With Varying Frequency - Amateur Radio Ponderings

I had a long chat with Milt Cram, W8NUE at AmQRP’s NUE-PSK Booth. Though I received the NEU-PSK modem I ordered under the early-bird program a few weeks before Dayton, I had made less than 20 QSOs with the unit and was eager to learn more.

Presently there is a firmware update that Milt W8NUE offered to install if I had my unit with me. (I didn’t)   Future Firmware Updates are planned to expand the ability of the modem! 

Additional Modes and Logging Ability are high on the list.  Following the NUE-PSK reflector since Dayton some of these features are becoming reality, and again I need to get out the same interface I use with my Arduino boards to update firmware.

Fellow AmQRP team members were final assembling full kits for sale at the booth and demonstrating the modem to the gathered crowds of amateurs.

Not surprising that this excellent Modem Project has a personable and excellent team behind it!

Here are some of my previous articles on the NUE-PSK Modem:

AmQRP Releases a Significant Upgrade to the NUE-PSK Modem 

First QSO’s with NUE-PSK Digital Modem 

NUE-PSK Unit Arrives at K9ZW 

NUE-PSK - Huge Amateur Support for AmQRP PSK Project 

AmQRP NUE-PSK 

AmQRP’s “NUE-PSK Digital Modem” Reviewed in QST and QEX 

Field Portable PSK without a Computer - AmQRP’s NUE-PSK Digital Modem 

73

Steve
K9ZW

The Green Heron Rotor Control continues to impress me.

 
With the formal release of the GH Everyware Program this control really shines!  This program allows remote IP based control of multiple Green Heron RT-20 and RT-21 controllers.

Green Heron’s  Jeff Ach W2FU demonstrated control of his multi-tower station back in New York state via GH Everyware directly from his Dayton Booth!  We watched our commands execute via webcams pointed at the towers.  Automatic selection of rotor, tower, polling/voting by rule-sets for multiple users and more!

I’d written about the RT-20 back in As the World Turns - Green Heron RT-20 Rotor Control

The newest RT-21 adds USB connectivity and a new RT-21D model adds a Vacuum Fluorescent Display (VFD) and custom black front panel. Green Heron also builds the K7NV Prop Pitch Systems
Standard Control Box, a customization of the RT-21 to handle the special demands of of a Prop Pitch Motor.

My RT-20 has work flawlessly for a couple years.

Recommended!

73

Steve
K9ZW

AmQRP has released a significant upgrade to the NUE-PSK

This is an easy upgrade, much along the likes of loading an Arduino or Boarduino with a program.

Here are the release notes:

===================
   v1.20 Release Notes 
       May 13, 2008
===================  

Bug fixes …

1) CwID is now working.

2) Some non-printable characters no longer print as “garbage” on display.

3) ”Right Half Of Display Blanking” has been fixed by adjusting the timing of the control sugnals to the LCD. 

4) Improved locking onto PSK signals on the spectrum.

5) Smoother interaction with the Tune encoder control, primarily with the menu slections under the Select pushbutton.

New Features …

1) F10 for TX Toggle … F10 is now used to switch between Tx and Rx modes. (F12 was previously used for this, but using F10 is much more convenient for operators using the popular “2366″ minikeyboards that require you to hold the Fn key to get to F11 and F12.)

2) Backspace … The backspace key now works as expected when recording macros or transmitting. It always worked as far as the outgoing signal was concerned, but the display did not show the cursor backing up by blanking the previously-typed character.

3) Ctrl-S (”Switch To Transmit”) … is now available for use as a special control character at the beginning of a macro. The control character is looked for when a macro button is pressed, even while in receive, If the character is found at the beginning of a macro, the modem will automatically switch to transmit, and continue to play the rest of the macro. This means that you can generate a macro for calling CQ that will switch the modem to transmit without having to use F10, call CQ and return to receive mode if the macro is ended with Ctrl-Q … all by using a single key press. This makes it possible to significantly reduce, or even eliminate, the need for pressing F10 when conducting a QSO.

4) Speed tuning … 1X, 2X, 5X and 10X step rates are now available for tuning using the keyboard keys:
     1X: left/right arrow keys
     2X: up/down arrow keys
     5X: Alt + left/right arrow keys
     10X: Alt +up/down arrow keys

5) Configuration Menu Improvements … we added several user interface improvements concerning the displaying, saving and loading of configurable modem settings.

     a) “Current setting display” – When you dial up a configurable menu (Mode, Squelch, CwID, Backlight, PGA), the current setting is now shown. (Previously, the display always showed the first choice, regardless of another choice already being in effect.) 

     b) “Save Configuration” … A new menu item is available, one-position counter-clockwise from exit, whereby you can save the current settings to nonvolatile memory. Thus whatever changes made to the configurable items (Mode, Squelch, CwID, Backlight, PGA) will be automatically restored upon the next power-up. 

     c) “Report Configuration” … F12 now toggles the display of the current configuration settings. Pressing F12 once shows the current settings, and pressing F12 again (or any other key) brings you back to normal modem operation. This is a convenient way to view at a glance the current settings in the modem.

6) Supply Voltage … is displayed in the splash screen on the display during power-up. Helpful when running on batteries to see the starting voltage level of the supply.

 

All the upgrades are well worth it - I plan to upgrade mine after the Dayton Hamvention when I have some more time.

Check out all the action at:  http://www.nue-psk.com/

73

Steve

 I’ve been a fan of the PowerMaster meter since I purchased an early model from Array Solutions.

 ArraySolutions has continued to improve the product.  The case design show in the photo is the second design, as the early ones have mounting plates on them, for rack mounting.

There has also been a series of firmware and software updates.

I had put off taking the time to do the updates.

A couple weekend ago I went through the process and found it easy.

Download the needed files, run the update program with the unit hooked up to the computer and it is done!

Added a number of Alarm features,  some low power features, appearance features, and some minor updates.

Also took the time to fine tune my personal settings.

Took all of a couple minutes and greatly improved the unit!

73

Steve

The first three PSK QSOs I made with the new NUE-PSK Modem were:

George AD4DR 14.070

George NGWK 7.070

and

Jose Antonio EC7ABH 14.070

THANK YOU GENTLEMEN! 

Hooking the NUE-PSK Modem to a Yaesu FT-897 with LDG AT-897 Tuner and LDG FT Meter was a breeze.

Programing the Macros into the NUE-PSK is straight forward, with the one exception of the screen not being WYSIWYG during Macro Entry.  I have to dig into the documentation further, as perhaps there is a way to “look at” the raw Macro once entered.

More later this week once I get a fifty or so more NUE-PSK Modem QSOs logged.

73

Steve

It continues to be either silly cold or over the top with snow here in Northeastern Wisconsin. 

Temperatures have seldom gone too much below -10F (-23c), but they have been there often and for lengthy periods.  The National Weather Service has declared it the snowiest winter they have recorded for Wisconsin.

Equipment is starting to show signs of winter fatigue.  Quite a number of cable-ties used to tidy-up the tower have snapped in the cold.   My anti-climb guards have part fallen away (one must be under the 2 foot of snow out there) as a result. 

The heavy layer of ice fortunately came from rain on top of snow, so the wire antennas were ok.  Getting out to check them is a bit of a slog, and I enlisted one of my sons to put on shoeshoes to run around the property checking things over.

Ready for Spring here!

73

Steve