Category: RTTY

Still reading the manual

Well two weeks later and 100 new POTA parks in my log and I am still learning “new stuff”….

The FT991a is living up to all its hype and is a dream to operate… If you use it right out of the box with the default settings its a good radio…

A dream to operate

If you RTFM and customize your Transmit audio settings and your Receive filter settings its a FANTASTIC radio to use.

Like I mentioned at the beginning of this post…

So far I have added 100 unique parks to my Parks list… A few in CW but most of them in SSB.

This would also include the K7K DXPedition to Kiska Island in SSB (95w ssb and CW (40w). Both contacts were made on 17m

Above from their website…

No digital at this time but until I’m sure that my NUE PSK Modem that works well my my older Yaesu Radios will also work well with the 991a I am not going to take a chance on bricking the rig…

As I mentioned above I have even made a few CW contacts. The 991a has a very good built in Contest Keyer and when I use it with my IPAD and the HotPawz Decoding app I can “5nn TU” with the best of them. My contacts have all been Search and Pounce and I use an app to fill in the blanks but… Its still a contact…

Now before the flames start let me remind you of my post back in December where I described the Pro’s and Con’s of the setup. It can’t decode a bad fist but as most of the people I am contacting are also using keyers… It works for me… And for the record (full disclosure here) my XIEGU X5105 has a contest keyer built in along with a fairly good decoder also built in…. Still nothing but S&P but still much better than nothing.

For now I am still very pleased with my purchase and looking forward to more DXPeditions and POTA contacts. It will be the perfect way to finish the summer along with starting of the fall season…

73bob

An addition to the Shack

The NUE PSK Modem was gifted to me by a Ottawa area amateur (thanks Bob) who no longer had the need for it. I had blogged previously about using one many years ago and the unit I had (in the past ) was last used in July 2017 when I was operating as VA3QV/vy2 while on a camping holiday in PEI.

Powerful but tiny

That version would only work with PSK31 and RTTY but I did manage to make PSK contacts with relative ease using my FT817 while on the trip. Hindsight being 20/20 and the fact that it would not decode CW persuaded me to package the modem up with my old FT817 and so it was sold as a good deal.

3 years down the road and I am (finally) showing a bit of an interest in CW but to be honest can’t copy or send worth a darn. I had made some contacts using a CW Reader APP (which worked great- see previous blog posts) along with the Contest Keyer in my FT950 which I had pre programed the 5 memories to be generic exchanges for a contest , DXPedition or POTA activation.

I had been looking at a Winkeyer USB unit (which I had previously owned- I seem to be seeing a pattern here) but had not seen one being sold locally.

So now enter the latest(and last) version of the NUE PSK Modem. Covers PSK 31, RTTY and *** CW***.

The unit that was gifted to me has the latest/last version so now I can send/receive CW. Now I admit that the CW Receive features are actually almost the same as using the APP. Still need computerised sending or a fantastic fist so no big changes there but…. Rather than using the Contest Keyer in the 950 to reply (limiting me to 4 replies) I can now actually have a CW conversation if needed. I type and it sends almost instantly… There is a bit of a lag and it has a 255 character buffer but as I don’t type THAT fast I don’t see me ever overloading the buffer.

For chasing (POTA or DXPeditions) there is not much of a difference but now instead of being limited to Search and Pounce in a contest I can now actually call CQ and wait for replies. For what little I use it for it will be fantastic for me. So far I bought a very used PS2 keyboard for it at the local goodwill store to see if everything was working as it should. Next step is to order a slightly smaller one from Amazon and that will just about complete things…

If you hear me in CW try calling to say hi.

73 bob

ps…..

Its getting closer….

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