[WriteLog] WriteLog Digest, Vol 124, Issue 1 (Frustration with XMMT)

[Radio K0HB]

In order to clarify, Ed, can the cautious guys like me still upgrade WL and
stick with MMTTY?

73, Hans

On Monday, April 1, 2013, Ed Muns wrote:

> Yes, new capability with new a user interface and corner cases of
> incompatibilities are frustrating.  Don is working on tutorials for all
> this
> on rttycontesting.com, so you may want to wait for that to be complete
> rather than terrorizing yourself as an early adopter.
>
> The historical perspective may be helpful.  G3YYD developed an alternative
> to MMTTY that he and others felt would offer significant decoding
> advantages
> in marginal signal situations like selective fading (unequal tone
> amplitudes), flutter, multi-path, QRM, etc.  David is only interested in
> having 2Tone work on N1MM Logger.  One could argue that this is
> short-sighted, but its his creation and its freeware.  Within a few weeks
> of
> 2Tone's availability users were claiming superiority over MMTTY.  Many of
> us
> discounted these reports as simply initial enthusiasm of early adopters.
>
> As time passed, more and more N1MM users got hooked including some top RTTY
> contesters with credible opinions.  Several of us non-N1MM users bit the
> bullet and invested time to start climbing the learning curve on N1MM so
> that we too could evaluate 2Tone.  Despite many hours of work and gracious
> support from N2AMG, K8UT and others, I personally was not able to make N1MM
> work satisfactorily with all the features I deploy.  I had planned to use
> N1MM/2Tone in WPX RTTY but bailed Friday morning before the contest and
> moved my setup back to WriteLog.  This was very discouraging because it
> meant I couldn't use what was increasingly looking like a superior decoder.
>
> Meanwhile, other loggers like Logger32 and WinWarbler interfaced to 2Tone.
> WriteLog's Beta testers were ecstatic when Wayne released the first
> breadboard of XMMT.ocx support for MMTTY and 2Tone.  Not only did he
> solidify this new interface so 2Tone is available, but he also expanded the
> Rttyrite ini file capability so that now a huge number of parallel decoder
> windows can be created with their settings saved reliably for WriteLog
> exits/restarts.  This is a huge enhancement for users of multiple decoder
> windows.  See my earlier post with an example Rttyrite ini sections.
>
> Because 2tone is not defined in a way that all loggers can easily interface
> to it, there are some rough edges.  An example is that 2Tone has AFC
> hardwired on.  It cannot be turned off.  The reason is that the decoding
> algorithm is optimized assuming AFC.  Moreover, NET is on by default and
> there is no way to turn it off.  This is unacceptable for a running
> station.
> Since N1MM Logger is the sole design goal for 2Tone, David queries the
> logger to see whether it is in "Run" state or "S&P" state.  If "Run" then
> he
> turns off NET.  WriteLog paradigm does not include Run and S&P states.
>
> The current hot topic on this reflector about hardware FSK not working
> properly with microKEYERs is unrelated to 2Tone or the XMMT.ocx interface.
> It is a consequence of using WriteLog's Rttyrite FSK capability when 2Tone
> is the main software MODEM because 2Tone does not support FSK transmission
> like MMTTY does.
>
> The Beta-testers thought there were alternatives around this
> Rttyrite/microKEYER incompatibility, but several people are still having
> trouble.  More work obviously needs to be done on this.
>
> The upside of all this commotion is a superior decoder.  95% of the time
> both MMTTY and 2Tone copy perfect.  But in most marginal situations it is
> 2tone that copies perfect while MMTTY requires repeats.  What really stuns
> me are the times when I don't hear anything coming back my CQ, but 2Tone is
> printing the caller's callsign perfectly, multiple times.  I've never had
> that experience with any other decoder.
>
> Ed W0YK
>
>
> Nick W4GKM wrote:
> > This really seems like a lot of trouble to install my
> > Writelog that has been working perfectly for years, and
> > trying to figure out how to run this new 2tone program.  I
> > have down loaded the new version of Writelog and have the
> > XMMT.ocx already on my contest computer from Don, AA5AU
> > several weeks ago.
> >
> > Will this thing work with just regular soundcards and FSK
> > operation.  Can someone explain this is simple terms as I am
> > sure there a lot of guys out there like me that is totally confused.
>
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>


-- 
73, de Hans, K0HB
"Just a boy and his radio"
--
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