11Mtr Packet - PSK31 - is anyone using it?

[Black_Pirate]

true...a few local users would be good...i,m sure you can ping and short message user on the aprs system via the web....the skip when its running can connect you but its hit and miss as the traffic gets intense...
ros and psk31 run better for 1 2 1...
Australia and thialand were made this year...in RoS...most of the stations are involved in the data modes experimenting in all modes most of the times..one thing the web does is keep us in touch for skeds and various mode experiments...and furture developments...wspr was one but the propagation died about 4 months ago, so we are waiting for a return of marginal ( at least) conditions..
it is a niche part of the hobby..

[ghost123uk]

Well I had a frustrating WHOLE DAY yesterday with this.

I had settled on values of simple resistive attenuators to get the RX audio into the laptop, and TX audio from the laptop to the rig. Got that sorted. So I then decided it was time to make up a proper harness to go from rig to laptop, including a tiny relay, operated via the RTS pin on the RS232 (serial) socket on the laptop. That fldigi software has an easy facility to toggle that pin for PTT

Made up the harness, nice lil box for the attenuators and relay, neat 3.5 mm jack fly leads to laptop at one end and a mic socket at the other to connect a mic extension lead to the rig's mic socket = all very neat. All good so far, however, I couldn't get the RS232's RTS (or DTS) pins to toggle. They just sat there with 5 Volts on them no matter what I did.

A whole day then spent researching this. I found other bits of software, not radio related, that are supposed to control those pins, but they didn't. I spent AGES researching it, note I use Linux, not Windows. My conclusion is that the RS232 socket on my laptop is not working This might actually be my own fault as during the research I discovered that those pins can only source and sink 24mA and my meter, or my relay may well have overloaded them and damaged the delicate TTL control chip. I don't currently have another computer with the old Serial ports, so I put all my tools etc away and I went to the pub !!

I was trying to do this without spending money, but it looks like I will have to buy one of those USB to RS232 thingies now, unless I can figure out how to use the old style printer ports pins. It was annoying because the RX and TX was working fine, just needed that automatic PTT function.

[Admiral]

Have you got a spare Bumfeng knock-off Prolific USB to RS232 cable in a junk box?

[ghost123uk]

Nah, if I had I would have dug it out and carried on into the night

My concern about using them is that I use Linux, not Windows. Not sure if Linux would auto detect and install a USB to RS232 device. Mind you, there cheap enough, and Linux is usually very good at automatically installing a huge range of hardware, with no need for user intervention. I will get one ordered and find out.

I wonder if the circuitry for the RTS and DST in those adapters is any more robust than the old TTL chips in the old laptop I'm using.

[Admiral]

I dual boot with Linux and Win10, I'm not a Windows hater like some Linux users, I need Windows to run some programs that just refuse to run, or look awful in WINE. I had a hooky version of Win7 installed and Microsoft very kindly upgraded it to a fully legal version of Win10 for free, I think if I recall correctly that xUbuntu did install the old Prolific drivers, but that was a good while back when they weren't so ancient.

[ghost123uk]

I wonder if the circuitry for the RTS and DST in those adapters is any more robust than the old TTL chips in the old laptop I'm using.

Research tells me it's not

There must be a ready made simple device to provide a higher current switching circuit off a USB/RS232 port. In fact they must be dead common, for the likes of hobbyists doing home automation, or model railways etc. Off to have a look, jeez, if my time was money.

[Admiral]

I think a lot of hobbyists have gone over to Pi and Arduino these days for logic switching.

[ghost123uk]

Yeh, I don't want to go down that road with this though, on the "kiss" principle.

I've just now ordered one of THESE "4-Channel Relay Module USB Control Relay Module serial port". Only £4.75 delivered from a UK warehouse. Hopefully Linux will play nicely with it.

[Admiral]

The beauty of open source is that if there isn't the software you need on GIT then you can just write it yourself, or modify someone elses work to make it fit.

[ghost123uk]

When you say "you can just write it yourself" I take it you mean you, not me

I daren't get "into" that. I get so dogged when it comes to stuff like that, I'm prone to staying up all night trying to get the code to work. It's bad enough I spent all yesterday, wasting my day off, only to be stumped by a seemingly duff RS232. Now I'm wasting my last day off finding a solution and talking about it on here

And all this to get on the air with a mode that will very likely result in ZERO contacts

[Admiral]

I am a 'dabbler', I don't work in IT like some on here, but have been an entry level coder and code plagiariser for over 30 years.

I had a similar TTL system in 81 that had a ZX81 controlling the PLL02A on a Ham International Viking, people thought I was some sort of demi-god at the time, but it really was very simple.

[ghost123uk]

The nearest I got to that was programming my own eeproms for PLL02As, but shortly afterwards they became commonly available pre-programmed. I've still got the breadboard, somewhere

When I finally get this neatly sorted, I might offer to make the harness, attenuators, and that USB relay board, all in a project box, for simple plug n play. I will use a proper pot, on the top of the box, for adjusting the audio from the computer to the mic socket, on SSB that will works as a power out control.

[Admiral]

I have used MULTIPSK directly to the in/out audio sockets of my PC for years without any damage, I know that some modern PCs have a single jack these days, but even if you were worried about damage then an external USB audio 'card' can be had for about $2 from China. I'm obviously talking RX without any PTT switching.

[ghost123uk]

I'm using an old Dell Inspiron 510m laptop for this, it has mic socket and headphone socket.

The rig's output is got via a parallel tap off an 8 Ohm extension speaker, but despite that, it's still a bit OTT for the laptops audio in (being "mic" not "line"). I've done a simple 4:1 "L" pad to knock it down to a suitable level.

The output from the laptop's headphone socket is WAY too high for the rigs audio in, so, I had to use the highest value pot I had in the box = 470K log, and even that is far too course really, only 10% of it's range is low enough. Might just use that anyway, and pad it out further with fixed resistors.

[ghost123uk]

More back to back posting

Today, up and running, TX'ing and all, though with "manual" PTT for now At least that prevents "unattended operation"

Can't find any packet signals though But to be fair, I don't really know where to look.
Tuning up and down across 3 x 11Mtr bands in 3 modes is not an efficient way of "finding stuff"