Saturday after our regular BARC membership meeting, we have an informal breakfast meeting at 9am at the Great Harvest Bread Co. We had 13 members show up and break bread and talk about all kinds of issues. We had a fun time and finally left 2 hours later. In the parking lot, the fun continued… Judy (W3JUU) was showing her motorbike and “Mr. Rogers” (AI4J) was remembering when he used to ride. The stories grew taller and taller!
After the fun in the parking lot, 4 members went to the BARC trailer and cleaned it out trying to organize it for Field Day. Bernie (WA4MOK), Beth (KN4FZB), Gary (KN4JKM) and Peter (N45PVH) worked for three hours removing extra Rohn25 tower legs, getting the rotor mounted, and securing the other antennas. Went through the bins of equipment finding the parts and pieces that would make up the equipment on field day. Later, Peter secured the high test gasoline (without gasahol) and put Stabil in the gas cans to preserve the gas for a long time. Ran the generators and checked the oil.
On Sunday, Peter pulled his computers and installed the latest updates and software on them. Getting the software to talk to the radios and each other to fully integrate the radio control with the digital, morse or phone modes that would be used. N1MM logging software was the key and where we start. Once that is started, it makes the connection between the computer and the radio. All other software goes through N1MM to issue the radio commands needed for the mode that the radio operator is using (Morse, Digital FT8, Phone). The other two software packages are WSJT-x (for FT8) and Fldigi (Morse code reader). They are launched in the “Windows” menu in N1MM but not by the normal windows operating system. This way N1MM has flow of information control and runs the radio. This also allows N1MM to get the frequency, the call sign of the contact and the mode information automatically for logging purposes.
For the morse code operators, K1EL’s CW keyboard and reader was installed on two of the radios so that you can type on a keyboard and it will send out the morse code. This was also integrated into N1MM software so that the N1MM macro buttons also work for sending CW responses. For us novices to CW, this may be a game changer allowing beginner CW operators function at a higher level and actually make contacts! Do not be afraid to try it!
Rather slick integration. N1MM also pools the contacts from the three computers to a master computer so that there is only one log we need to submit at the end of field day. This is the “Holy Grail” of software engineers trying to get full integration of the information sources. We will see how robust this is at Field Day as FD is an emergency readiness exercise. Hope to see you at FD!
73 Peter N4PVH.
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