[TRLog] SO2R impressions (also a bug(?) and some questions)

[Pete Smith]

SSCW may be the ideal place for a first SO2R outing.  Taking the advice of
K6LL and others ("yielding to the force"), I went with Two Radio Mode =
True.  The first few QSOs I thought I'd never get a grip on it, but by the
end (46 second radio QSOs) I found myself really looking forward to a
chance to do another one.  I'm persuaded now that with stereo phones, a
good audio switchbox, practice and proper use of the OnDeckCall capability,
most QSOs can go pretty smoothly on 2 radios, at least at low rates. 

I did run into a couple of things that confused me (all this refers to
6.59), the first of which may be a bug.

When you use Alt-D and the space bar to call a station on the second radio,
but don't make the QSO, pressing [Esc], as called for in the manual, takes
the screen back to Radio 1 and what looks like the CQ mode, but if you
press F1 again (to send another CQ), it sends your call instead.  If you
hit [tab] the cursor moves down into space where the exchange window is
supposed to be, and if you begin typing characters, the S&P exchange
window's green background appears behind each character as typed. The
message "You are in Search and Pounce Mode" appears without the green
window, but I'm sure many people, like me, are conditioned to looking for
that green background to cue them as to the mode.
 
If you hit [ESC} a second time instead, the green exchange window appears
immediately, and I can then Shift-tab back into CQ mode.  
I doubt this is operating as designed, but if so I'd like to know the
logic.  Since Radio 1 is usually the run radio, shouldn't it return to CQ
mode?

Next, when looking through the programmed CW messages, I noticed that CQ F7
and 8 both contain stored messages to send CQs on the inactive radio, which
I assume are a function of being in 2-radio mode.  These seem to work
rather elegantly, in that if you send a CQ on one of them, and then begin
to enter a station's callsign, the program switches to the inactive radio
in CQ mode, ready to answer a caller.  That's all fine.

However, if you are in CQ mode on the active radio, and enter a dupe
callsign in the call field, then press [enter], the program sends the WkdB4
message, which past custom (and the menu displayed at the bottom of the CQ
screen) says is located in CQ F7.  Where is it stored in 2-radio mode?

Also, a similar sequence happens with Exchange - F7.

One side-effect of the commitment of CQ-F8 to this purpose is that I've
lost the Agn message that is normally stored there.  I guess I can
substitute it for CQ-F6, since I don't use the DE call message once in a
blue moon.

I assume that the CQ stored in CQ-Alt-F3 is essential to proper operation
of the 2-radio mode.  Are there other sacrosanct locations?  I ran into one
during CQWW SSB when I programmed S&P F2 to send my call (from the DVP)
with alternate phonetics.  When I used F2 for this, the stored exchange
message was not sent after I'd logged the other station's exchange and hit
[enter], because the program thought I'd already sent the exchange once.

I'm wondering if there are other cross connections betwen the apparently
programmable messages and normal program operation?  Put another way, which
CW and SSB messages ARE available for customization without risk to other
functions?  Should there be a table of these in the manual?

 



73, Pete N4ZR






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