Having different preamp settings per band with profiles

Andy - KU7T

I am failing miserably with profiles. I hope someone can straighten me out. There is something about profiles that is hard for me to get it seems...

I would like to setup different preamp settings for ANT on 20 and 15. Thats it. nothing fancy. I created 2 global profiles, 20MCWANT1 and 15MCWANT1 but when I switched bands they are not being picked by the radio. So, it seems I have create and saved them but not assigned them yet?

Can someone help?

Thanks,
Andy
KU7T

Joe N3HEE

Andy.  Change bands by selecting and loading one of the profiles you created.  You have to load the profile manually.  Once loaded, you should see all of the settings that you saved in that profile.  In other words, global profiles wont load by simply changing bands.  -Joe

Craig_KØCF

Profiles are not automatically loaded. You must select it from the menu or drop down in the control panel. When you select it, the settings in that profile will be applied.
Another way of doing this is to use the Memory feature in FRStack, and very nice free utility. This will provide you a button to click on to select a band/mode with all the associated settings. Try it! You'll like it.

Andy - KU7T

My intention to change bands is by doing that with my logging program, N1MM+ by CRTL PageUp/Dwn or typign frequency, etc.

Are you saying I need to select a different profile every time I switch bands additionally? That would be very inefficient in a contest scenario. I cannot imagine others to that. There has to be an easier way...

73
Andy
KU7T

Craig_KØCF

FRStack does just that with a single button click, as I noted above... I keep FRStack open right next to my panadapter display all the time.

Joe N3HEE

I understand what you want to do however profiles dont work that way.  I also use N1MM+ and I change bands by loading various profiles I have created.  It's quick and easy and ensures I get the proper antenna ports selected per band automatically each time I make a band change.  You could also use DDUtil to create macros that you can access from your Windows desktop. 

Joe N3HEE

Or do what Craig has described with FRStack.

Andy - KU7T

I am using FRStack. Good. But how do I do this with profiles in SO2R mode. Say my 20m antenna requires 0db pream, and my 15m requires +8db. I use an external antenna switch, so I cannot say ANT1 is alwasy 20 and ANT2 is always 15.  

I would like my slice A alwasy be my running slice, and Slice B my S&P slice. Lets say I work with 20m and 15m. Do I need to create two global profiles: 20MACW_15MBCW and 15MACW_20MBCW?  Thats quite some combinations?

Andy
KU7T

Joe N3HEE

I just create one profile per band pair.  Each profile simply loads the band pairs, mode, power, filters and antenna ports for each slice.  For example 160/80CW, 80/40CW, 40/20CW, etc.  I can then choose to run or S&P on either band via N1MM settings. 

To keep things straight in my head and with my antenna switch I configure slice A to use ANT 1 and slice B to use ANT 2 for both TX and RX.  Those antenna ports are connected to radio A and radio B respectively on my Six Pak antenna switch. 

So when I want to operate CW on 80 and 40 meters I simply load the 80/40CW profile.  The bands, mode, power, filters and antenna ports are loaded.  My Six Pak automatically switches to the correct antennas via my USB conntroller connected to the radio. I'm then all set to either run on 80 or S&P 40 or run on 40 and S&P on 80 or S&P and or RUN on both bands depending on what I want to do by making selections in N1MM.

It took me a while to get my head around all of this but it works great once you get all the profiles set up and working the way you want them to. 

Andy - KU7T

Joe, 
I have a similar setup with antenna switching. I switch antennas manually though. 

Do you always have 80m on slice A, ANT1, and 40m on slice B, ANT2, no matter which band of the two you actually run on?  I am accustomzed to run with EW1 and do S&P with EW2, and am trying to figure out if I need to change...

73
Andy
KU7T

Joe N3HEE

Yes.  What is EW1 and EW2 ?

Andy - KU7T

Sorry, I was not more clear.

EW1: entry window in N1MM+ for the left radio
EW2: entry window in N1MM+ for the right radio

I usually have them on the screen next to each other, they correspond like Slice A = EW1 + left keyboard, slice B = EW2 + right keyboard. 

Andy
KU7T

Joe N3HEE

Oh, OK.  I have my entry windows set the same way.  I use a single keyboard.  Sometimes I run on EW1 and sometimes I run on EW2.  It doesnt matter to me.  I dont have to reconfigure my slices that way.  It gives me the flexability to jump around when I feel like running on the other slice for a while. 

Ken - NM9P

You may be making this too difficult....  If you simply want different preamp settings to apply to different bands when you change bands....The preamp setting for each band should be remembered with the rig persistence, not requiring a different Global Profile at all.  

I have never understood Global Profiles as a tool for simply changing bands, or changing modes.  They are designed for making dramatic station configuration changes.  For example:

Moving from a rag-chew/casual operation to "Contest mode" where a number of parameters need to be changed, like TX timing for multiple amps, power settings on different bands, etc.

OR.. moving from a casual setup to a "power FT8" or "Power Digital" mode where you have four bands on four panadapters set up at the same time, with the four FT8 frequencies all loaded up and the slices zoomed for easy observation of the signals and waterfalls.

OR... moving from an HF setup to a setup that involves transverters and you want the panadaptors and timings to reflect those changes.


If you are wanting to have a setup where you run two bands on two different antennas, then simply use two panadapters, one for each band.  Using N1MM+ you can set up SO2R mode, (even if you aren't doing a full SO2R operation).  Then set up a TRANSMIT Profile for each of the two bands.
Load TX15  Profile on the top panadapter which is running 15 Meters.  Load the TX20 Profile on the bottom panadapter which is running 20 Meters.   If you save each of the TX profiles after you have each one running the correct antenna, then it will remember the antenna selection, TX timing, power output, and other things every time you shift from the top panadaptor to the bottom panadaptor.

But if you don't save the profile, it will not remember any change you make to it.  it is a smart rig, but too smart to let you mess up a profile unintentionally.  you need to save it.

Patrick

I run everything from profiles. Only use command buttons to make setting that are remembered in the profiles. I do find that persistence sometimes conflicts with the profile system. I feel that there needs to be a priority system that will automatically put a desired selection to the profile system. This would improve repeatability of a profile selection. The present persistance programming seems seems to work as a band prioritized settings. I have found that profiles work best as band centric. So I assign a band to all profiles, even if the same settings are used from band to band. Unfortunately this ends up making lots of profile entries. I wish there was a way to reduce this profile clutter. This could be expressed as a sub profile. So one could set up, let’s say FT8 profile. Then have some language that would look like this: (80,40,20) (FT8) This would allow one entry instead of 3.

Joe N3HEE

I suppose there are many ways to do this.  I find it much easier to load a single global profile that will give me two panadapters with band, mode, filter settings, power and antenna ports that I want and be done with it.