Field Day is not for lightweights...

Here is the 2nd installment of the trials and tribulations of a Field Day station…

I may have things setup and working properly… Time will tell.

I haven’t had a lot of time to test things ‘on-the-air’ yet because a breakthrough just occurred with my setup.

After diddling with EVERYTHING last night after I got home from school, I think I found the answer to the three or four nagging problems that have been plaguing my setup for the past week or so since I pulled everything outta the shack and set it up on the kitchen table.

First let’s review the setup:

Yaesu FT-100D interfaced to a
RigBlaster Pro connected to an
IBM ThinkPad T60 running XP 32-bit

The RigBlaster Pro is the heart of the setup. Connected to it is everything needed to interface a system together. Currently I have a Yaesu MD-100 desk mic attached, as well as a Heil ProSet headset. This also connects the IBM laptop via soundcard Line in and Line out 1/8 inch stereo connectors. Rig control is accomplished via USB to Serial on COM4, with a Targus adapter. In a nutshell, this is all you need to get working, everything else I will describe here is extra ‘fluff’.

Of course, all of the equipment you have needs to have certain ‘features’ in order for things to work. For example, I want to have a Digital Voice Keyer (DVK) connected so that I don’t wreck my voice over a 24-hour period of a contest. Not only is it physically challenging, it is mentally exhausting as you get into the wee hours of any contest. The ability to record audio and then play it back is key here, add to that the audio levels you must control and this by itself is quite challenging. In addition, you will need to key the rig, and then pass audio into the transmitter. Simple statement ‘eh? Well as you know it is not quite as simple as that. Let me list some requirements:

Audio interface between the computer and rig – RigBlaster Pro. The rig must be able to be keyed by the computer (rig control) and the audio must be sent from the computer to the rig after it is keyed up (DVK) The Blaster handles this easily, but not without extensive configuration and testing. Not only must you insure the unit is interfaced correctly for rig control, you must insure the mic wiring is correct as well. This is well-documented in several manuals, but one must research and put together your own ‘manual’ of sorts in order interface radio ABC with computer XYZ. In my case, I could not have chosen two more incompatible products.

The key, as it turns out is to have full-duplex audio within the computer you choose. This is more a function of the Operating System (OS) then it is with the computer itself, as Microsoft Windows XP Pro seems to handle this extremely well, and Microsoft Vista does not. The ability to ‘un-mute’ the mic input on the computer is critical to the success of the RigBlaster Pro interface. If you cannot pass-thru the audio from the radio thru the soundcard and back to the RigBlaster Pro, you will not hear any audio in your headphones that are plugged into the front of the RigBlaster Pro. You also may not be able to use the soundcard as a ‘processor’ to fine-tune or hone your audio characteristics passed back into the rig. (I have not tested this yet, maybe by Part 3 I can get to it…)

For the life of me I cannot get Vista to pass-thru mic audio. Maybe it is a function of the soundcard, maybe it is the OS, maybe it is God trying to tell me to stay off the friggin’ radio. Apparently this isn’t the only annoying Vista glitch, the first one I came across was the apparent inability to record .wav files. Vista (Business Edition) wants to record things with the Sound Recorder in .wma (Windows Media Audio) format. While I don’t know the differences between the two formats, and I personally don’t care, this is yet another blunder by Microshaft that will add Vista to the likes of Windows Millennium (ME). Jesus I can’t wait for Windows 7…

There is a workaround though… but I don’t know why I am telling you this, as I don’t think Vista will work as far as setting it up to use as a DVK and rig control computer. From the Run command, start Sound Recorder like this: SoundRecorder /recordfile=.wav and you will be able to save in the .wav format. You just cannot rename a file extension and expect it to work. Such a shame, as I have a really nice Dell D630 running Vista 64-bit with 8G RAM and a 250G HD. Even worse is I have a duplicate laptop just like this one (except with a faster processor) as a spare that I use daily for regular stuff at home. Not only can I not get full-duplex audio, I can’t find drivers for any of the Serial to USB adapters I own. Thanks again Microshit for offering a wonderfully stable 64-bit OS with virtually no support whatsoever.

OK, so I have temporarily resolved myself to the fact that I need to use 32-bit XP as the OS of choice for Field Day. At first I thought FD was an exercise in emergency preparedness… Why all this fuss about computers and digital this and interface that? Well, as it turns out, anyone with a radio and antenna can plunk it all down on a table and operate Field Day. Apparently it is some sort of contest requiring a set of rules 30 pages long that you need an engineering degree in order to interpret. Back in ’91 when I got my license, all we needed for logging was a pencil and a ‘dupe sheet’. Sure you may have needed a sharp knife in order to sharpen your pencil after a couple hours, but you could use the knife for other things that weekend. Who could have predicted that this ‘exercise’ would turn into the nightmare it has become? With about 5 weeks to go, I still am not ready for this. Don’t get me wrong, as it stands now I could drag all this crap out, set it up and operate and still have a good time. But I want to do it right. I want to use this technology for something good rather than horde it all in my shack to make evil contacts on my own in the dead of night. Turns out, Field Day is not for lightweights…