[Lowfer] HiFERs in SE Kansas Today

[listread at lwca.org]

>>> Should I back down the shift a little on USC?  I increased it because
it was reported that is was too low.

It might not hurt to reduce it a smidgen.  Yesterday afternoon the shift
was very close to 10 Hz, though it was down to about 8 Hz last night.

IMO, about 5 or 6 Hz is optimal for FSK on an Argo display.  Too little,
and it becomes hard to distinguish with old eyes, especially if there are
dogbones and/or noise.  Conversely, if the shift is very wide, the dogbone
effect on a strong signal becomes exagerrated and looks like overshoot (I
get this a lot on EH); while on a weak signal with wide shift, you lose
the connecting rise/fall intervals, and then either QSB or bursts of QRM
or QRN can break up the marks and spaces in such a way that the extra
spacing between lines causes a sort of visual disassociation and makes it
harder to interpret.  In other words, you end up losing the extra visual
cue that makes FSK a little less ambiguous than plain QRSS in poor signal
conditions.

John