Dave,
Your last comment is correct. However, CW Skimmer comes into its own
when you feed it IF I&Q data. You can see what is happening across the
band or a portion of it and still read the signal narrow band. You do
this by clicking on the signal you want to pursue and and listen in
narrow band. By clicking on the wanted signal, the radio is tuned to it.
This does require a little set up and setting offsets, but it is really
worth it. A little interesting point: in a little less than rigorous
testing, I found that that Skimmer seems to work a bit better using I&Q
data rather than just the receiver audio. But, that was not a rigorous
test and someone who is really interested can do the follow up.
73,
Barry
K3NDM
------ Original Message ------
From: "David Gilbert" <xda...@cis-broadband.com>
To: "rich hurd WC3T" <r...@wc3t.us>
Cc: elecraft@mailman.qth.net
Sent: 10/8/2019 12:23:13 AM
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] K3 CW Text Decoding
If you haven't played with CW Skimmer much, here's a couple of points of
interest.
1. You can run multiple instances. I fed the Line Out from my K3 into the
sound card of my computer, and had one instance of CW SKimmer display a
waterfall of the narrow band audio from the main receiver and another instance
of CW Skimmer display the narrow band audio from the sub receiver. You'd be
amazed at how distinct the dits and dahs look compared to just about every
other waterfall application I've ever seen. You can shrink the vertical
display height of both instances of CW Skimmer to make them fit above your
logging program on a decent sized monitor. Imagine being able to pick out the
callsign of a station on VFO B while you are focused on working somebody on VFO
A ... even if he gave his callsign several seconds before you looked at the VFO
B waterfall.
2. There is a command that will pause the CW Skimmer waterfall. It's a toggle
... hit it once to pause and hit it again to restart. I don't remember the
command off the top of my head but I remember mapping it to a key on the
keyboard using the outstanding free application called AutoHotKey. I didn't
have to use it very often, but any time I blew a received report I'd just tap
that key and it would let me visually decode whatever I busted and correct it
after the contact, and since the display was paused I could do it when it was
convenient.
3. If you turn off the decode in CW Skimmer it is simply a waterfall and qualifies for
unassisted categories, but the visual display cuts you a lot of slack for human decoding.
Just read the dots and dashes in your mind as dits and dahs and you'd be surprised how
quickly you learn to decode visually ... except now you have a "do over"
capability to help you out, or alternatively have a brief record of whatever is happening
on one VFO while you are active on the other. It's almost like turning one operator
into one and a half operators.
4. You don't need ANY additional hardware to use CW Skimmer in audio mode.
73,
Dave AB7E
On 10/7/2019 7:26 PM, rich hurd WC3T wrote:
Just be sure you give it a fair shake after you install it. I installed it and
sort of played with it unseriously. Then when I really started to dive into
it, I discovered the 30 day timer had expired. And I didn’t get a chance to
justify to myself the expense.
I’m now building a laptop for ham-only use and will reinstall it and try again.
On Mon, Oct 7, 2019 at 22:04 David Gilbert <xda...@cis-broadband.com
<mailto:xda...@cis-broadband.com>> wrote:
CW Skimmer not only has a great decoder, it has the best waterfall
display I've seen. On top of that, the waterfall runs right to left
like all narrowband waterfalls should so that you can read left to
right
to visually decode a CW signal several seconds after the fact if you
miss a character when decoding by ear. I have often used CW
Skimmer in
a CW contest in narrowband audio mode with decoding turned off for
this
purpose. It works great and saves asking for repeats if you
happened to
miss an element.
I once proposed here in this reflector that it would be nice if
the K4
could have the option to do the same thing but all I heard back was
crickets.
73,
Dave AB7E
On 10/7/2019 5:46 PM, Barry wrote:
> Brian,
> It does work. But it usually takes a pretty good signal. I have
> gone over to CW Skimmer as it appears to be t he best thing on the
> street, better than most all of the others. I can contest with
it at a
> pretty good clip. The setup is slightly involved, but once set
up it
> really works well and can control the radio.
>
> 73,
> Barry
> K3NDM
______________________________________________________________
Elecraft mailing list
Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net
<mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net>
This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
Message delivered to r...@wc3t.us <mailto:r...@wc3t.us>
-- 72,
Rich Hurd / WC3T / DMR: 3142737
Northampton County RACES, EPA-ARRL Public Information Officer for Scouting
Latitude: 40.761621 Longitude: -75.288988 (40°45.68' N 75°17.33' W) Grid:
*FN20is*
______________________________________________________________
Elecraft mailing list
Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net
This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
Message delivered to barrylaz...@gmail.com
______________________________________________________________
Elecraft mailing list
Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net
This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
