3 or 4, so the waterfall is 
really filled up ith way too many signals,75% are false,,  If this was a 
computer controlled rig id have a choice of 4 to 5 traces to click on 
and of course only one is correct. The real one and 3 to 4 others.

Anyone have an idea as to whats happening? And what to do to fix this?

Joe WB9SBD
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