I tuned in a couple of guys on 40m tonight who were going between 50 - 55
WPM. I set the decode to 30-90 but it wouldn't decode much of anything
except a few words now and then. Signals were very strong. No amount of
tweaking the RF gain or bandwidth helped. No biggie though. Mixw couldn't do
it either. My ears did fine. Fast code seems to take a bit of time to sync
up and as soon as the op skips a beat or something, it seems to loose track
of what it's doing.
Steve Ellington
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
----- Original Message -----
From: "KM5Q" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, May 23, 2008 12:10 AM
Subject: [Elecraft] K3: Optimizing TEXT DECode for CW
The K3 TEXT DEC system works well on CW signals that are above the
noise level, but to use it for weaker signals and noisy conditions
requires some understanding and technique. Here's what I learned.
The decoder gets its signal from the same trigger as the CWT indicator
bar. See for yourself -- When your display is in CWT mode, play with
the RF gain so the CWT bar goes on and off. The moment it disappears,
the decoding stops. As soon as the CWT bar flickers with noise, the
decoder TRIES to read the on/off signal. If the CWT bar is responding
to clean code, you will get good text. If it isn't code,
unfortunately, the decoder tries anyway, and produces junk text.
If the CW signal is audible but is not stronger than the noise, the
CWT bar will flicker from the noise AND the CW, and the decoder will
show too much junk. Once you accept that, you can reduce frustration.
To minimize junk text from QRN, hold TEXT DEC, then adjust threshold
(thr ...) upward until it "squelches" the CWT bar. Now, The text
decode will work if there is CW signal above the noise.
But now, set the threshold a little lower, slightly too sensitive.
This will allow for varying conditions. When noise works the CWT bar,
reduce the RF GAIN until the bar disappears. This is how to fine-tune
the threshold quickly.
If you get static crashes or other erratic noise triggering the
decode, don't let "IISKSK IEN SKSK" distract you. Watch the CWT bar.
Let THAT tell you when to watch the text -- when it LOOKS like code
rather than noise.
Maybe future firmware will improve the decoder so it will ignore
noise, but for now, this is the best way I have found to use it.
Windy KM5Q
Santa Fe, NM
K3 #764
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