v3.9.18 CW Issues

K1ESE

Chatting on CW this morning with a couple of friends, we found two issues with the new version of SmartSDR.

Don't have SmartSignal turned on when using CW.
I had APD on. They reported that my CW timing was really bad at the beginning of a transmission. After a minute or so, it would return to normal. I turned off APD, and the problem was solved. Last night on SSB APD was not a problem, so this is a CW issue, and maybe on digital modes also.

Check your TX Delay and QSK Delays
They also reported that the first element of each word was being chopped off. After installing 3.9.18, on my PC, I saw that all the CW settings were set to their default. I set my TX Delay to 50 and my QSK Delay to 60.

When I started the Maestro this morning, they were both back at 0ms delay. This may be because I had switched from the PC to the Maestro, or it may be because I had set the option not to update Profiles on the fly. In any event, you can avoid hot switching if you check your delays until things settle.

73 de K1ESE
John

K3SF

remember they change profiles setting to have either auto save ( which use to be the standard ) or manual save ( which use to be the old standard) …have to check how yours is setup

Paul K3SF

Joe Uhrich

SmartSDR version 3.9.18 has a CW timing error that appears to be intermittent. It's small and doesn't occur often. There is a brief hang time in the individual dits and dahs at various times.

I notice it when calling CQ for a few minutes. I've restored my CW settings to the values I was using prior to upgrading to 3.9.18, APD is not turned on, and restarting my 8600 does not eliminate the problem.

Joe AI0Y

KD0RC

Hi Joe, are you keying the rig locally or remotely? What do you have your CW Delay set to?

Joe Uhrich

I am keying locally and the CW delay is set to 80.

Joe AI0Y

KD0RC

Ok, so probably not a setup issue. I wonder if RF is getting into something or if this is a firmware bug. I will try to get on CW over the next few days to see if I have the issue or not.

km9r.mike

SmartSDR version 3.9.18 has a CW timing error that appears to be intermittent. It's small and doesn't occur often. There is a brief hang time in the individual dits and dahs at various times.

I notice it when calling CQ for a few minutes. I've restored my CW settings to the values I was using prior to upgrading to 3.9.18, APD is not turned on, and restarting my 8600 does not eliminate the problem.

Joe AI0Y

I usually have monitor volume down low when using cw to be gentle on my hearing. After reading your post Joe and this evening during CWT I turned the monitor volume up and paid close attention to the cw being sent with my 8600 and v3.9.18 also with apd off and N1MM. I have the same intermittent issue as you Joe. I turned focus for N1MM off in SSDR and the issue remained. It also persisted regardless of delay set from zero up to 150ms. I tried a cold boot factory reset but the issue remained. I thought it was unfair for other ops to deal with it so I downgraded to 3.8,23 and another cold boot factory reset and voila back to issue free cw. Something appears to be amiss. It was as if things were hanging up or jittery. I thought focus helper was having hiccups perhaps but like I said issue persisted with focus helper off. Since I am sending mainly with N1MM macros perhaps it is somehow a cat issue with N1MM but I do not see why there is no issue with 3.8.23 and N1MM and cw. Above my pay grade.

mike km9r

Joe Uhrich

Flex Radio tells me that this is a probable software error. It's been designated as SMART-11363.

Joe AI0Y