CW Profiles ?

W2ECK

Wondering how folks have their Flex's set up for optimum CW ? Do you save as a CW Profile(s) ? If so can you share your setups?

73 Paul w2eck

Stephen Hawkins NG0G

Profiles are your friend I have two for all bands.  A couple have three.  I started on 10m set the radio up to operate split in the CW portion of the band.  I set the power level where I want it and every other option so that the radio is set to operate split in the CW portion of the band.  Then I go the menu choose "profiles'.  I give this profile a name 10CW and touch save.  Then I do the same thing for the phone portion of 10m.  I work my way down to 160m creating two profiles for each band. 

Then I set the radio up on the frequency of a net I check into frequently.  I choose all the options I want.  Then I go to profiles name and give it the name of the net or an abbreviated version of that and touch save.  

If say I am listening to 160m in the early morning and I see someone calling CQ and operating simplex I make the adjustment from split to simplex on the screen with a stylus without changing my profile.  If the station is very week I will use the stylus to select APF and use the button on the front of the radio to set the step size to "1".  I may also experiment with the shift and the AGCT on the front panel in attempt to bring the station from ESP to clean enough to be sure it is me that he comes back to.   I do all these tweeks without changing the profile.  That way when I select and load a profile I know already how the radio is setup and I make any needed adjustments on the fly.

I have the CW profile set to have the DX station on "A" and the pileup on "B".  If the pileup is huge I may touch the screen and spread things out.  Over the years my brain seems to have developed some sort of assembly language subroutine that connects my right ear to my right hand as I hunt though the pileup to find the pattern of the DX station so I can be right where his is listening. 

I hope this helps.  Feel free to ask any questions you may have.

73 Stephen Hawkins NG0G 

Stephen Hawkins NG0G

I forgot to mention in the reply above.  My radio is a Flex-6400M..   I am a retired Unix / Linux geek and at home I have a router, a firewall, two 8 port switches and 11 computers so I am not anti computers.   But as I mentioned above years of chasing DX with regular radios has fine tuned my ear / brain and hand to use knobs to hunt through pileups.   And years of operating with no amp and poor antennas polished the fine tuning.  I only have one computer with windows on it.  I use it to run RTSystems software to program my dual banders and to back up my profiles.  Other then backing up my profiles I have never connected to the radio with a computer.

W2ECK

Stephen - very much appreciate your reply. I understand how you are utilizing the profiles and how you can modify on the fly as conditions dictate. You mention how you "choose all the options" you want before saving the profile--- what are those options you choose for cw before saving. Lastly, you mention using AGC and APF to hear a station better, what are some other SSDR controls that you may use during a CW QSO to improve operating conditions?

73 Paul w2eck

Stephen Hawkins NG0G

I use an external memory keyer that I built probably 20 years ago.  So I select that instead of the internal keyer.  I run full break-in so I changed the TX delay to 25 to keep from hot switching my amp.  On phone I select that I am using a Heil headset with an HC-6 element.   Other things I do to help with weak signals might be to increase or in some cases decrease the pre amp.  I can choose a narrower CW filter. As soon as harvest is done on the field behind my house I will **** a Beverage aimed at EU.  When that is done I might choose the listening antenna to hear.  Although once in a while I can hear better on my 160m Inverted L then I can on the listening antenna. The APF has adjustments and tweaking that has let me make a couple of contacts that were only a hair above ESP.   I normally have the DX station in my left ear and the pileup in my right.   But if the DX station is very weak I will take the slider on "A" and move it over.  Keeping the pileup in my right ear I will set it so the DX station is in both ears.  Wie two inputs your brain has more signal to deal with.  These kinds of things on my older radios and mediocre to poor antennas got me to 285 confirmed before I got my amp.   I retired 5 years ago and spent a year looking for a good place to live and build an antenna farm.  See QRZ. I'm having the time of my life.

W2ECK

Stephen - thanks for the tips and the rundown on how you use profiles. It was all very helpful. Thanks again.

73 Paul w2eck 

Ignacio EA4OR

To add something else, I adjust the equalizer only RX and set it as follows: 500 Hz and 1 KHz to + 10dB and the rest to -10dB

73, Ignacio EA4OR

W2ECK

Ignacio - just tried that and a super idea. For my ears I also put the 1k at +10

thanks
Paul
w2eck

W2ECK

Stephen, Ignacio and others:
One other question on CW Profiles. What Transmit Bandwidth are you typically using in their setup for CW ?

73 Paul w2eck

AC9S

One other tip I might add is to use a very narrow bandwidth on CW signals right at the noise level.  If there is no QRM I will drop the filter to 50 Hz and move filter latency to the minimum to reduce ringing.  This doesn't work with QRM since with minimum latency the filter has extremely broad skirts.

Keith - AC9S

Stephen Hawkins NG0G

Tell me where you mean in the menu structure.  

W2ECK

the hi and lo cut Tx bandwidth

Stephen Hawkins NG0G

I don't think that is for CW.  This is from the manual. 
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• Downward Expander (DEXP): A downward expander variably attenuates the mic gain by a certain percentage below a threshold setting rather than gating it on and off. This results in filtering out background noise without the abrupt on/off or chattering of a noise gate. The effect of a downward expander is to increase the apparent dynamic range of the system by decreasing the gain during the relatively quiet times thereby moving the apparent noise floor downward. See section 21.4.6, How to Configure the Downward Expander (DEXP) for full details.

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W2ECK

Stephen - sri - red highlights were confusing, I wasn't referring to the DXEP, question was regarding settings for lo and hi cut Tx filter people are using for CW

Paul

W2ECK

Keith - how do you change the filter latency? Couldn't find in the manual.
tnx Paul

N9VC

If you read the manual. I'm looking at version 2.49 SmartSDR user manual.
The transmit bandwidth is for a SSB signal. Not for CW.

W2ECK

James - thank you for pointing that out. Going back to manual that is exactly what it says. So much for that question :0))

73 Paul

AC9S

It is done from the filters tab under radio setup.  I turn "auto" off and slide the CW latency slider all the way to the left.

Keith - AC9S