[hpsdr] Using an HPSDR in the Commonwealth Contest (corrected - please delete the earlier message)

[Steve Ireland]

G'day

For those who would like to know how an HPSDR works in a CW contest, I had
time to use the HPSDR for a few hours in the RSGB's Commonwealth Contest
this weekend.

The HPSDR deals with really strong signals as well as the Elecraft K3 that I
also have here and love. Using the digital 250Hz filter in PowerSDR, I could
get within half a kHz of my friend VK6LW who is about 2km away - very
impressive. 

To be able to reduce the bandwidth to 100Hz and get signals that are free
from ringing is a huge advantage for contesting and DXing - when I switch in
the 250Hz crystal roofing filter on my K3 it rings too much to my ears for
comfortable use. In contrast, the PowerSDR 100Hz digital filter is like a
clean razor. 

I had a ball dragging weak Gs out of the noise on 15m by tweaking the filter
bandwidth in PowerSDR and playing with the AGC speed and gain.  

One thing that I did miss was the ability to use a rotary IRT control in a
pile-up - will have to work on using the digital step IRT more before doing
the next contest. 

The HPSDR I have is currently using Pennywhistle driving the PA from an old
Codan 'Royal Flying Doctor Service' transceiver' - to which I owe Phil
VK6APH ('Dr Frankenstein') enormous gratitude for electrical surgery and
sorting out the firmware/software side. 

On advice from Phil, I key Ozy using the DB9 user i/o and a Bencher paddle.
The PowerSDR keyer was set to about 28wpm and some small latency was
present, which initially made fast CW sending difficult.  

However, after practicing using the keyer for about 30 minutes the day
before the contest, my brain adjusted to this and my CW sending went back to
its usual level of competency.  The adjustment was no different/harder to
that you have to make when switching from one type/make of keyer to another.


Thanks a million, Phil, for all your assistance and encouragement.

Vy 73

Steve ('Igor'), VK6VZ  (First Class CW Operators Club #1693)