[Skimmertalk] CW Skimmer Telnet command to set sampling rate?

Thu Oct 6 16:52:18 EDT 2016

Dick, a lot of RBN nodes (not mine) re using multiple antennas to a 
single QS1R.  One big multi-multi I know of  has an array of passive 
splitter/combiners merging the output of all its antennas, followed by a 
wideband amplifier to make up for the insertion loss and feed the QS1R.

OTOH, I use an active whip - the Clifton Labs unit that is expected to 
be reintroduced to the market by DX Engineering later this year or early 
next.  It is omni-directional, covers 160-10, and works quite decently.

73, Pete N4ZR
Download the new N1MM Logger+ at
<http://N1MM.hamdocs.com>. Check
out the Reverse Beacon Network at
<http://reversebeacon.net>, now
spotting RTTY activity worldwide.
For spots, please use your favorite
"retail" DX cluster.

On 10/6/2016 10:51 AM, Dick Green WC1M wrote:
> I may have misunderstood the QS1R architecture, but I believe it has only
> one antenna input. I don't have a multiband antenna that covers all the
> bands of interest -- I have mostly single-band resonant antennas (I do have
> a tribander, but it's fixed South). I suppose I could build a timer-driven
> switch to cycle the QS1R input among different available antennas, but I
> think that would be more complicated, difficult and expensive than what I'm
> proposing, mainly due to the antenna switching constraints of my station.
>   
> My station can have up to four antennas available for SDRs to use. Two of
> them are available by sharing the main antenna of one of my two K3s via a
> little trick of routing RX OUT to a splitter that feeds RX IN and an SDR.
> The other two antennas are from a secondary antenna farm that has its own
> SO2R switching system that combines with my main SO2R switching system via a
> pair of 2-port stack matches. Sometimes the antennas in the secondary farm
> are unused and will be available for an SDR, and sometimes that feedline and
> bank of antennas will be in use by one of the K3s.
>
> So, I can have up to four SDRs connected to four different antennas to
> monitor four bands.
>
> 73, Dick WC1M
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Andy KU7T [mailto:ku7t at ku7t.org]
> Sent: Thursday, October 6, 2016 9:53 AM
> To: 'Bob Wilson, N6TV' <n6tv at arrl.net>; 'Dick Green WC1M' <wc1m73 at gmail.com>
> Cc: 'skimmertalk' <skimmertalk at contesting.com>
> Subject: RE: [Skimmertalk] CW Skimmer Telnet command to set sampling rate?
>
> I may be missing something, but why don't you use a 7 band QS1R and connect
> to local telnet port with your logging software?
>
> Andy
> KU7T
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Skimmertalk [mailto:skimmertalk-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of
> Bob Wilson, N6TV
> Sent: Thursday, October 6, 2016 1:10 AM
> To: Dick Green WC1M <wc1m73 at gmail.com>
> Cc: skimmertalk <skimmertalk at contesting.com>
> Subject: Re: [Skimmertalk] CW Skimmer Telnet command to set sampling rate?
>
> Both Writelog and HDSDR support OmniRig, and HDSDR will synchronize your K3
> VFO A frequency with the HDSDR cursor, if that's what you're looking for.
>
> 73,
> Bob, N6TV
>
> On Wed, Oct 5, 2016 at 3:00 PM, Dick Green WC1M <wc1m73 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Thanks, Pete.
>>
>> Stopping CW Skimmer, editing the file and restarting is a bit awkward,
>> but possible. One problem is that I'd have to hit the Run button after
>> the restart. Perhaps I'll send an enhancement request to Alex :-).
>>
>> SkimScan is neat, and I think it would work with my equipment, but
>> it's not what I'm looking for.
>>
>> I'm attempting to create an Assisted SO2R station that only uses local
>> copies of Skimmer for spotting. Of course I could use the RBN or a
>> combination of RBN and one or more local Skimmers, but I like the idea
>> of an all-local system that only spots what my station can hear. It's
>> still Assisted (by a definition I helped create),  but it feels more
>> like something between Unassisted and Assisted: no other human ops
> involved.
>> I started out with an Afedri 822x, which is the dual-channel model.
>> The dual-channel seemed like an attractive way to monitor the antennas
>> on each of my two K3s, using a splitter and RX OUT/RX IN, a design
>> suggested to me by N6TV.  This approach frees me from the limitations
>> of IF-based solutions. I like the Afedri's combination of network and
>> USB access at a reasonable price. Unfortunately, the dual-channel
>> implementation doesn't work with CW Skimmer (both I/Q streams are
>> muxed into 4-channel audio) and while there's a Skimmer Server plug-in
>> for the dual-channel Afedri, it always assigns the lowest frequency to
>> channel 0, which would force me to always have the attached K3 on the
> lowest frequency band.
>> So, I returned the 822x and bought two single-channel Afedri SDR-Net
>> units. In this case, it's possible to run separate instances of HDSDR
>> and CW Skimmer for each SDR and route the spots via Telnet into
>> Writelog. It works really well, but frequency changes are problematic.
>> I want the LO to be fixed in the center of the sample rate (e.g.,
>> 7,048,000 Hz when on 40m with a 96K sample rate), not following the
>> rig frequency (which moves the scan window, like IF mode). The only
>> way to do that is to manually change the frequency in HDSDR (or the
>> Adfedri SDR-Net Control Box program) and also in CW Skimmer. The
>> Afedri SDR-Net Control Box program can send the frequency to Skimmer
>> via Telnet, but the frequencies for each band are fixed and not what I
> want.
>> So, I modified my antenna-switching software, AntennaMaster (AM), to
>> set the SDR LO via an Adfedri-supplied program and the CW Skimmer LO
>> via Telnet. This works great. In fact, it works so well that I'm
>> considering getting two more SDR-Net units to operate independently of
>> the K3s on unused antennas for other bands. That would give me Skimmer
>> on four bands simultaneously (of questionable value at this point in
>> the solar cycle, but what the heck.)
>>
>> The only thing I can't do is set the Skimmer sample rate. I'd like to
>> do that so the scan window is optimized for the size of the band. Say,
>> 48K on 30m, 96K on 40m, 192K on 20m, 15m and 10m, etc. Probably not
>> really necessary, but nice to have.
>>
>> The other thing I'm looking to do is communicate with HDSDR via its
>> DDE interface so I can set it's frequency from my program too. But
>> I've been unable to find any documentation on that interface. Anyone
>> know where I can find it?
>>
>> 73, Dick WC1M
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Pete Smith N4ZR [mailto:n4zr at contesting.com]
>> Sent: Wednesday, October 5, 2016 10:55 AM
>> To: skimmertalk <skimmertalk at contesting.com>
>> Subject: Re: [Skimmertalk] CW Skimmer Telnet command to set sampling rate?
>>
>> Dick, to the best of my knowledge, the only Telnet commands
>> implemented are those shown in the "Telnet Commands" section of the CW
>> Skimmer Help file - which does not include a sample rate command. The
>> CW Skimmer.ini file has a section for each type of radio.  The one for
>> the SoftRock looks like this:
>>
>> RigNo=1
>> [sdrSR]
>> SignalRate=96000
>> CenterFreq=14040000
>> CenterOffset=0
>>
>> Since the ini file specifies the sample rate (signal rate), it should
>> be possible to create a batch file that would stop the software, edit
>> the sample rate to a new value, and restart.
>>
>> You don't mention if you are using one of the multi-band Softrocks,
>> but if so you might want to look at SkimScan SR by W3OA, to be found
>> at http://dickwilliams.byethost17.com/SkimScanSR.html?i=1. While it
>> does not provide for changing the sample rate, it offers the ability
>> to band-hop on a variety of user-programmed schedules.  It's a very clever
> piece of work.
>> 73, Pete N4ZR
>> Download the new N1MM Logger+ at
>> <http://N1MM.hamdocs.com>. Check
>> out the Reverse Beacon Network at
>> <http://reversebeacon.net>, now
>> spotting RTTY activity worldwide.
>> For spots, please use your favorite
>> "retail" DX cluster.
>>
>> On 10/5/2016 3:06 AM, Dick Green WC1M wrote:
>>> Hello all.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Is there a Telnet command for CW Skimmer to set the Sampling Rate in
>>> SoftRock mode?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I'm able to use the SKIMMER/LO_FREQ command to set the LO frequency,
>>> but there doesn't seem to be a similar command to set the sampling
>>> rate. Is it unimplemented or just undocumented (I should be so lucky.)?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> 73, Dick WC1M
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Skimmertalk mailing list
>>> Skimmertalk at contesting.com
>>> http://dayton.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/skimmertalk
>>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Skimmertalk mailing list
>> Skimmertalk at contesting.com
>> http://dayton.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/skimmertalk
>>
> _______________________________________________
> Skimmertalk mailing list
> Skimmertalk at contesting.com
> http://dayton.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/skimmertalk
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Skimmertalk mailing list
> Skimmertalk at contesting.com
> http://dayton.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/skimmertalk
>