CW QSK with 6400 & Maestro

J R

Joe N3HEE

Phil N3ZP

J R

N1DZ

Will

Paul Christensen, W9AC

After once owning a 6700, I'm reluctantly considering the purchase of a 6400M, mostly for evaluation purposes. My understanding is the 6400M is equivalent to a 6400 with a remoted Maestro B. A few questions:

1) When I owned a 6700 and Maestro A, audio from the Opus CODEC was awful with far too many digital compression artifacts. Can the 6400M be operated locally without engaging the Opus CODEC?

2) The 6700 Maestro combination had a quasi-square wave CW sidetone but the 6700's local sidetone was a sinewave. Is that now corrected in the 6400M?

Paul, W9AC

Mike-VA3MW

1). Opus is only used on a SmartLink connection. On a local Lan the audio stream is un-compressed and uses a different codec and the audio is not compressed at all. I guess if there was a concern with digital compression artifacts today, we would hear many many users complaining. The good news is that we do not hear those complaints if they exist.

2). The sidetone on the Maestro A and B is the same. And, the same is true with the M model.