[UK-CONTEST] 80m CC Data waffle

[Rob Hammond]

Hi Gang,
            Not sure where to start here... Ok 34 Qso's all PSK pretty hard
going but nice to see EU stations joining in.. wasn't sure about the 59 289
report I got from one russian station.. was there another test on?
.. Bit of a free for all on psk.. I called a few people on their
frequencies, they disappeared. Then someone else would call smack on top or
someone would call me when I was calling the person who's frequency it was
or the guy would completely disappear off their run frequency so I was left
either to call there or retune.. Complete Chaos, thought I was running an EU
sprint at one point.  Not that my PSK skills are 2nd to none - made a few
boo boos with F keys along the way.. Think at one point I hit the "CQ DX"
key - oops sri
Alt-tabbing between Digipan & SD probably didn't help but can't get on with
the writelog interface for some reason.. perhaps practice is the key ;-) ..
Oh people S&Ping would often not bother with AFC & I'd have to go searching
for bits of their exchange.. I did try to tell people this.. Not sure
whether I was expected to tune them in ??
Anyway I'm not usually one to whinge but I really think we ort to have a
little check of our PSK signals before the start- some of the IMD figures
were as low as -6 or -4dB ( no my RX was not overloading ) & the signals
were spreading all over the place. In PSK I think this is counter-productive
( I notice some EU stations in SSB do this to get extra space )  It's
actually harder to find the centre of a whopping wide signal on a waterfall
display. I think at one point I was counting sidebands to find the true
signal. Admittedly it's hard to get a proper test set-up.. Any normal cq
outside a contest asking for an IMD report with usually get you involved in
someone giving you their mother-in-law's name age / locator etc. etc..
I think it is important though.. The band was well open into EU & beyond.
Don't think it helps our cause.

I think I was ok?.. test before showed -26dB... Not an excellent way to do
it but if you have 2 radios, put a dummy load in the one & tune the second
radio to the edge of your PSK signal where you are seeing say S5 or 7 on the
2nd radio S meter. Now adjust the computer output to the radio & mic gain to
get that S reading as low as possible. If you need to double check move a
bit closer to your signal & repeat.. I'm sure there are better ways... If
you need to run full on air tests in case RF feedback is an issue.. 10m is
pretty empty in the night.. better than annoying on going qso's . If you
need to check that particular band.. call cq but don't forget to switch in
the Mother-in-law's age filter.. I find inter G qso's are best if you want
help with your sig.

73

Rob MW5EPA