Dual antenna and Digital

K7LER

Waiting for my 6600 to arrive. I have a Cirro Baby loop that is my primary antenna. It does 10-40m. I was thinking of getting a short 34 foot wire antenna to set up as a second antenna to allow for 6m and 80/160 as well as possibly dual monitoring. I focus mostly on Digital modes. Is there a way to designate WRJT-X and the Flex to use the loop antenna for the coverages it can do and then the wire for the other bands? If I was doing voice, it sounds like I just use one slice pointing to the wire antenna and one slice for the Cirro. To add to the complexity- the cirro gets cat control feed to let its controller tune, but I dont want the cat control to get the wire frequencies and use the built in tuner to tune the wire.

Ian Snow

Yess, using profiles. Ian VA3QT

Tim - W4TME

Yes, but you have to "drive" the changes from SmartSDR.  As Ian indicated, you can create Global Profiles for the Band/App combination you are using, but the switch will not be automatic when WSJT-X changes bands.  WSJT-X only uses the legacy (arcane) CAT protocol to control a radio.  If it was updated to use the SmartSDR API, that would allow it (really any application) to set the antenna by band.

This is a situation where the technology for controlling a radio in third-party software has not kept up with the radio technology.

Cal N3CAL

Hi Lance,   I saw the Baby Loop on display at Dayton this year!  I'm curious what your impressions may be and how well it performs?   I have a 4o3A Antenna Genius (8 x 2 Ant Swiitch) in line with my 6600 and have considered adding the Baby Loop as another antenna.  The 4o3A AG software can be customized to select primary antenna by band.  You can customize to your liking.

Cal/N3CAL

John - K3MA

Suggestion.  It will take you about 30 minutes to set this up but after that changing modes and band will be a one click operation.  Download and install Slice Master.  Download and install FRStacks.  ON SmartSDR setup a global profiles for each band and mode.  In Slice Master set it up to launch WSJT-X when DIgU is selected.  In FRStacks go to the Global Profile Tab and you will see all you Global profiles listed.  Use these to change band and modes.

If you do that then if your on 40M SSB and decide you want to work WSJT-X on 20M you click on that profile and the Flex changes all setting to 20M WSJT-X and the WSJT-X software starts up automatically.  Then if you decide to go back to 40M SSB you click on that box in FRStacks and the radio changes to all those setting and the WSJT-X software shuts down.

IF you work RTTY with FLDigi you can also set Global Profiles for it and it will start and shutdown automatically if you set it up in Slice Master to launch on selection of RTTY.

There are other ways to accomplish the same things but this is a one click solution and you leave one package open (FRStacks).  Slice Master can be minimized.

IF you had a M model you would find this also work well and then you do not need to fiddle with any menus on the front of the radio.

John

Neil D Friedman N3DF

Will the ATU match a 34-foot end-fed wire on 80/160?

Tim - W4TME

No.

K7LER

Taking dual antenna out of the picture... Would the band changes in WSJT-X using cat change flex passing the cat to the loop ATU automatically? I.e. WSPR in band hopping mode?

K7LER

I was looking specifically at the Alpha 6-160 34 dot Wire Antenna. It has a matching device which. Was also looking at a Chameleon Emcom ii

K7LER

I haven't done much phone but have done a lot of digital and love it. My QTH is in a west facing side of apartment on second floor. WSPR at 20 watts with a FTDX3000 reached Russia to NZ and AU to Antarctica to Italy to Cape Horn and Monico in Africa.