Big time Flex contest station in action

Rick Hadley - W0FG

Craig, K9CT is running 'em on 14.021.

Kevin

I assume he's using an external keyer or not using QSK?

I  have not seen the skips/delays in CWX/Winkey emulation this contest but, as noted in a previous post, QSK seems to be the feature contributing to the problem. It really needs to be fixed.

Other than that... SSDR, CW Skimmer, DDUtils, N1MM+ along with the new KPA500/KAT500 setup seems to be doing a great job for a casual effort. I love how N1MM's band map works so well with CW Skimmer. I love how it all seems to act as one station and not individual components.

Question... in the contest I hear DX stations sending NN for power. Does that mean 99 Watts? I also hear NTT (100), K or KW (1000), 4TT (400) but I can't figure out NN. Any idea?

73,
Kev K4VD

Rick Hadley - W0FG

I'm assuming 99 in 'cut numbers'. http://ac6v.com/morseaids.htm#AB

Kevin

I figured 1TT would be just as easy as NN so I thought maybe it had another meaning.

Ria

He's probably using the built in winkeyer. 

Ria

NN is quicker, and what's a watt between friends? 

Kevin

Then I wonder if he's running alpha code and a fix fo CWX/Winkeyer is imminent. That would be nice!

Ria

It's really no secret that alpha testers try out fixes on air. I can't confirm or deny that's what he's doing. However contest times are usually great for shaking out bugs and breaking software. Then the awesome flex radio dev team gets to fix them. I would say that the next release (whenever that is) should be well tested given all of the contest activity. They've been really hard at work.

I will say this - Craig is very much invested in making the platform better as he runs a good bulk of his station on flex radios.

Clay N9IO

All Flex 6K now including a Flex 1500 dedicated to EME.

Lasse Moell

Craig called me for a Flex-Flex contest QSO. Excellent signals!

Lasse Moell

ETT would be even faster

Craig_KØCF

Actually, if you graph it out, both take exactly 13 Morse elements:

ETT -****---****---
NN   ---x-****---x-
where "-" is 1 key-down dot space; "x" is 1 key-up dot space.

From a purely esthetic perspective, NN has a much nicer rhythm to it!

73,
Craig, KØCF

Craig_KØCF

Actually, in thinking about it, ETT is not the cut number for 100 -- ATT is. ETT is cut for 500.

Steve Jones gw0gei

Running with 4tt here and nice to also work Craig on several bands despite just running dipoles and wire verticals here at gw9j

Clay N9IO

K9CT results, 3rd so far from 3830 reflector:

K9CT M/2 ARRL DX CW 2017

http://www.3830scores.com/editionscores.php?c=1&arg=92fmyRz0gsqsR

M/2 HP
Call QSOs Mults Op Time Score Club
W2FU 5284 553 48 8,686,524 NCC
KP2M 6953 347  7,232,868 PVRC
K9CT 4315 532 48 6,838,860 SMC
W9SN 4238 511 48 6,476,925 TCG
K8AZ 3976 526 48 6,250,458 NCC
K2QMF 4086 496 40 6,079,968 OBONY
NØNI 3719 529 48 5,797,311 IaDXCC
EI7M 4940 276  4,082,040 
W2CG 2737 465 38 3,806,955 FRC
VE3YAA 2861 435  3,655,305 CCO

Kevin

Not bad. Does K9CT have a soapbox or maybe they'll post a report here?

What's #1 and #2 running?

73,
Kev K4VD

Ria

They are running K3s. W2FU is the owner of green heron engineering.

Ria

I would imagine it's a bit harder for Craig to run Europe from Illinois than it is from NY.

Clay N9IO

Definitely!  The Midwest is affectionately referred to as The Black Hole of RF for a good reason...  A top op I know that lives here is from NY.  Says there is such a MAJOR difference that took him quite some time to get used to.

Craig_KØCF

You can see K9CT's soapbox comments by clicking the link to 3830scores.com in N9IO's post above. Then click on "K9CT" near the top of the list. This takes you to his band breakdown and soapbox. They are currently 2nd in the US -- P4ØR and KP2M are both DX. Very impressive performance by Craig and his team!

Craig K9CT

Hello....just saw the post. Thanks for noticing our activity. Yes, we are using all Flex and soon the Beta amplifiers. The software was the "second to last" Alpha. WK emulator was used and it is flawless. Not one crash or problem noted. We use two radios per band most of the time...obviously with strong in band signals. 

I usually test out the software on Wednesdays during the CWTs. 

A picture of the team is at www.k9ct.us

W2FU is a friend and we work together on GHE software. He builds and test and I test. We are always discussing contest strategy and station building. We have a 12 by 4 antenna switch and he wrote some software the provides an antenna lockout from station to station...pretty cool and it is available from GH for free to be used with his devices. 

I am trying to convince Jeff to switch to Flex as he uses K3s now. Maybe once the amplifiers are available we can get him to move. 

73, Craig K9CT

Kevin

Hi Craig... I wonder how you were able to get flawless performance from the WK emulator and are not seeing the problems I or others have reported with the stuttering.

Do you have a standard setting for your QSK and delay or is that up to the individual operator? Have you ever experienced this stutter?

73,
Kev K4VD

Craig K9CT

May I suggest that you uninstall you SSDR and reinstall. It may be a windows timing issue in play. I assume you are using the latest Beta and just installed over the iterations of software updates. One of the Alpha testers was having this happen and he was able to rid these conditions by starting over....uninstall and then reinstall. 

QSK is not used. QSK on the Flex is a misnomer. I don't like QSK anyhow and especially in a contest. PTT is set to 75 ms in N1MM and 150-200 ms in Flex. We run about 35 wpm and I don't want the PTT to dropout between words. 

I find this is comfortable for SO2R as well...I don't listen to the sidetone. I listen to the other radio when I am transmitting and don't need PTT dropping out when sending. 

Please let me know what you find out. You should have a clean CW setup when finished. I have six 6XXX setups running smoothly on cw. 

Kevin

Thanks! This is the type of hints & kinks I hoped for from the contesting experts. I had always thought QSK was kind of a staple of contesting. I think I might be confusing the use of QSK with working nets, something I used to do years ago.

I'll be trying your settings and adjust from there. Thanks for the valuable info!

Kev

Lasse Moell

Spent an hour in ARRL DX with my 6500 and N1MM+ using built-in Winkey emu. No stuttering or lag. Using latest beta-soft.
/Lasse SM5GLC