[Elecraft] Making a Signalink cable for the K3's 8-pinmicconnector

[Wes (N7WS)]

Hi Jim,

Thanks for the detailed reply.  I have never tried JT65 of any flavor so I have 
no basis for comparison and accept your conclusions.

Since I'm more of a DXer than a contester, I don't often use N1MM or any of the 
other programs that support 2Tone.  I use DXBase for general logging and AXETTY 
(an MMTTY variant) on RTTY.  AXETTY, by Joe, WA6AXE, speaks to DXBase.  I asked 
Joe whether he would port to 2Tone, but he's not interested.  In my (very) 
limited use of N1MM on RTTY I have used multiple decode windows.  It appears to 
me that 2Tone might be superior once it locks to the signal, but on quick 
exchanges that doesn't seem to happen.  Maybe something I'm doing wrong.  
Nevertheless, not a big issue for my style of operating.

Although licensed in 1958 I was never on RTTY until I got the K3 about 4 1/2 
years ago.  The passing of my wife three years ago took a big hunk out of that 
time.  Even so, with very modest antennas I've now worked 210 countries on RTTY 
and it's become my favorite mode. Maybe I should give JT65 a try, except as a 
former "copy-by-ear" EMEer I think it's "cheating" on that mode :-)

73,

Wes  N7WS


On 5/9/2014 2:00 PM, Jim Brown wrote:
> On 5/9/2014 1:26 PM, Wes (N7WS) wrote:
>> Likewise, after your glowing recommendation of the US100, I bought one. 
>
> Hi Wes,
>
> I did my testing with JT65HF on he HF bands, with the K3 output feeding both 
> one Thinkpad internal sound card and the Tascam feeding a second Thinkpad. I 
> did the same comparison between the Numark and internal, then between the 
> Tascam and the Numark. My criteria was the number of good decodes for each 1 
> minute pass. The Tascam and Numark boxes consistently decoded twice as many 
> signals per 1 minute pass. The internal sound card rarely decoded a signal 
> weaker than an indicated -12, whereas the Tascam and Numark regularly decoded 
> additional signals down to -20, with occasional -22 decodes. I attribute that 
> to better performance near the bottom  of the A/D. When comparing the two USB 
> boxes to each other, roughly once in ten passes, one would decode a signal 
> that the other would not, but neither was better than the other -- on one pass 
> the Tascam would miss a station that the Numark copied, then 5-10 minutes 
> later the Numark would miss a station that the Tascam copied. This was quite 
> extensive -- in addition to watching the nigher bands, I even let them run 
> overnight on 160, then compare decodes the next morning.
>
> I found performance "a bit better" with RTTY, but did no equivalent testing to 
> substantiate that, because I found the JT65 results far more quantifiable and 
> repeatable. So for RTTY contesting, the Tascam is on one rig feeding one 
> laptop, and the Numark is on the other rig, feeding the other laptop. Now that 
> we have 2Tone as an alternative to MMTTY, I've been running three decode 
> windows per radio, and the most I can say to describe the result is that they 
> are about equally good, but on almost every pass, one of the windows will copy 
> something that one of both of the others missed, not no consistent advantage 
> I've been able to discern to one over the other. The real advantage is that 
> you have three looks at the same signal, so you tend to ask for far fewer 
> repeats, AND I have changed to not repeating the exchange. I notice W0YK doing 
> the same.
>
> 73, Jim K9YC