[WriteLog] digirite issues during the WW

Mon Sep 2 13:17:51 EDT 2019

I might as well weigh in on all of this:

I too noticed many variances during my operation with DigiRite during the contest.

On the positive side, I had great "run" of CQ's at one time approaching a rate of 100.

I also had a great succession of QSOs in my loading up the queue with multipliers.  DigiRite worked them one by one and then went back to CQing.

I was the first one to call CQ on 14082 using FT4 ( I didn't hear anyone else on that frequency).  All of a sudden there was a good string of EU stations (multipliers) calling me. Now that was fun.

On the other hand, there were several times I had to resend RR73, so I did that with the Alternative Message. 

I was also "muttering" many times by wondering why the other station was not responding to my call when signals seemed to be very good per the waterfall and the SNR (there were not others calling him, he kept on CQing, why wasn't he hearing me?)

I improved the decoding by switching from Fast to Deep.  I noticed that many more stations got decoded, so I left it on Deep for the rest of the contest.

We were all also fighting an incredible propagation of SF only in the 60's ... an A Index in the 40's !!! ... and a K index that reached 5 by the end of the contest.  Not good, especially for us low power folks.

An interesting experience.

Keith W3KB

-----Original Message-----
From: WriteLog <writelog-bounces at contesting.com> On Behalf Of Randy Thompson K5ZD
Sent: September 2, 2019 12:15 PM
To: 'Ron Lodewyck' <rwlodewyck at gmail.com>; 'Don Hill AA5AU' <aa5au at bellsouth.net>
Cc: 'Writelog Forum' <writelog at contesting.com>; 'Ken Beals' <k6mr at outlook.com>
Subject: Re: [WriteLog] digirite issues during the WW

I can confirm the same.  Ability to decode did seem to degrade during the contest.  And this was even when I had a number of hours away from the radio, but with WL/DR still running and decoding.  Something to look for.

It is frustrating with the digi modes because there is no way for the human ear to detect any differences.  You look at the waterfall and the SNR and mutter...

Randy K5ZD

> -----Original Message-----
> From: WriteLog <writelog-bounces at contesting.com> On Behalf Of Ron 
> Lodewyck
> Sent: Monday, September 02, 2019 10:26 AM
> To: Don Hill AA5AU <aa5au at bellsouth.net>
> Cc: Ken Beals <k6mr at outlook.com>; Writelog Forum 
> <writelog at contesting.com>; Ron Lodewyck <ronl at csustan.edu>; Ed Muns 
> <w0yk at msn.com>
> Subject: Re: [WriteLog] digirite issues during the WW
> 
> I agree with Don - there needs to be another RR73 follow-up when you 
> are the CQer and the other guy repeats his report.
> 
> And I had the same issue as Ed (and also, as I recall, Ken K6MR) 
> regarding mysterious end to QSOs.  I stopped getting replies to my 
> CQ's as well as calls to others - some quite strong - around 0230 UTC 
> or so when I switched to 80M. Rate went to near, but not quite, zero, 
> for over an hour.
> Gave up in frustration.  Should have rebooted I think. Anyway, I 
> checked on Ed's hypothesis that our clocks might have drifted or been 
> off too much for
> FT4 by looking in the DigiRite Log (wow! it saves EVERYTHING decoded 
> or transmitted. Impressive and useful.) I see no correlation between 
> DT (clock
> difference) and success in either CQing or answering others from the 
> beginning of the contest to when I switched to 80 M. From the very 
> beginning of the contest there is a wide variation in decoded signals 
> DT from (in my case) -0.1 to +1.0 and many successful QSOs on FT4. 
> That same range of DT occurs later, when I switched to 80M, and the 
> rate went to near
> zero.   So, clock synchronization does not SEEM to be the culprit - at
> least in my case. Something else was going on but beats me what...
> 
> See Don's comments on the two situations where RR73 needs to be sent 
> again.
> 73,
> Ron N6EE
> 
> 
> 
> On Sun, Sep 1, 2019 at 10:31 PM Don Hill AA5AU <aa5au at bellsouth.net>
> wrote:
> 
> >
> > [Don AA5AU] The message doesn't appear fast enough in "Calculated 
> > next to send" to know if something is going to be sent or not. I was 
> > frustrated time and again when I went S&P to call a station while I 
> > had CQ enabled. This is what happens.
> >
> > CQ W0YK CM97
> > W0YK AA5AU R EL49
> > AA5AU W0YK RR73
> > CQ AA5AU EL49
> >
> > I don't think this is right. We can debate it. I would think my last 
> > transmission should be W0YK AA5AU RR73. I understand the rationale 
> > behind going right back into a CQ. But it gets cloudy when I don't 
> > receive the W0YK AA5AU RR73 message on the first try. It goes like
> > this:
> >
> > CQ W0YK CM97
> > W0YK AA5AU R EL49
> > nothing copied from W0YK
> > W0YK AA5AU R EL49
> > nothing copied from W0YK
> > W0YK AA5AU R EL49
> > AA5AU W0YK RR73
> > CQ AA5AU EL49
> >
> > W0YK may be thinking that the QSO is not complete because I went 
> > right back into CQ without sending RR73 and he does not log it. We 
> > are both out of a contact.
> >
> > I got good at turning off CQ. When I turned off CQ while S&P, 
> > sometimes it sends the ending RR73, but sometimes it sending NOTHING 
> > AT
> ALL like this:
> >
> > CQ W0YK CM97
> > W0YK AA5AU R EL49
> > AA5AU W0YK RR73
> > ...DigiRite sends nothing...
> >
> > I'm sitting there looking at "Calculated next to send" and don't see 
> > anything then realize nothing is getting sent. I finally use 
> > "Alternate messages" to send the RR73 message but it's a cycle or 
> > two too late. This was the biggest issue I had with DigiRite all weekend.
> > I use "Alternate messages" to send RR73 for probably half my contacts.
> >
> > .
> >
> 
> 
> > [Don AA5AU] The only other issue I can think of now is when you are 
> > the CQ station, another station answers, you send RR73 but the other 
> > station didn't receive it and sends their grid again and WriteLog 
> > then sends R + Grid message instead of RR73. Like this:
> >
> > CQ WW AA5AU EL49
> > AA5AU VE6AX DO20
> > VE6AX AA5AU RR73
> > AA5AU VE6AX DO20
> > VE6AX AA5AU R EL49
> >
> > Why not just send VE6AX AA5AU RR73 again?
> >
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