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

Fri Oct 7 15:20:05 EDT 2016

Yes, you can.  CWSL_Tee can allow you to split the output from the QS1R 
between at least two SDRs, such as Skimmer Server and SDRMAX or another 
panadaptor package. See 
<http://reversebeacon.blogspot.com/2013/03/magic-with-qs1r-two-apps-at-once.html> 
for all the details.

I'm hoping that N8VB will reappear soon with his SRL-2, which is a QS1R 
successor.  He said a month ago that it will be at the $500 price point 
and more capable than the QS1R, but when???

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 10/7/2016 2:39 PM, Dick Green WC1M wrote:
> FWIW, I wanted my Skimmers to use the same antennas I use with the rigs. I suppose a multiband vertical might have been effective, but it wouldn't have been a simple matter to set one up with the placement and feedline constraints I currently have.
>
> My original intent was to use the dual-channel Afedri 822x, which costs about $350, to monitor just the bands to which my K3s are tuned. That would have been considerably cheaper than a QS1R with splitter/combiners. My cost went up a bit when I had to swap the dual channel model for two single channel models, but still a lot less than a QS1R. My four-channel solution is probably about the same as the QS1R with splitter/combiners, maybe a little more expensive.
>
> I haven't delved deeply into what it would take to set up a QS1R in my station. I assume I'd have to use Skimmer Server to deal with multiple bands. Don't know the constraints, or whether I could have simultaneously run pandapter software on each band, like I can now.
>
> 73, Dick WC1M
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Pete Smith N4ZR [mailto:n4zr at contesting.com]
> Sent: Thursday, October 6, 2016 4:52 PM
> To: skimmertalk at contesting.com
> Subject: Re: [Skimmertalk] CW Skimmer Telnet command to set sampling rate?
>
> 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
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>
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>
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