RE: [digitalradio] Understanding soundcard basics ?
Hello Andy, There was a very good article in QST a few years ago about sound cards. They ran five different cards through quite a battery of tests in the ARRL Lab and yes indeed, you really do get better performance out of some cards. But dollar for dollar, the performance was not linear. As you know, you can do quite well on a cheap card but do marginally better on a 60 dollar card and the lab reports showed as much. I am sure that most of the cards they reviewed are no longer being manufactured or have changed at least a little so it is difficult (like anything else electronic these days) to keep up with what is good. I am sure that QST article is available in the back issues if somebody wanted to dig for it but I learned a lot. I have no trouble with my card but I am not fighting the WINMOR Battle with it yet. Contentment and enlightenment await those who are not early adopters of technology . . . I have not yet reached the 24th stage of WINMOR awareness. :-) And I am prepared to wait on a few more beta releases - Yes I am a member of the WINMOR Yahoo group. I suspect that any calibration done in one application is only good for the use of that card in that application and nowhere else in that computer. But hey, I could be wrong on this. Rick - KH2DF _ From: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com [mailto:digitalra...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of obrienaj Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 6:01 PM To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com Subject: [digitalradio] Understanding soundcard basics ? From what I have read in the past, there is a difference between inexpensive sound cards and the high quality ones. I recall past articles that suggest the high quality ones can result in some very weak signals being detectable in a waterfall, whereas cheap cards may not reproduce the signal. However, as most of us know, even the cheap sound cards effectively render the average ham signals, even quite weak ones. So, aside from the higher end ones rendering weak signals on a waterfall better, what are measurable difference between a poor cheap one and a really good top-of-the-line one ? Can someone explain this is plain English? I am aware of the calibration/timing issue. Although that too does not seem to make a huge difference with many digital modes. Of the numerous digital modes I have tried over the years, PC-ALE and JT65A in WSJT have been the most impacted by calibration issues. I have seen WSJT not decode at all when timing of the soundcard is not correct. Do higher end sound card have less problems with timing/calibration than cheap ones? Is calibration really an issue of concern IF an application can enable a re-calibration process ? If an application enables re-calibration, does that only hold for that application or can it correct the soundcard for other applications. I raise these questions out of general interest, but also because of recent WINMOR test where the poor performance has been blamed , in part, on cheap sound cards or sound cards not dedicated to the application. I don't know enough to argue the point, but my suspicion is that it is really not that sound card related. Andy K3UK
[digitalradio] Anybody On Tonight?
Where is everybody hanging out? Rick - KH2DF/W5
RE: [digitalradio] Need help with PSK-31 and my antenna tuner
Hello Doug, It sounds like you have quite a bit of RF in the shack. I have D-Star here with no problems on an Icom 91AD. Do you do a lot of transmitting into non-resonant antennae? Do your radios still lock up when transmitting into an antenna that is closer to being resonant? Try disconnecting the lines (power and antenna) one at a time to the radios to see where the RF is coming in. Once you figure that out, try a few turns of power wire or antenna coax around some toroids placed close to the radio chassis/enclosure. All the big box ham stores (AES/HRO etc) have these and you should be able to block your RF on the line with one or more - usually Type 43 material in the toroid if I remember correctly. And they are usually pretty cheap - I would start of with maybe a dozen and see what happens because you could be faced with it getting in on both lines. Rick - KH2DF _ From: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com [mailto:digitalra...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of doug_tara2005 Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2009 8:15 PM To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com Subject: [digitalradio] Need help with PSK-31 and my antenna tuner Hi, I'm having a little problem with my antenna tuner when transmitting PSK-31 above 30 watts. I have a IC-706MKIIG with a MFJ-945E. Both are on their own powersupply and well grounded. When I transmit PSK-31, it locks up my IC-2820H (D-STAR) radio (unable to transmit DV, analog or control the radio). My IC-2820H is on a different powersupply and also grounded. The radios and tuner are about 3-4 feet apart from each other. Additionally, I use to have a KPC-9612 and it also locked up from time to time and had to do a hard reset. I didn't think anything was at fault and have sold my KPC-9612, but the PSK-31/auto tuner could have also been locking it up. Does anyone else have this problem? Can anyone give me good advise about my setup? --73 de Doug (N1OBU)
RE: [digitalradio] QRV ALE-400 this evening
Yes, thank you very much. Rick KH2DF/W5 _ From: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com [mailto:digitalra...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Tony Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 2:21 PM To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [digitalradio] QRV ALE-400 this evening Thank you Patrick! - Original Message - From: Patrick Lindecker f6...@free.fr mailto:f6cte%40free.fr To: digitalradio@ mailto:digitalradio%40yahoogroups.com yahoogroups.com Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 3:13 PM Subject: Re: [digitalradio] QRV ALE-400 this evening Hello Tony and Richard, In ALE the callsigns are limited to 0 à 9, ?, @, A à Z I will add / for ARQ FAE only in the next version. 73 Patrick - Original Message - From: Tony To: digitalradio@ mailto:digitalradio%40yahoogroups.com yahoogroups.com Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 3:02 AM Subject: Re: [digitalradio] QRV ALE-400 this evening Richard, Copy your sigs fine here. CQ KH2DF/W5 CQ KH2DF/W5 CQ KH2DF/W5 CQ KH2DF/W5 Multipsk has an issue with your call. Won't allow me to enter the /W5 when connecting with ALE-400. I'll ask Patrick about that. Tony -K2MO
RE: [digitalradio] KH2DF I saw you
Hello Fred, I did not know it but I had accidently stepped on an Olivia QSO already in progress just below .074. I thought that I should quit at that point but I did hear some FAE activity a few minutes later. I should have responded but I had already gotten sidetracked getting a computer ready for Field Day later this month. Oh well . . . there is always tomorrow night. Now I have to run and pick up my son at soccer practice . . . Rick - KH2DF/W5 _ From: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com [mailto:digitalra...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Fred VE3FAL Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2009 7:17 PM To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com Subject: [digitalradio] KH2DF I saw you Saw you and had nice copy, even replied.. Fred VE3FAL _ avast! Antivirus http://www.avast.com : Outbound message clean. Virus Database (VPS): 090610-0, 06/10/2009 Tested on: 6/11/2009 8:17:13 PM avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2009 ALWIL Software.
RE: [digitalradio] Copy You K2Mo
I copied both of you very well here in northwest Louisiana. My trouble was figuring out the buttons for the mode. I rarely do anything other than Olivia, Hellschreiber, MFSK etc which makes me very unfamiliar with ALE FAE 400. Ditto for MultiPSK. Tony - do you think it did not like my /W5? With a KH2 prefix, I feel it is necessary to use that. I do not get out to Guam much anymore. The signals were plenty strong enough that it should have linked. Rick - KH2DF/W5 _ From: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com [mailto:digitalra...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Tony Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2009 8:03 PM To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [digitalradio] Copy You K2Mo Fred, Let me turn the beam to you Tony -K2MO - Original Message - From: Fred VE3FAL flesn...@tbaytel. mailto:flesnick%40tbaytel.net net To: digitalradio@ mailto:digitalradio%40yahoogroups.com yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2009 8:49 PM Subject: [digitalradio] Copy You K2Mo CQ DE K2MO [FAE CQ] Got this twice.. Fred VE3FAL --- avast! Antivirus: Outbound message clean. Virus Database (VPS): 090610-0, 06/10/2009 Tested on: 6/10/2009 8:49:04 PM avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2009 ALWIL Software. http://www.avast. http://www.avast.com com
RE: [digitalradio] Really beating the AGC issue with PSK ?
My Icom 746 suffers the same problem. I had hoped that the Elecraft K3 that I had in mind would solve this issue for me as well but maybe not. The review in QST was the best they ever gave but maybe I hope for too much. Rick - KH2DF _ From: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com [mailto:digitalra...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Andy obrien Sent: Thursday, May 28, 2009 7:08 PM To: digitalradio Subject: [digitalradio] Really beating the AGC issue with PSK ? From time to time we have had discussions here about the problem with PSK (and other modes) when a strong stations appears to grab the waterfall and wipe out all the other stations within a 2-3 Khz range. Because of this phenomenon, when I purchased a new rig, I looked for one that could have AGC totally off (when needed) and one that can employ narrow DSP filtering. I must say that I have not really solved this issue . I can see a marginal difference with AGC turned off but strong signals still essentially desensitize other stations in the waterfall. The DSP features do better and I can get rid of the phenomena by turning to a narrow filter. However this does not help if the offending station is with 300 - 500 Hz ( a lot when dealing with narrow digital modes). Does anyone have any advice on how to once and for all solve this issue? My rig is a TS2000 Andy K3UK
RE: [digitalradio] 14074. MHZ - What Is That?
Ahh . . . thanks Andy. ALE 400. It has been a while since I heard it. Rick - KH2DF/W5 _ From: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com [mailto:digitalra...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of r_lwesterfi...@bellsouth.net Sent: Thursday, May 28, 2009 8:33 PM To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com Subject: [digitalradio] 14074. MHZ - What Is That? Anybody know what that is on 14.074? Rick - KH2DF/W5
RE: [digitalradio] Re: Unfamiliar mode...
WAS anyone for PSK 125? Some in the contest yesterday are shooting for that as a goal. Rick - KH2DF/W5 _ From: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com [mailto:digitalra...@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Mike Blazek Sent: Sunday, February 01, 2009 12:53 PM To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [digitalradio] Re: Unfamiliar mode... You're welcome! It threw me at first too - it doesn't really sound like PSK. Mike Dan McKenzie wrote: Aha!! Thanks Mike. I didn't try BPSK125, didn't sound like it to me. Guess I was expecting the normal longer transmissions, but this is a contest. --Dan --- In digitalradio@ mailto:digitalradio%40yahoogroups.com yahoogroups.com mailto:digitalradio%40yahoogroups.com, Mike Blazek mbla...@... wrote: Hi, Dan: That's PSK125 - it's the EPC PSK125 contest this weekend, which is the only time I've heard the mode used. 73, Mike N5UKZ,_.___ .
RE: [digitalradio] QRV MT63 - 14106.0 USB
Maybe tomorrow night, but thanks for the offer - gotta go to a wedding tonight. It tuned up easily and printed no problem in MixW 2.18. I just never could get it to lock on with DM 780. Probably my fault. Rick - KH2DF _ From: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tony Sent: Friday, October 03, 2008 6:29 PM To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [digitalradio] QRV MT63 - 14106.0 USB Rick, Beautiful signal here in Louisiana . . . no clue to how to tune it on DM 780 Give a call and I'll tune you in... Tony, K2MO - Original Message - From: r_lwesterfield r_lwesterfield@ mailto:r_lwesterfield%40bellsouth.net bellsouth.net To: digitalradio@ mailto:digitalradio%40yahoogroups.com yahoogroups.com Sent: Friday, October 03, 2008 7:03 PM Subject: RE: [digitalradio] QRV MT63 - 14106.0 USB Beautiful signal here in Louisiana . . . no clue to how to tune it on DM 780 Rick _ From: digitalradio@ mailto:digitalradio%40yahoogroups.com yahoogroups.com [mailto:digitalradio@ mailto:digitalradio%40yahoogroups.com yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Andrew O'Brien Sent: Friday, October 03, 2008 5:57 PM To: digitalradio@ mailto:digitalradio%40yahoogroups.com yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [digitalradio] QRV MT63 - 14106.0 USB Looking for you On Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 6:38 PM, Tony [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:DXDX%40optonline.net net wrote: All, I'm QRV on MT63 / 14106.0 USB @ 2245z. Tony, K2MO -- Andy K3UK
RE: [digitalradio] QRV MT63 - 14106.0 USB
Beautiful signal here in Louisiana . . . no clue to how to tune it on DM 780 Rick _ From: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Andrew O'Brien Sent: Friday, October 03, 2008 5:57 PM To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [digitalradio] QRV MT63 - 14106.0 USB Looking for you On Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 6:38 PM, Tony [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:DXDX%40optonline.net net wrote: All, I'm QRV on MT63 / 14106.0 USB @ 2245z. Tony, K2MO -- Andy K3UK
RE: [digitalradio] Speaker Monitor Selection on Windows XP VolumeControl
Hello, I finally remembered what I did kind of a déjà vu amnesia thing I remember that I have forgotten this before. On the Windows volume control Properties for the Playback mixer control, there is an input monitor selection that is often not turned on with new installations of Windows. Unless you turn this on, you will not have an Input Monitor choice on the Master Volume control. And in my case, when I turned Input Monitor on, it was muted by default. Once I unchecked the mute button on Input Monitor, I had radio sounds coming from my speakers. As I mentioned, mine was working fine but I could not remember what I had done and I did not remember this as an input monitor thing. I am trying to help a buddy get his digital HF radio computer going and I was pulling my hair out with this the other day and now . . . I can finally fix it for my friend. But I do appreciate the mind jogging thoughts from all of you. I just had to think it through one more time. V/R Rick KH2DF
RE: [digitalradio] Re: New Hams and New Digital Technology
You have must go to the MixW web site and download the DLL files for those two modes. Very easy installation. Rick - KH2DF _ From: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Patrick Lindecker Sent: Saturday, July 05, 2008 3:49 AM To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [digitalradio] Re: New Hams and New Digital Technology Hello Dick, Mixw has a Contestia+RTTYM DLL. The second mode (RTTYM) is not very interesting has you have the same sort of problem as with RTTY (you can switch from one set to another of characters and lose part of the text). I don't know why these modes are not definively integered in Mixw. 73 Patrick - Original Message - From: kc4cop996 [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:dickzs%40comcast.net net To: digitalradio@ mailto:digitalradio%40yahoogroups.com yahoogroups.com Sent: Saturday, July 05, 2008 4:12 AM Subject: [digitalradio] Re: New Hams and New Digital Technology Patrick: Please advise the version of MixW that has Contestia as one of its modes. I am using version 2.18 and can find nothing on Contestia. Dick Z., kc4cop --- In digitalradio@ mailto:digitalradio%40yahoogroups.com yahoogroups.com, Patrick Lindecker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello all, Just to say that aside to Olivia, you have a mode which name is Contestia, which is twice quicker than Olivia and almost as sensitive. It is built on the same principle as Olivia but with different parameters and a reduced set of characters. It is present at least on Mixw and Multipsk 73 Patrick - Original Message - From: Benson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: digitalradio@ mailto:digitalradio%40yahoogroups.com yahoogroups.com Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 3:35 PM Subject: [digitalradio] Re: New Hams and New Digital Technology --- In digitalradio@ mailto:digitalradio%40yahoogroups.com yahoogroups.com, Dave AA6YQ aa6yq@ wrote: On what basis do you claim that Olivia, DominoEX, and MFSK are better than PSK for ragchewing? Olivia is slow, and MFSK is difficult to tune. I could care less about mode envy but I will say that I enjoy both Olivia and MFSK16. Both are much more tolerant of poor band conditions than PSK and who cares if Olivia is slow - you're talking about ragchewing, not contesting. Too, I haven't found MFSK16 hard to tune at all. I'm using MultiPSK so perhaps it depends on the software implementation. I'm aware that both use more bandwidth and have a lack of panoramic decoding but again, we aren't talking about contesting. Announce your digital presence via our Interactive Sked Page at http://www.obriensw http://www.obriensweb.com/sked eb.com/sked Check our other Yahoo Groups http://groups. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dxlist/ yahoo.com/group/dxlist/ http://groups. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/contesting yahoo.com/group/contesting http://groups. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/themixwgroup yahoo.com/group/themixwgroup Yahoo! Groups Links Announce your digital presence via our Interactive Sked Page at http://www.obriensw http://www.obriensweb.com/sked eb.com/sked Check our other Yahoo Groups http://groups. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dxlist/ yahoo.com/group/dxlist/ http://groups. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/contesting yahoo.com/group/contesting http://groups. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/themixwgroup yahoo.com/group/themixwgroup Yahoo! Groups Links
RE: [digitalradio] Re: New ARRL HF Digital Handbook - Fourth Edition (Available October 2007)
Hello, The ARRL also sells a very nice book about Digital Signal Processing although at $45 it is a little expensive. I am just getting started reading it but if you want to know how all of this stuff we are doing in digital HF really works, this would be the book to read. Rick - KH2DF/W5 _ From: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of n4ijs Sent: Saturday, January 05, 2008 7:01 AM To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com Subject: [digitalradio] Re: New ARRL HF Digital Handbook - Fourth Edition (Available October 2007) Good morning, Dan, I just received this book for Chirstmas and find it very useful (in fact, I found this forum becase of the book). It appears to cover much of the basics and provides a nice overview of various modes, down to describing the method of transmission, charater sets, etc. I am not famailiar with the Peter Martinez article, so I can not compare it directly, but I do not believe that you would be able to develop a program to use these modes based on the information in the book (if that is your intent). However, I believe this book worthy of looking at. I have enjoyed reading it! Hope this helps. 73, Robert - N4IJS --- In digitalradio@ mailto:digitalradio%40yahoogroups.com yahoogroups.com, AE9K [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Can anyone comment on the ARRL's HF Digital Handbook Fourth Edition or CQ's Digital Modes For All Occassions by ZL1BPU? I don't want to wait until Dayton (where I can thumb through these) to determine whether they have sufficient explanation of modulation and encoding schemes, design assumptions and the like. I'm concerned these may be more of a primer on how to operate using each mode. What I'm looking for is along the lines of the article Peter Martinez wrote for QEX back in 1999 on PSK theory, implementation and on-air performance. Anyone that has either of these books care to comment on their content? I'm also open to suggestions for other books or articles that are Martinez-esque in content and clarity. Thanks, Dan, AE9K Andrew O'Brien andrewobrie@ wrote: Thanks Mark, this looks quite interesting. ANdy K3UK On 9/7/07, Mark Thompson wb9qzb@ wrote: ARRL's HF Digital Handbook - Fourth Edition ARRL's HF Digital Handbook - Fourth Edition
RE: [digitalradio] Sound card install problem
Hello Andy, When I really felt like being a risk taker, I have Google searched for SP2 on the web and downloaded it that way - who knows what might be inside that download but it worked for me. It might work for you depending on your particular needs. Rick - KH2DF -Original Message- From: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Andrew O'Brien Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2007 4:30 AM To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [digitalradio] Sound card install problem I already have the pack on my HD, as I do use automatic updates. So, my question is... if you have the pack already on your HD, how do you take care of the install when prompted to insert the CD with the service pack on it ? Andy. On Nov 19, 2007 10:40 PM, r_lwesterfield [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If you turn Automatic Updates on, it should load in less than a day or so of leaving your computer on. Or you could go to Microsoft Update and let it install from there. After that, I would go to the sound card web site and download the latest driver . . . should work. Rick - KH2DF From: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Andrew O'Brien Sent: Monday, November 19, 2007 9:00 PM To: DIGITALRADIO Subject: [digitalradio] Sound card install problem I have been having a couple of small but odd-ball issues with Multipsk and Microkeyer and thought I would try another sound card , just for the heck of it. I disabled my on-board sound card and installed a Creative Audigy PCI card. I have installed many soundcards over the years but ran in to an basic problem with the latest card. When I attempt the software install from the supplied CD, it eventually asks me to insert the XP HE path that contains service pack 2. I have no CD for my OS, the PC came with XP HE already installed . The install attempt fails the first time, when I try it a second time the XP service pack question does not come up and I get a installed successfully message. After a reboot, the new hardware detected comes up, the soundcard drivers are not installed successfully. I have been to busy at the office to get home in time to call Creative's help line. Anyone have any ideas how I get the service pack 2 stuff ? Maybe it is on my HD somewhere ? Andy K3UK -- Andy K3UK www.obriensweb.com (QSL via N2RJ) Announce your digital presence via our Interactive Sked Page at http://www.obriensweb.com/drsked/drsked.php Yahoo! Groups Links
RE: [digitalradio] Sound card install problem
If you turn Automatic Updates on, it should load in less than a day or so of leaving your computer on. Or you could go to Microsoft Update and let it install from there. After that, I would go to the sound card web site and download the latest driver . . . should work. Rick - KH2DF _ From: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Andrew O'Brien Sent: Monday, November 19, 2007 9:00 PM To: DIGITALRADIO Subject: [digitalradio] Sound card install problem I have been having a couple of small but odd-ball issues with Multipsk and Microkeyer and thought I would try another sound card , just for the heck of it. I disabled my on-board sound card and installed a Creative Audigy PCI card. I have installed many soundcards over the years but ran in to an basic problem with the latest card. When I attempt the software install from the supplied CD, it eventually asks me to insert the XP HE path that contains service pack 2. I have no CD for my OS, the PC came with XP HE already installed . The install attempt fails the first time, when I try it a second time the XP service pack question does not come up and I get a installed successfully message. After a reboot, the new hardware detected comes up, the soundcard drivers are not installed successfully. I have been to busy at the office to get home in time to call Creative's help line. Anyone have any ideas how I get the service pack 2 stuff ? Maybe it is on my HD somewhere ? Andy K3UK
RE: [digitalradio] Re: digital voice within 100 Hz bandwidth
I have a few radios (ARC-210-1851, PSC-5D, PRC-117F) at work that operate in MELP for a vocoder Mixed Excitation Linear Prediction. We have found MELP to be superior (more human-like voice qualities less Charlie Browns teacher) to LPC-10 but we use far larger bandwidths than 100 khz. I do not know how well any of this will play out at such a narrow bandwidth. Listening to Charlie Browns teacher will send you running away quickly and you should think of your listeners . . . they will tire very quickly. Just because voice can be sent at such narrower bandwidths does not necessarily mean that people will like to listen to it. Rick KH2DF _ From: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Vojtech Bubník Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2007 9:11 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; digitalradio@yahoogroups.com Subject: [digitalradio] Re: digital voice within 100 Hz bandwidth Hi Mike. I studied some aspects of voice recognition about 10 years ago when I thought of joining a research group at Czech Technical University in Prague. I have a 260 pages text book on my book shelf on voice recognition. Voice signal has high redundancy if compared to a text transcription. But there is additional information stored in the voice signal like pitch, intonation, speed. One could estimate for example mood of the speaker from the utterance. Voice tract could be described by a generator (tone for vowels, hiss for consonants) and filter. Translating voice into generator and filter coefficients greatly decreases voice data redundancy. This is roughly the technique that the common voice codecs do. GSM voice compression is a kind of Algebraic Code Excited Linear Prediction. Another interesting codec is AMBE (Advanced Multi-Band Excitation) used by DSTAR system. GSM half-rate codec squeezes voice to 5.6kbit/sec, AMBE to 3.6 kbps. Both systems use excitation tables, but AMBE is more efficient and closed source. I think the clue to the efficiency is in size and quality of the excitation tables. To create such an algorithm requires considerable amount of research and data analysis. The intelligibility of GSM or AMBE codecs is very good. You could buy the intelectual property of the AMBE codec by buying the chip. There are couple of projects running trying to built DSTAR into legacy transceivers. About 10 years ago we at OK1KPI club experimented with an echolink like system. We modified speakfreely software to control FM transceiver and we added web interface to control tuning and subtone of the transceiver. It was a lot of fun and a very unique system at that time. http://www.speakfre http://www.speakfreely.org/ ely.org/ The best compression factor offers LPC-10 codec (3460kbps), but the sound is very robot-like and quite hard to understand. At the end we reverted to GSM. I think IVOX is a variant of the LPC system that we tried. Your proposal is to increase compression rate by transmitting phonemes. I once had the same idea, but I quickly rejected it. Although it may be a nice exercise, I find it not very useless until good continuous speech multi-speaker multi-language recognition systems are available. I will try to explain my reasoning behind that statement. Let's classify voice recognition systems by the implementation complexity: 1) Single-speaker, limited set of utterances recognized (control your desktop by voice) 2) Multiple-speaker, limited set of utterances recognized (automated phone system) 3) dictating system 4) continuous speech transcription 5) speech recognition and understanding Your proposal will need implement most of the code from 4) or 5) to be really usable and it has to be reliable. State of the art voice recognition systems use hidden Markov models to detect phonemes. Phoneme is searched by traversing state diagram by evaluating multiple recorded spectra. The phoneme is soft-decoded. Output of the classifier is a list of phonemes with their probabilities of detection assigned. To cope with phoneme smearing on their boundaries, either sub-phonemes or phoneme pairs need to be detected. After the phonemes are classified, they are chained into words. Depending on the dictionary, most probable words are picked. You suppose that your system will not need it. But the trouble are consonants. They carry much less energy than vowels and are much easier to be confused. Dictionary is used to pick some second highest probability detected consonants in the word. Not only the dictionary, but also the phoneme classifier is language dependent. I think human brain works in the same way. Imagine learning foreign language. Even if you are able to recognize slowly pronounced words, you will be unable to pick them in a fast pronounced sentence. The word will sound different. Human needs considerable training to understand a language. You could decrease complexity of the decoder by constraining the detection to slowly dictated separate words. If you simply pick the high
RE: [digitalradio] Digitalradio SKED/ spotting page
Hello Andy, This web page is a very good tool but when I hit reload/refresh (me -reload - I use Firefox), it resends everything and the whole world gets to enjoy my screwup. How do I refresh my screen without this error on my part? Rick - KH2DF/W5 _ From: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Andrew O'Brien Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2007 6:52 AM To: DIGITALRADIO Subject: [digitalradio] Digitalradio SKED/ spotting page Just a reminder about our sked/spotting page at http://www.obriensw http://www.obriensweb.com/drsked/drsked.php eb.com/drsked/drsked.php Here is an example of who is listed currently... Users seen in last 10 mins: KB4AMA - M0EPC - IS0XDA - VE3FWF - OH7JJT - K3UK - Self spotting is encouraged. Despite some weekday evening flurries of activity, use of this page is quite light overall. Please consider using it to post your activity and/or to find some new contacts . -- Andy K3UK www.obriensweb.com (QSL via N2RJ)
RE: [digitalradio] Pactor and Seasonally Affected Disorder (SAD)
This is excellent . . . just what this group needs . . . and I deeply and truly mean that . . .sheesh . . . Rick - KH2DF _ From: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of John Bradley Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 2007 8:41 PM To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com Subject: [digitalradio] Pactor and Seasonally Affected Disorder (SAD) snip New Discovery from the Bolivian Journal of Medicine Physcians in Bolivia have recently released a paper on the destructive effects of pactor tones On the middle-aged radio amateur population. The pulse frequency of pactor 3 appears to cause anxiety and obsessive behavior among middle aged males exposed to these frequencies while engaged in their hobbies. The pulse noise appears to have a cumulative effect on the observed subjects, increasing anxiety and fear through each exposure. In extreme cases the obsession is all consuming, and the fear of robotic pactor operations has become the focus of these individuals to the exclusion of all other aspects of a broad based hobby. Scientists have observed that these obsessions appear to peak at the spring and fall equinox. There is also some speculation that the lower the latitude, the more obsessive the individuals become. As the syndrome progresses, The affected individuals increasingly become less able to form rational thoughts . As the anxiety deepens ,the individuals affected look for software cures which would curtail or eliminate pactor pulse when a frequency is used for other purposes. As the anxiety increases many individuals become focused on WINLINK, an organization which uses pactor tones to move data from radio amateurs around the world. While the use of WINLINK is considerably down from 20 years ago, it is still responsible for the majority of pactor pulse cases the scientists have observed. Scientist have also found that there is a readily available cure. They recommend turning off any email service for a week, and , at the same time using OLIVIA to communicate on the radio amateur bands. The soothing tones of Olivia, especially 1000/32 tones has been know to cure the most anxious of operators, especially when scotch or rum is consumed at the same time. While this is not a cure, the obsessive behavior should be in remission for several months after the one week cure. snip John VE5MU
RE: [digitalradio] A.L.E., VHS and Betamax
My Rockwell ARC-190 v8 HF radio and a Rockwell Q9600 modem at the office into the SCOPE Command network works very well for e-mail INTERNET access but I do have access to 3khz wide channels. This is military hardware (spelled expensive!!) but it does work and I have seen 8 kbps out of a theoretical 9.6 kbps max running the STANAG 4539 single tone protocol. I have seen it hang in there at maybe 300 bps as low as -4 db SNR but no lower - it just falls apart after that. Thus, it does work for some of us and these terms are Google-able if you want more information. Rick - KH2DF _ From: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Rick Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2007 8:59 AM To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [digitalradio] A.L.E., VHS and Betamax I doesn't sound like this mode would require much change in software, but if you have a rig with some kind of unchangeable firmware, I can see where AQC would not work. If we ever did get ALE placed in amateur rigs, it would be wise to have it in a flash eeprom form that can be updated with new technology. ALE is very unlikely to have a large following with radio amateurs because we don't tend to operate by calling specific stations, but I can see the potential for certain kinds of net operation. Even better would be some kind of store and forward or at least BBS type system to shift away from real time interfacing that we typically must do with nets. In fact, the main reason that I reduced my activity with NTS nets was not only the lack of traffic, but the requirement to meet at a specific time and day, which was not acceptable to me. I realize that part of the attraction of nets is the human social function and machine connections are not the same thing and that is probably why other BBS systems did not stay in the forefront over the years. If I understand your comments, you are saying that it is only a theoretical thing that we could run Amtor/Pactor/ and other high speed switching protocols with existing Operating Systems. I guess I look at all of this as to what can we do with what we have in place now and are likely to have in place for the foreseeable future and any kind of RTOS seems unlikely. The main development of new, and yet practical technology has come from Patrick's FAE mode. As I often point out, we have the pieces already developed, to wit: - very high speed modes that work with very good signals ( 10 dB S/N) and modest baud rates that are legal here in the U.S. - software frameworks such as Multipsk and possibly DM780 that handle the rig control through an auxiliary program such as DXLab Commander and Ham Radio Deluxe - no longer having a need for fast switching due to being able to pipeline data into a background thread to be processed while a new packet is incoming - busy frequency detection The main missing piece is being able to automatically switch between a suite of modes and negotiate the best mode for the current conditions. I'm still very skeptical of the utility of very high baud rate single tone modems for moderate to weak signals that are well below the MUF, but I am keeping an open mind on this and keep looking for some real world testing results that would compare various modes. The earlier document I mentioned suggests to me that these modes may not work well below 10 dB S/N and that is often what we radio amateurs must work with. Lately, there have been more comments about HF e-mail and ALE. What is currently available other than PSKmail for Linux OS that permits anyone to set up servers to route the traffic into the internet? 73, Rick, KV9U Steve Hajducek wrote: GM Rick, Alternate Link Call (AQC) ALE is basically 2G Plus ALE in that its an advanced 8FSK form of ALE where most all of the un-necessary overhead of ALE has been removed and new capabilities have been added, to include a PSK burst mode. The linking time to setup is must faster with AQC-ALE and the ability to achieve a linked state in the face of poor channel conditions is hugely improved. Remember this, ALE is the great facilitator of follow on traffic, be it data or voice ( analog or digital) or remote signaling for command and control and where the data may be of any format and not just 8FSK ALE or other MIL-STD protocols, there are no limitations to what follows after the ALE Link Quality Analysis (LQA) has been used to select the best channel from those provided to work with. GTOR and PACTOR I are a challenge within the frame work on an event driven OS to implement, if you take control of the OS and limit the interrupts to a point of which the application is in control of environment, which would for the most part preclude the multi-tasking 3rd party application aspect of the OS to point where only the digital communications application is running, then it even these fast timing ACK/NAK protocols would work, even AMTOR ARQ which
Re: [digitalradio] re:DSB, ISB, SSB, AMSC, LSB, USB, I/Q
Rockwells's military ARC-230 radio uses ISB to enable at least a theoretically possible 19.2kb per second with ALE through SCOPE Command -9600 kbps per sideband. O f course, they do not ever achieve that rate given today's sunspot situation but it is at least a laboratory possibility. The E-3A AWACS with an ARC-230 typically sees a far slower rate down in the 1200-2400 kbps range with the ARC-230 but it is a BLOS link that is secure and avoids the use of a precious satellite channel. And very importantly, the ground station has no need for an HF radio or its knowledge, just the SIPRNET and MS Outlook. This is all Google-able if you care to know more. Try SCOPE Command first. Rick - KH2DF/W5 From: expeditionradio [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 2007/02/01 Thu AM 10:43:04 EST To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com Subject: [digitalradio] re:DSB, ISB, SSB, AMSC, LSB, USB, I/Q Danny Douglas N7DC wrote: The best use of DSB in ham radio would be for SSTV or some such. You could have the picture on one side, and voice talking about it on the other. Hi Danny, That's commonly known as ISB (Independent Side Band). DSB, or AMSC, is commonly what you get when you amplitude modulate, and suppress the carrier. I remember some inexpensive early Trio (Kenwood) monoband DSB rigs in Japan in the 60's. There was a 15m and a 40m version, and it had no clarifier! On the air, most of the SSB ops didn't realize they were talking to a DSB station. My friend JH1GNL, worked the world on 15m with one of those rigs. There is a big problem with DSB receivers trying to receive DSB signals, but they do fine with SSB signals. When working another DSB station, if you are not exactly tuned within a small fraction of a hertz, the phase or beat frequency between USB and LSB will drive you nuts trying to listen to it. :) Bonnie VR2/KQ6XA
RE: [digitalradio] Problems Keying With WIN DRM and Icom 746
Hello Andy, Did you have any luck setting up your friend's 746? I have HRD running as of tonight on my computer with my 746 and was wondering how you did it with Win DRM and PC-ALE. Rick - KH2DF _ From: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Andrew O'Brien Sent: Wednesday, January 03, 2007 9:24 PM To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [digitalradio] Problems Keying With WIN DRM and Icom 746 Rick, By coincidence, I am going to visit a Icom 746 Pro this Friday afternoon. A ham that I talk to on 2 meters has been having all kinds of trouble getting his rig to key with several different software applications. I plan on setting up WinDRM for him and should get a better idea on what the issues are. I see you have things set for 9600 baud but I found this statement: The Icom IC-746 uses 19200 Baud rate, 8 Data bits, None Parity, 1 Stop bits. Did you try it with different baud rates? Are you using a Rigblaster pro, plus, or plug and play ? I found this reference, not sure if it helps. RIGblaster plug play Operational Details: * CW keying is done by setting DTR high on the emulated serial port. * Standard PTT is done by setting RTS high on the emulated serial port. The Icom IC-746 and similar radios use pin 6 on the 7 pin DIN ACC(2) jack for PTT on the 2 meter band. Since the adapter only connects to the 8 pin DIN ACC(1) jack, the RIGblaster plug play cannot use standard PTT keying for the 2 meter band. One solution is to use CAT control for transmit and receive with the built-in CI-V interface On 1/3/07, r_lwesterfield r_lwesterfield@ mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] bellsouth.net wrote: Hello Andy, The WIN DRM program seems to run and I have downloaded the melp.dll file plus the tune wav file. But it does not key the rig using the same comm 3 line or Rigblaster settings that MixW successfully uses. Win DRM will make the digital sound using the TX Voice button when the settings are Comm 3 and RTS is High on FAC but it does not key the rig. I have also tried Vox and Auto on the Rigblaster which made no difference. I do use the Rig Talk device which may explain my success with MixW and my Icom 746. PTT for MixW is set to CAT which I cannot do (I presume) with Win DRM. The other settings in MixW which may pertain are: 9600 baud, 8 data bits, no parity, 1 stop bit, RTS = PTT and DTR = CW. I had similar issues with PC-ALE which I was never able to adequately solve to enable scanning or keying using that program and eventually gave up on it. But it was a different computer and I have now upgraded to a Windows XP machine that is fairly modern with plenty of RAM but only one sound card. All of this should work and I know it must be a setting somewhere that I am missing. Any assistance is greatly appreciated. Rick - KH2DF/W5 _ From: digitalradio@ mailto:digitalradio@yahoogroups.com yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] com] On Behalf Of Andrew O'Brien Sent: Tuesday, January 02, 2007 9:29 PM To: digitalradio@ mailto:digitalradio@yahoogroups.com yahoogroups.com Subject: [digitalradio] Re: windrm --- In digitalradio@ mailto:digitalradio%40yahoogroups.com yahoogroups.com , r_lwesterfield [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Yes, I did this as well but I cannot get the rig to key. I am using Comm 3 which is what MixW uses with ease and I have tried every conceivable PTT checkbox combination under SETUP. What am I missing??? Rick, WinDRM just requires one PPT port, that's it. It should work teh same as your MixW setting. What RTS/DTR setting did you try ? Andy K3UK -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.432 / Virus Database: 268.16.4/615 - Release Date: 1/3/2007 1:34 PM -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.432 / Virus Database: 268.16.4/615 - Release Date: 1/3/2007 1:34 PM -- Andy K3UK Skype Me : callto://andyobrien73 www.obriensweb. http://www.obriensweb.com com
[digitalradio] Problems Keying With WIN DRM and Icom 746
Hello Andy, The WIN DRM program seems to run and I have downloaded the melp.dll file plus the “tune” wav file. But it does not key the rig using the same comm 3 line or Rigblaster settings that MixW successfully uses. Win DRM will make the “digital sound” using the “TX Voice” button when the settings are Comm 3 and RTS is High on FAC but it does not key the rig. I have also tried Vox and Auto on the Rigblaster which made no difference. I do use the Rig Talk device which may explain my success with MixW and my Icom 746. PTT for MixW is set to CAT which I cannot do (I presume) with Win DRM. The other settings in MixW which may pertain are: 9600 baud, 8 data bits, no parity, 1 stop bit, RTS = PTT and DTR = CW. I had similar issues with PC-ALE which I was never able to adequately solve to enable scanning or keying using that program and eventually gave up on it. But it was a different computer and I have now upgraded to a Windows XP machine that is fairly modern with plenty of RAM but only one sound card. All of this should work and I know it must be a setting somewhere that I am missing. Any assistance is greatly appreciated. Rick – KH2DF/W5 _ From: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Andrew O'Brien Sent: Tuesday, January 02, 2007 9:29 PM To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com Subject: [digitalradio] Re: windrm --- In HYPERLINK mailto:digitalradio%40yahoogroups.com[EMAIL PROTECTED], r_lwesterfield [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Yes, I did this as well but I cannot get the rig to key. I am using Comm 3 which is what MixW uses with ease and I have tried every conceivable PTT checkbox combination under SETUP. What am I missing??? Rick, WinDRM just requires one PPT port, that's it. It should work teh same as your MixW setting. What RTS/DTR setting did you try ? Andy K3UK -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.432 / Virus Database: 268.16.4/615 - Release Date: 1/3/2007 1:34 PM -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.432 / Virus Database: 268.16.4/615 - Release Date: 1/3/2007 1:34 PM
RE: [digitalradio] new to ham radio
Hello George, Welcome to the hobby/sport. If you have HF privileges, try MixW for digital mode things. It is an easy to use program that runs well on my older PII machines with Windows 2000 and only 128 MB of RAM. You should be able too Google it for download. It covers most of the popular modes very well. Some of the newer more exotic modes like automatic link establishment are not supported but it might be best if you work your way into that capability slowly. MixW is free for the first few weeks and is $50 if you decide you like it and wish to register it. Email me directly if you have MixW config questions. And there is a Yahoo group that specializes in it. Rick KH2DF [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com [mailto:digitalradio@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of geobentcpht Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2006 11:56 PM To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com Subject: [digitalradio] new to ham radio Hello, My name is George Bentley. I have recently received my ham radio operators license. I am looking for software that i can use with my computer. I am new to this and would appreciate any help. thanks George KI4LMI __._,_.___ Need a Digital mode QSO? Connect to Telnet://cluster.dynalias.org Other areas of interest: The MixW Reflector : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/themixwgroup/ DigiPol: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Digipol (band plan policy discussion) SPONSORED LINKS Hobby photography Hobby toy Ham radio Ham radio antenna Ham radio sales Your email settings: Individual Email|Traditional Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe __,_._,___
RE: [digitalradio] Anyone using a Cushcraft R5/ R7 on digital ?
Try wrapping all lines into and out of the sound card through one or more Type 43 powdered iron toroids. The toroids tend to block RF and they are easy to wrap and inexpensive. All of the major amateur retailers have these and expect to pay roughly three dollars a piece for them. Buy 4-6 of em or so. Basically, the sound card lines act as antennae and the toroids dissipate the alternating current inherent in the stray RF from your vertical. Or is it that the mass increases to infinity as you approach the speed of light. Just cannot remember which J. Try the toroids . . . they worked for me. Rick KH2DF/5 From: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Andrew O'Brien Sent: Saturday, April 29, 2006 6:06 AM To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [digitalradio] Anyone using a Cushcraft R5/ R7 on digital ? I have an R7 and use if on all bands. I do not get any RF into the computer except for 80M. Andy K3UK On 4/29/06, Mel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello, I'd like to have an offline discussion with someone who is using a vertical, and if they solved RF problems into the PC soundcard on the higher bands. Kind regards, Mel G0GQK Need a Digital mode QSO? Connect to Telnet://cluster.dynalias.org Other areas of interest: The MixW Reflector : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/themixwgroup/ DigiPol: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Digipol (band plan policy discussion) Yahoo! Groups Links -- Andy K3UK Fredonia, New York. Skype Me : callto://andyobrien73 Also available via Echolink Need a Digital mode QSO? Connect to Telnet://cluster.dynalias.org Other areas of interest: The MixW Reflector : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/themixwgroup/ DigiPol: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Digipol (band plan policy discussion) SPONSORED LINKS Ham radio Craft hobby Hobby and craft supply YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS Visit your group "digitalradio" on the web. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
RE: [digitalradio] Demostrating digital modes without lots of equipment ?
Hello Andy, My Shreveport Amateur Radio group meets in the public library here in town. Most semi-large cities have a decent library and many have modern multi-media capabilities in their meeting rooms. You might get lucky and see if your group might meet you there at whatever they have at your library. You have little to lose and might even be surprised. Rick KH2DF/5 From: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Andrew O'Brien Sent: Sunday, March 19, 2006 11:58 AM To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com Subject: [digitalradio] Demostrating digital modes without lots of equipment ? Back in the dark ages, when PSK31 was very new, I was on the regional talk-circuit giving talks/demos about the new digital mode. I spoke to many radio clubs and would literally take most of my shack with me. HF radio, desktop PC, monitor, antenna and more. This got to be a pain, or rather putting my station back together got to be a pain. Getting those cables and settings just right, took some time. Another club has contacted me and wants me to give a talk on PSK31 in April. I will probably say yes but I am wondering if anyone here has suggestions for doing an interesting/entertaining presentation with mimimal equipment? A couple of clubs arranged large screen TVs and PC to video projectors , but I can't expect this of most clubs. I'm thinking along the lines of a CD of digital mode MP3 files and a laptop PC. Perhaps a DVD of me operating in my shack, showing the modes that way. I am guessing someone has already been there done that , so I'll take suggestions. Andy K3UK Need a Digital mode QSO? Connect to Telnet://cluster.dynalias.org Other areas of interest: The MixW Reflector : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/themixwgroup/ DigiPol: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Digipol (band plan policy discussion) SPONSORED LINKS Ham radio Craft hobby Hobby and craft supply YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS Visit your group "digitalradio" on the web. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
