[UK-CONTEST] Rig interfaces

[Andy Swiffin]

Hi
Having just joined the 20th century (sic) with a new (to me ) wireless set, the first step was to get it hooked up to the computer (because now I CAN!).

I've resisted the bought interfaces in the past and a couple of transformers a transistor for ptt and a relay for CW (what else are you going to do with a -48Volt keying line?) have stood me in good stead.   But the carrot of being able to do absolutely everything from my laptop was too much to resist.

I looked at what was there and even briefly had a Tigertronics Signalink before I realised that it would not do half of what I expected (you need to rejumper it each time you want to do CW).   Then I found the Digimaster Pro Plus from g4zlp:  http://www.g4zlp.co.uk/unified/DM_PRO_PLUS_complete.shtml 

It claimed to do everything but I was prepared to be a little disappointed and have to do some extra work arounds but so far, unless I'm missing something, this proves not to be the case.    The goal was to use my laptop rather than the rather old and knackered shack PC but the laptop has no ordinary ports at all, just USB.   The digimaster pro+ hooks up to the sound card and one USB interface, but it provides two com ports, one for PTT, CW AND FSK and the other one for CAT control.   So, the results:

WSJT (not really relevent to contesting) just works.
Digipan also just works.

N1MM:   I'm going to write up my full config for the g4zlp site because there was a bit of a faff to get the cat control working but this does absolutely everything I wanted.  I used the MMTTY  EXTFSK dll to do the USB magic and it was pretty straightforward to get proper FSK to the rig.   AIUI many radios  only offer the  sensible RTTY filtering when you select FSK and you can't do it in AFSK with LSB selected so using this was a priority and it seems to work fine.  CW, just works.   The N1MM DVK just works.   The CAT, I had to mess around with the handshake (and eventually turn it off - subject to further investigation) but that seems to work fine too.

I haven't used it much in anger yet - I'm particularly looking forward to doing a RTTY contest with proper FSK and the lovely filtering, also very much looking forward to doing some more CW with it.   I played a bit in last nights 144 AC and it was fun watching the PC freq change as I twiddled the dial and vice versa and the way the QSOs were there on the bandmap,  shame I couldn't do all that with the TS830......

So, if anyone's looking for a rig interface that will do CW and FSK and CAT and DVK from N1MM, this seems to.

And the new radio?   It's a TS-2000.   Not a patch on the TS830, no wonder everyone gives such rubbish signal reports on 144mhz these days, I'm just waiting for a couple of plugs to arrive and then I can get the vhf amps back on line with preamps to go in the newly refurbished relay box to get the receive performance to _approach_ the old MM Transverters.   But, the convenience of having everything in one tidy box and being able to do it all from the laptop.....Unbeatable.   It was just so nice to flick back and forth between 6 and 2 last night to work the ukranians on both bands even if I was limited to 100W.    (pity they were gone 30 mins before the contest started).   


73
Andy
gm8oeg




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