[hpsdr] TUNING KNOBS etc.

[IW1AYD Salvatore Irato]

Hekko all,
just to say I don't hate the kbd or the mouse. KISS is my preferred motto.

By now my shack is build around commercial, HAM, pieces, I am not a well 
experienced homebuilder, unfortunately.

What is that will give us a high level of usability and repetitive 
maneuvering over time for ours radios?
I mean this out of the pleasure to make all those new and newest things 
working together ...

I have my answer, by examples, let me tell what I discovered, hot water 
and tuning knobs ...  steam and power to a whole KISS SDR RTTY environment.

 From my standpoint as a small contester and DX/QSO chaser, quite only 
in RTTY and never in CW or phone, I prefer to have all the things I 
would need well placed on a single video screen. It have to be quite 
BIG. As almost all N1MM windows, the POWERSDR app. and the 1K-FA app, 
the PA, must have space on the same screen.

Macros from the N1MM digital windows sets also the radio IF filters for 
the different needs, using POWESDR CAT sequences.

The mouse wheel is used for large QRG QSY, 1 KHz step "a la" Kenwood.
This together with left click and drag for "thens" of KHz
Last but not least the mouse is used for point and click inside the 
230Hz IF filter, the tight of four. This is worked out easy after the 
right tones offset setup inside PWSDR .
I use the mouse with the right hand and it is a trackball, it stands not 
so far away from right corner of the kbd.

A fourth way, for the last 50/10 Hz move on the signal but not only, is 
a Tmate USB  flywheel addon.  This last have several advantages: having 
its app working out of window focus and the spinnability/acceleration 
parameter changeable as to suit several needs. As it used for spin moves 
around QRGs it could be a good substitute for the mouse wheel. The left 
hand is used by me, it is placed under the spacebar, middle-left of the 
kbd.

The general impression is to have all you need ON the screen and not too 
much sidestepping to/from focusing windows, finger/mouse movements, or 
hands sidestepping for the lbd, trackball and Tmate control.  In my main 
setup windows focus is moving just from N1MM to POWER SDR, forward and 
back. The PA app is there just to be watched and checked out for any alarm.
Tmate is under the left hand control, the mouse is a stationary one like 
a trackball, the kbd sit down just after the Tmate and the mouse.

All I have to do is to change bands or to move in band, watch signals in 
the panascope, catch it under the RTTY filter and do whatever is needed. 
Send a macro or set the split, for example. Also looking to the decode 
is a must, of course ;-) BTW the PA isn't fully automated, I would need 
a second HW COM port ... the band change are done by hit the tune, like  
a dit, or by the mouse.

All is right hand mouse commanded, well under both eyes and left hand 
controlled tapping the kbd (ESC/Funct) or driving the Tmate.

BTW the radio and the PA are out of sight on my left.

Operating several ours in a RTTY contest is a pleasure. I have used  
single radio, single RX I mean, I never tested two radio this way, the 
antenna resource is scarce here in the middle of a city.

I went back for two weeks on my beloved PROIII, quite a nightmare to 
recover with it. Macros with CAT cmd done for it helped a lot, luckily.

My dream is to have a proper band overview or, even better, a RTTY 
skimmer INSIDE the panascope as is now done. Hey, but this is software I 
am going almost out of scope here.

i have worked some tens of hours with other operators, just familiar 
with PC and N1MM, not with the SDR or mine setup as just described. 
After one hours of operations done by me they started operating without 
a single glitch. Oh well, not really ... somebody changed the high tone 
setup of MMTTY having the low tone TX filter on the SDR, 30 seconds of 
panic.

Thanks for the attention.


                                   73 de iw1ayd

PS Hemes, Hermes and again Hermes ... I hope to be able to mange two of 
those, guess why.


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