Message-ID: <000e01bfd327$7fb1b080$659101d5@default>
From: "Alan Melia" <Alan.Melia@btinternet.com>
To: "rsgb_lf_group" <rsgb_lf_group@blacksheep.org>
Subject: LF: SMT-Hell and Spectran.
Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2000 22:59:58 +0100
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Hi all, cor I have a pain in the neck (or do I mean I am being a pain in the
neck?) I have to drink me beer through a straw now Andy. I decided an easier
way was to relearn a skill I developed many years ago when I worked in
London and was too mean (or too late ) to buy a paper before boarding the
tube-train. I got very good at reading upside-down.....Its a skill you never
forget...bit like morse I suppose....just need to practice it. The 5Hz
signal was readable all day and only started to get difficult after dark as
the noise came up. I found I needed a time-scale of 3000 and 5.5k sample
rate, with 16k points on Spectrogram which may be why some didn't decode it

Peter I run the rx permanently on 138.100kHz LSB and put and offset into
Spectran (the latest build) The problem is the RX is in a different room to
the PC running Win95 and Spectran. I dont use narrow filters for the PC
modes as if doesn't help, but I can listen on the PC speaker to other QSOs
and CQs up the band. I just find that LSB gives the best 'whole band' view
that way which I monitor on FFTDSP4 alongside the radio. That is sensitive
enough to show traces from signals I cannot read, with the 500Hz filter and
the outboard 80Hz audio filter. FFTDSP4 doesn't have an offset so I have a
paper scale pasted to the monitor screen surround.

Great fun and some nice pictures for the next time I have to give a Club
talk.
Does anyone run the mechanical Hell' in this country? I think I once saw one
in action many years ago. From memory the display was produced by a
continously rotating helix which was brought into contact with the moving
paper strip by a solenoid. Quite ingenious!

Cheers de Alan G3NYK
Alan.Melia@btinternet.com