[WriteLog] Intermittent PTT Dropout

[Charles Morrison]

Mike, what are you using to generate PTT?  I had this problem with Comm PTT
enabled in WL, but havent had it since with serial port PTT.  For the
contest rigs at the camp, I built the 3 separate function breakout box (at
home I built just FSK into the shell) using a Radio Shack box and little
piece of breadboard with both going to RCA jacks.  Now I have PTT, CW and
FSK on one serial port, and havent had the same PTT problem since.

A lot of times I had a problem with PTT hanging because of RF interfering
with the CAT signal to tell the rig to unkey.  I just lived with the
intermittent key/unkey and noticed that it went away when I changed both
rigs to serial PTT.

Charlie
KI5XP


> Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2006 10:10:35 -0500
> From: Mike <k4gmh at arrl.net>
> Subject: [WriteLog] Intermittent PTT Dropout
> To: writelog at contesting.com
> Message-ID: <7.0.0.16.2.20060109095555.00e6a6f0 at arrl.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
> 
> Had a problem with PTT dropping out every now and then.  Obviously, 
> noticed it most while CQing.
> 
> V10.55D is used but believe the problem has been around for a couple 
> of prior versions.
> 
> Using homemade (single transistor) interface and a 800 MHz computer, 
> with ~600 Mb RAM, running XP Home.
> 
> Noticed that sometimes, after the computer drops PTT while sending a 
> message, the computer would reactivate the PTT before the end of the 
> message and then repeat the message.  Other times the message would 
> end without the computer generated repeat message.  Also, if the 
> message was manually started after PTT dropout, but before the end of 
> the message, the computer would reactivate PTT and the rest of the 
> message would be sent as if PTT had not been dropped.    The manually 
> started message would be sent immediately at the end of the first 
> message.  The screen displays all of the first message, even the 
> section during PTT dropout.   If the dropped PTT occurred during an 
> auto-CQ and not manually restarted, the next CQ would be started at 
> the correct time and the PTT would not drop-out in the second message.
> 
> Has others seen this problem?  Any remedies?
> 
>          73,
>          Mike, K4GMH 
>