[pskmail] Now running fldigi 3.13BL and jpskmail 0.4.0.3 - some first experience from a beginner

  • From: Peter Olsen <petero@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: pskmail@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sun, 10 Jan 2010 23:49:21 +0100

Dear all,

I am slowly making progress...


Removing the initial link-attempt in jpskmail was an improvement, I feel a bit more comfortable with jpskmail now (thanks, Per). Looking forward to a revised manual, though!

I do miss a single "stand-by" button which would prevent jpskmail from transmitting until toggled again. I can understand that the initial design aimed at a situation where a single frequency would mostly be used, but when switching between bands and fiddling with the antenna tuner, I am not entirely sure about how to handle the running jpskmail during the procedure. Seems most safe to shut it down and start it up again after re-tuning the rig.


A couple of days ago I managed to get linked - and almost connected - to DK4XI-80 in the evening. But I had set up my mail parameters incorrectly, of course :-[ .

For antenna, I am using  a 22m end-fed wire about 8-10m above ground.

I am running "QRO-mode" from my FT-817ND, which is 5W PEP. This level of power and antenna is what I plan to use when going /P , so for testing purposes I should not improve on neither antenna nor power. (But the tuner/feeder is a bit more lossy than in the  /P configuration).

And maybe a vertical antenna would do better on 30m when the servers are so remote.

Here at my home QTH, the skip distances are teasing me. In the evening I can't reach DK4XI on 40m, probably due to the short distance, and on 80m DK4XI-80 can't hear me, probably due to a constant carrier near 3587.98 KHz - seems like somebody is jamming DK4XI-80. Anyway that carrier also interferes with my reception of DK4XI-80.

30m is dead here after dark, maybe due to the low hanging horizontal antenna in combination with a generally high ambient noise level. I can see that the servers manage to occasionally get something through on 30m after dark.

During the daylight today on 30m, I manged to get a QSL-response to an APRS-posit from S54FAA-0 and later another APRS-posit was picked up, but I am not sure which server picked it up. Here is the raw APRS-packet from findu.com:

OZ1QT-1>PSKAPR,TCPIP*,qAS,OH9RHF-3:!5546.20N/01229.40E-jpskmail 0.4.0.3 testing
(I also entered the qth coordinates slightly wrong, of course, so the above position is a few kilometers too far to the south, but that's another story).

I know that running BPSK500 with only 5W is something of a challenge, but it seems to be possible and I am still optimistic, particular with regard to the work that has now been done on FEC, RSID and dynamic mode adaptation.


73, es gd pskmail de OZ1QT, Peter




Pär Crusefalk wrote:
Hi Peter,

Great, then you are ready for some fun on the air!
Regarding the initial transmission, thats the client sending a link
attempt to the server of choice. I agree that it feels strange for it to
send that when there is no configuration yet. For the first time user
the info will always be incorrect. I would like to redo that and not
have that auto link attempt at all, but I dont know if anyone else
thinks its absolutely necessary? Its good to help the beginner and link
up with a server but its useless when there is no configuration...

73 de Per, sm0rwo

  

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