[WriteLog] I hereby claim to be the world record holder for...

Wed Dec 5 14:06:23 EST 2018

I should have been clear.  My preference is solely my own and I was not suggesting that nobody should use a paddle.  For running, the paddle is too tiring and error prone for me.  Eventually, the only value it was providing me was instant QRS, but I have solved that other ways.  Now, with dual CQing being so popular, you generally never hear you sidetone. 

People have told me that sending with a paddle while listening to the delayed sidetone from the remote is impossible.  This make sense to me.  Remote Rig generates a local sidetone with its winkeyer emulation.  This is clearly a step in the right direction, but I understand it is still imperfect.  Wayne can decide if he wants to add this, but I am excited about WL remote even without it.  

Hardly a hot keyboarder here  😊.  I use all my fingers, but I still have to look at the keys.

Your point about making the radio the focus is a good one.  For me, my focus when operating is on the computer(s) and not the radios.  In fact I seldom touch or look at the radio when running.  In fact,  would rather see the radio display on my computer screen since it is in my field of vision.  However, I have yet to see a computer/mouse interface that is effective at emulating the analog knobs on the radio.  If this problem were solvable, then I think the “modem” analogy you describe will become more of a reality

Tom 

From: john battin <jbattin at msn.com> 
Sent: Tuesday, December 04, 2018 11:13 AM
To: Tom Georgens <tomgeorgens15 at gmail.com>; 'Jay' <ws7ik7tj at gmail.com>; 'Writelog' <writelog at contesting.com>
Cc: w4aaw at aol.com
Subject: RE: [WriteLog] I hereby claim to be the world record holder for...

I disagree about the paddle.  There are those that grew-up in the keyboard era …. And then there are those that grew-up in the radio/paddle/knobs era. I am one of the later. I can run 200/hour with hunt and peck keyboard, function keys, and an occasional paddle input to handle pile-ups and say a friendly 161 or name when rates allow. The hot keyboard operator plays the keyboard like a piano player … an amazing feat and skill that is not available to everyone. When it comes working the weak multipliers, I would challenge  keyboard/centric operators to compete with the ability to adjust the RX parameters with knobs and use the paddle to gain an advantage in the pile-ups. Maybe it is the difference between having the radio as the focus and having the radio become yet another  modem. 

For what its worth.

John K9DX

Sent from Mail <https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986>  for Windows 10

  _____  

From: WriteLog <writelog-bounces at contesting.com <mailto:writelog-bounces at contesting.com> > on behalf of Tom Georgens <tomgeorgens15 at gmail.com <mailto:tomgeorgens15 at gmail.com> >
Sent: Monday, December 3, 2018 8:18:28 PM
To: 'Jay'; 'Writelog'
Subject: Re: [WriteLog] I hereby claim to be the world record holder for... 

I concur with Jay on the CW.  I no longer own a paddle.  Using Alt-K for custom messages has become second nature, and it works the same remote as local.  

The remote rig does a good job on the audio.  My main complaint is that it takes a lot of extra cabling that needs to be changed when I want to operate locally.  It also uses a bunch of unique cables when I generally comply with a "no custom cables" rule at the station.  With WL, there are no extra comm ports needed and it uses cabling that is already there.  I built a small box that switches the Mic/HP Out from the radio to either the headset or the computer.  All I need to do to change between remote operation and actually being there is to throw a single switch.

The remote rig is expensive and makes it harder to operate remote from multiple locations without carrying a bunch of stuff around.

One advantage I have is the entire rest of the station (rotors, antenna selection, beverage direction, SS amps, wattmeter, SO2r switching) is already automated and controlled entirely from the keyboard and mouse.   What I needed was a solution for remote audio and passing serial traffic.  Having this integrated into a remote enabled WL is a very attractive solution for me.

As for compression and limited bandwidth, I should be OK on either end.  It looks like anything over 1mbs will do.  Latency generally, and latency spikes in particular have been the bigger problem

Tom

-----Original Message-----
From: WriteLog <writelog-bounces at contesting.com <mailto:writelog-bounces at contesting.com> > On Behalf Of Jay
Sent: Monday, December 03, 2018 5:17 PM
To: Writelog <writelog at contesting.com <mailto:writelog at contesting.com> >
Subject: Re: [WriteLog] I hereby claim to be the world record holder for...

Having both a remote station which is 100% home brewed and also having done some contesting at W4AAW the M/M remote contesting station these are easy enough to overcome.

In a contest which is what after all contesting software is used for there is no need what-so-ever to use a paddle and little reason to deal with sidetone either.  Nearly all is handled with preset buffers sent by function keys or by keyboard entry if necessary.  I did a brief test in SS CW using Writelog remote. The first QSO with Randy 5ZD didn't come off very well as he asked for a repeat of something and I didn't have the messages setup correctly.  But we did get the rather complicated exchange done in any case.

Most went flawlessly.

Same situation with another recent test when I worked Chris KL9A who was in TI.  He presented at the local club and said it was no problem copying my call at 50.  So I hit the old increase speed to 50 and volla Chris of course QSL'd all.  There are few that can copy WS7I at 50 WPM. Barry W2UP, and Trey KKN and a few others to include Chris.

Having a latency adjustment like RemAud has is a great idea and pretty much handles slow pings.  My ping to w4aaw who is in Virginia is 110 which is fairly horrible.  Yet easily adjusted out.  Writelog has its compression setting on the control site side.

One note is that when you have lurkers on your audio stream it really eats up the audio which we have found at W4AAW.

Writelog's new interface is awesome for the radio's that it supports. Looking forward to seeing more on the SW12!  As I may need to implement that as my switching is rather strange at my remote.

Jay WS7I

On 12/3/2018 4:22 PM, Joe Subich, W4TV wrote:
>
> > The big difference between the two designs is that
> > a) WriteLog accomplishes the sound-to-internet interface requiring 
> > Windows PCs on both ends, while
> > b) RemoteRig requires a dedicated hardware device at both ends.> It
> is reasonable to guess that the dedicated hardware would never
>> lose out, quality-wise, to the general purpose PC hardware. But at 
>> that point you can't guess you have to actually test and find out.
>
> The real difference will be in the available level of compression (to 
> handle bandwidth limited links) and *latency* in that compression.
> The question is whether general purpose PCs can equal dedicated 
> hardware optimized to prioritize compression with low latency.
>
> The other issue will be CW performance ... latency between paddle 
> closures and CW output as well as remote (from the rig) vs. local 
> (from the operator's PC/keyer) sidetone.  Significant sidetone delay 
> (remote source) makes sending manual CW difficult.  Excessive latency 
> (combined audio latency and paddle closure to RF output) makes "timing 
> a pile-up" an issue.
>
> Some of the delays are within the control of the hardware/software 
> developer (processing/compression latency) while some are not (network 
> delays - aka. "ping time").
>
> 73,
>
>    ... Joe, W4TV
>
>
> On 2018-12-03 6:47 PM, Wayne, W5XD wrote:
>> On 12/3/2018 1:13 PM, Tom Georgens wrote:
>>> If Wayne can match the audio quality of the Remote Rig, this is the 
>>> best and cheapest solution.
>> On this comparison between RemoteRig and WriteLog Remote Control, 
>> I'll say up front I do not know whether one design has a fundamental 
>> quality advantage over the other. I take this opportunity anyway to 
>> comment on the differences between the two architectures.
>>
>> At the conceptual level, the two are trying to accomplish the same 
>> task for audio. To summarize: take RX audio at the remote station, 
>> digitize it, pack it into a standard internet-ready form, and get it 
>> through the internet interface at the remote (cable router, fiber, 
>> what-have-you), out onto the open internet. Reverse the process at 
>> the control site to make it audible to the operator. The mic audio for SSB is very similar.
>> It differs only in details like flowing in the opposite direction, 
>> you never need more than one channel, etc.
>>
>> The big difference between the two designs is that a)WriteLog 
>> accomplishes the sound-to-internet interface requiring Windows PCs on 
>> both ends, while b)RemoteRig requires a dedicated hardware device at 
>> both ends.
>> It is reasonable to guess that the dedicated hardware would never 
>> lose out, quality-wise, to the general purpose PC hardware. But at 
>> that point you can't guess you have to actually test and find out.
>>
>> But carefully consider the following details.
>>
>> One advantage that the Remote Rig only appears to have, but might 
>> not, is that modern rigs digitize internally and WriteLog gets its 
>> input from such rigs over USB. For an example, WriteLog gets RX audio 
>> from a K3S as-digitized by the rig and there is no reason, without 
>> testing, to assume RemoteRig can do any better at digitizing. For 
>> such a rig any quality difference comes down to a question of whether 
>> a Windows PC can do a better job of getting the packet onto the 
>> internet (and undoing the process on the remote end.)
>>
>> WriteLog being on the Windows PC has to compete with what that PC 
>> might otherwise think is a cool thing to be doing at the time 
>> (everyone's
>> favorite: upgrading Windows 10 when you least expect!) But, being on 
>> the Windows PC, means certain mass market advantages might come into play:
>> like a $150 musician's USB interface that happens to do exactly what 
>> the control site operator might need. It is reasonable to guess that 
>> such a mass market device would do at least as good a job with audio 
>> at the control site as the RemoteRig device does.
>>
>> And, of course, there is always the problem of software quality. No 
>> matter how good the hardware is for either design, does WriteLog 
>> actually implement a transfer scheme that works in the real world as 
>> well as RemoteRig? Someone besides me has to answer that question.
>>
>> And please note I have carefully limited my comments here to the 
>> quality of the audio transfer. If you're actually putting together a 
>> remoting solution, you have to consider cost, ease of implementation, 
>> who besides you might want to control your remote, etc. etc. etc.
>>
>> Wayne, W5XD
>>
>>
>
>
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>

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