[WriteLog] Recording the Contest: FT-1000MP with CW and SSB - Answers

[Scot Herrick]

All,

Well, you learn something new everyday and yesterday I learned something new
about WriteLog that is incredibly simple but I never knew. Thanks to Chad,
WE9V, for whacking me over the head with an engineering two-by-four and
putting my reading skills back in place! See below.

CU...Scot, K9JY

K9JY's WriteLog User Support Site at:
http://www.k9jy.com
mailto:scot@k9jy.com

>
> All,
>
> I'm trying to nail down recording the contest for CW and SSB and am having
> some success with CW and none with SSB. I'm looking for some help from the
> reflector for those successfully recording both the receive and
> send side of
> the contest. Setup below:
>
> CW:
> AF out to Sound Board Mic using stereo plugs. Cable is isolated. WriteLog
> settings for the Sound Board options set with Enable Recording Loop,
> Continuous Record, Enable Compression all checked.
>
> Results:
> I can record both the tx side and the rx side. However, the rx side is
> highly muted (even with sliders at full scale) and the tx side will blow
> your ears off when played back. Is there a way to tone down the monitor tx
> side?
>

Answer: Just use a straight-through stereo audio cable and move the sliders
for volume way down on your receive selection in WriteLog Sound Board Mixer
program. It evens it out. My isolation was not consistent between the main
audio channel for receiving and the sub-channel used for the monitoring.

> SSB:
> Heil Microphone plugged directly into the Mic position in the sound card
> (for many good reasons; too many to list here). Where do you get
> the receive
> side of the contest? WriteLog forces the record option to be on the Mic
> position of the sound card (I tried changing it to Line In and as
> soon as I
> clicked on the WriteLog Enter window it moved it over to Mic...).
>
Answer:

This is the simple thing I didn't know. The WriteLog Sound Mixer program
controls what channel is recorded (and received for CW and RTTY display when
the sound card is used). Whatever selection you have on top as the 'receive
selection' is what WriteLog forces to be the receiving and recording channel
on the sound card. Mine was set at 'Mic' as described above and if I
manually changed it to Line using my Gateway mixer control, WriteLog would
switch back to Mic because that is what was in the WriteLog Sound Mixer
program. This makes sense in that you want WriteLog to correctly control the
sound board for the contest and this program is what does it. I didn't know
that and didn't think it made any difference what was shown in the 'receive
selection' box. I thought it was just for setting levels. Nope.

I thus changed my configuration on my FT-1000MP to:

AF Out (Yaesu) to Line In (black on my sound card)
Phone Patch (Yaesu) to Line Out (green on my sound card)
Heil Mic directly into the Mic (black on my sound card).

The 'receive selection' in the WriteLog Sound Mixer Program now has 'Line'
as the selection. This configuration allows me to work SSB and CW and RTTY
without having to change any cables on the sound card and enables recording
of all the contest modes as well.

Old dog, new tricks and all that...