On 22 Apr 2019 at 17:22, Frank Kirschner wrote: > OK. How do I tell whether it's a F/H mode station or a "derivative" > program? Most of the time, when I switch to F/H mode to work DX, I am able > to work them. Does that indicate the DX station is, indeed, running F/H?
Frank: If the station you want to work is concurrently transmitting multiple (typically 3) signals 60Hz apart, and conducting multiple simultaneous QSOs, within a 'standard' FT8 band segment then it'll be almost certain that the station is NOT operating in true F/H DXpedition mode but is instead using one of the derivative apps such as MSHV. To work such a station, should you wish to do so (although some people discourage it), it's NOT NECESSARY to switch your mode to Hound; you can work them using the standard FT8 mode. Indeed, I'm puzzled as to why you feel it's necessary to toggle seemingly quite often between standard and Hound mode; the latter should only ever be necessary when you're trying to work a DXpedition, most (if not all) of which will have declared in advance which frequencies away from the standard segments they will be using for F/H mode. There should never really be a need to change your system to Hound mode when you're operating in the standard band segments - it doesn't matter if you're trying to work a local or some exotic DX. You stated in another email: > I have responded to stations in F/H mode in the regular band segment on > numerous occasions with no interference from the software. This screen-grab > shows Hound mode in the regular band segment. There's nothing in your screen-grab to indicate that any of the stations are operating in either true F/H mode or even in a derivative multi-channel mode such as MSHV, so why are you in Hound mode? If you've been switching to Hound mode whenever you want to try to work a DX station then it's possible (or even likely) that your transmit frequency will have been hopping around the band in response to you being called by the DX station - when you're called by the DX station the 'Hound-mode' software will have changed your Tx frequency to match that of the DX station (in the range of 300 to 540Hz) and then, if your transmission isn't received by the DX station (perhaps because others were also calling him on his frequency), your Tx frequency will be shifted either up or down by 300Hz. Such frequency agility on your part might not be appreciated by other users on the band!! With regard to being able to use Hound mode in the standard band segments, I've discovered that if I select my specific Hound configuration which excludes all the standard frequency segments (my frequency list for Hound mode only includes the declared DXpedition frequencies, eg. 14095kHz), then there's nothing to prevent me from manually retuning the rig down to 14074kHz and then transmitting within the standard segment. Perhaps the software developers could take a look at explicitly preventing transmissions in the standard segments whenever Hound mode is selected, irrespective of how the frequency is set. You also stated, in another email: > I tried that, and it worked fine, switching between F/H and normal mode, > and switching Split between Rig and None. Until I closed and restarted the > program. The first time I switched configurations, the S/W complained that > I needed to use Rig or Fake It for the Split parameter. Once I reset it, it > worked fine again. Does this mean that you only select 'Split' operation when you change to Hound mode? Why would you not use 'Split' when operating in normal FT8 mode? There's no earthly reason not to, especially as it provides the benefit of ensuring that your audio tones are always in the 'sweet' range between 1500 and 2000Hz, thereby helping to minimise the potential for 'bad audio'. The use of Split is all-but essential for slick operation in Hound mode, which is presumably why the software complained if you changed to a Hound configuration without one or other of the Split options being selected. -- Martin G0HDB --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus _______________________________________________ wsjt-devel mailing list wsjt-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wsjt-devel
