[Elecraft] K3, sound cards and PSK31

[John Ragle]

Wes Stewart wrote:
> FWIW.  I more or less successfully used the K3 for RTTY and a brief taste of PSK (too slow, like watching paint dry
Good Morning, Wes...

    I think you'll be pleased with the SignaLink box. You are right 
about BPSK31 -- it is a bit slow. My take on this is that people like to 
fill the buffer and sit back to watch, and I know that some (perhaps 
75%) of the users have trouble keeping up on the keyboard with the 
transmit rate anyhow.

    If you watch for it, you will find people (particularly the European 
PSK crowd) who use PSK63 or even PSK125 or PSK250. I am a good typist, 
and even so I find it takes care and attention just to keep up with 
PSK63. The other modes are of course even faster.

    If you're into watching paint dry, try one of the modes like Olivia 
16/500. No sweat like when you break a pencil-lead copying CW at 40 wpm. 
On the other hand, if you like the mystery of having signals come out of 
nothing, like the Great Pumpkin rising from the Pumpkin Patch, the 
Olivia modes are great.

    There are lots of people (again many in the European digi-crowd) who 
like RTTY. and nowadays it is noise-free (no coffee grinder in the 
background, no paper tapes to load). I use fldigi and the SignaLink box 
for all these modes, and it works out just fine. I have used it with my 
ASUS 910 EEE toy computer and DigiPan...makes a very portable arrangement.

    For an amusing variation, try a QSO using one of the Hellschreiber 
modes...see

             http://www.nonstopsystems.com/radio/frank_radio_hell.htm

and have fun! SignaLink does that, as well...

John Ragle -- W1ZI