Propagation is proving pretty elusive. Although most bands are open up to and including 10m (6m is not included in the challenge), signals come and go in rough geomagnetic conditions.
I was quickly down to 40m last eveing, where I was pleasantly surprised to find my blogging colleague, PE4BAS chasing a Russian signal down. After a while, we got our own QSO in:
I've only really ever used FLDIGI for OLIVIA work. There were never very many users of that mode, which is a shame, because it's a fantastic weak signal ragchew mode. Because of this, I never bothered to get FLDIGI to CAT control the rig - there simply wasn't any need.
So I had a frustrating afternoon trying to speed-read manuals and online help screens to get CAT going. Eventually, I learned I had to download and run FLRIG as well as FLDIGI.
I did get this all to work properly, but it's not a stable system, and the .IO user group for this is full of similar complaints. After getting it all running, then shutting down, one usually finds it won't work when next started because FLDIGI doesn't reliably save the settings you put in. Luckily, changing settings in FLDIGI didn't mess up other software controls - a huge relief.
If you have any idea how to stop FLDIGI losing its settings, let me know in comments, please!
Anyhow, there haven't been very many stations taking part in the challenge or, at least, I can't hear very many, even over on 12m and a 3-ele beam, where propagation is variable, but often very strong this morning.
Still, a nice change to the usual mind-numbing FT8 operations!
1 comment:
It was fun to work you John....I used HRD for CAT control and DM780 for DOMINO modes. I've used FLdigi in the past to test out various modes including CAT control. However I can't tell you about a solution since it has been a long time using it. 73, Bas
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