[Elecraft] K8UT RTTY presentation at Dayton

[iw1ayd - Salvatore Irato]

Well,
I am quite amused by this. Larry have done a nice job, I would move on 
as to know much better how this is really implemented.

What Larry found is that the focus or our activity is on the screen, on 
the logger. Not repeating the same moves time over time and, worts I may 
add, changing our focus and move out attention over and over. This is 
not useful and tiring hours after hours when contesting. But also in our 
daily activities.

Having out brand focused on the screen of the PC, all the more needed 
commands also there, and the hands over the VFO and the mouse, is quite 
enough. Not having a position and a setup that need continue changes by 
hands over the radio, and why bot the PAs, maximize at all the pleasure, 
the score, the rate, ecc.
The radio it's the were the activity run but still not the most when 
already doing QSO.

Having a logger as "not that, another!" would help a lot as to making 
all the needed filters CAT macros INSIDE the log.
Thus what Larry wrote and have done, TMK, automatically could be done 
usefully also manually, but from the logger. So, even PB filters, power 
setup, clear RIT, all is in the macro set of the logger, in front of 
yours eyes, just a click far away. Better if the click is fired from a 
hand sitting on a trackball: that's just a fingers move. The other hand 
is on the VFO.
Use this to get on that RUN station, then close the filters, look at the 
action timings, fire UR CALL, have the QSO, switch in the wide filter, 
spin gently the VFO and together look for another RUN.  A PE is then 
somewhat useful, but now your focus isn't not anymore needed on the 
screen for few seconds.
Still done by hands, but with yours brain/focus on the decoding screen. 
All the others move are quite automatically done.

A piece of this, the one automatically sensing and recognizing yours 
activities as to switch in and out wide and tight filters ... This could 
be implemented in several modes, the one automatic as Larry wrote, the 
one manual as in use here by years and a new one by adding some code, 
but fuzzy, on a radio. That just to have the VFO spin and several other 
internal and external parameters also checked.

A fist step, semiautomatic, could be to have the radio switch in a large 
filter when the VFO spin is recognize. Sort of revolution rate change 
recognize that this would also change the filter width. Then this must 
be parametrized. But with this simple mechanism the responsible to 
switch in a tight filter would still be a human click/finger.
Now, try it full auto, It seems that having the knowledge that the radio 
is still ON a QRG SINCE then would step in and trow in a tight filter, 
isn't?
This would add the close of the whole loop making it automatic. Timings 
are strictly personal and would depend on ourself, if there is a good 
provision of parameters about inside the box.

But I am still crying as from the normal usage of a radio, harms, hands 
and fingers, and this enhancement there is still a whole deep sea in 
between.
So as not all the logger are done in the same way and several of those 
still mimics DOS logger gone since decades ago, not enough macro 
buttons, just to say at first ... what we need to do or to ask for?

Add intelligence and fuzzy logics to radios? As to mimics and usage 
schema that will still use old tools. Anything would stay as now.

Change our habits having more focused loggers? A to learn and use new 
tools and some brand new fuzzy habits of the tools. Changes may be required.

It seems to me that the awful picture of a dial made inside a LCD 
display of a newest transceiver tell it all.

Hope my non native English may sound clear enough.

                   73 de iw1ayd Salvo

PS Anyway we have only serial ports to get in touch with ours ($$$) 
boxes, as it was in 1980 with the modems. No PSE, USB NO TNX! Great that 
acoustic couplers are gone.


On 19/05/2013 01:26, elecraft-request at mailman.qth.net wrote:
> Message: 32
> Date: Sat, 18 May 2013 16:05:17 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Brian Moran<brianmo at yahoo.com>
> To:"elecraft at mailman.qth.net"  <elecraft at mailman.qth.net>
> Subject: [Elecraft] K8UT RTTY presentation at Dayton
> Message-ID:
> 	<1368918317.33330.YahooMailNeo at web125806.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
>
> I attended the RTTY forum today at Dayton, and one of the presentations was from Larry, K8UT about a mechanism that he uses when doing S&P in RTTY Contests -- he calls it "Adaptive RX", and it's described in his program documentation for a utility that he wrote to control his Icom rig -??http://www.k8ut.com/tiki-index.php?page=CI-Vfilter+Utility+Documentation#CI-Vfilter_Utility  .?
>
> As I understand it, he detects VFO frequency changes, and "time on frequency" to expand/narrow the RTTY filters dynamically, so that they're wider as the frequency is changing (moving up/down the band), and when the 'dwell time' on a frequency exceeds a certain specifiable time, narrows, as it's expected that the VFO is stopped on a signal.
>
> Larry's implemented it by a 'serial filter' of the his Icom's serial stream, and something similar could be done for the K3... but that sure seems like something cool that could be built in, eventually.
>
> -Brian N9ADG