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August 6, 2024. If you did know stuff you could do stuff!

 The Common Colon (Symbol :) did me in! No, we are not talking about the Common Cold but Common Colon! That leads me to ask why does one word have two decidedly different meanings? This could get real deep real fast, but one colon is typically at the front end while the other colon is at the back end. The front-end Colon did me in!


If you have been religiously following my blog you know I created a new operating position in my garage shack that has three rigs, with two local and one remote. The remote rig the Hermes Lite 2.0 (about 100 feet away via CAT6 cable) has some super features like seeing the activity on the whole 20M band where I can bask in the lack of Cycle 25 signals plus afford me FT-8 access. 

This set up has been in place for about a week, but the successful activation of WSJTX eluded me. The Hermes Lite 2.o is a DDC machine (Direct Digital Conversion) and thus a bit different in set up than my homebrew I/Q SDR.   This in some ways is rocket science, but I have been doing this setup for many years so not brand new.

Last night at 2000 PDST, 0300 GMT I fired up the Hermes Lite 2.0 to see all the DX from Cycle 25. A pretty flat line except for FT-8 which of course was not functioning in this setup. More proof -- that FT-8 has become the mode of operation, more to come.


2000 PDST 20M ~ 1 Blip @ FT-8

BTW I now have a 27-inch Samsung TV as the monitor -- big improvement over the 16-inch monitor. That 50-inch sure would be nice!

So, the press is on to get FT-8 working. The Hermes Lite 2.0 uses the HamLib Rig Control Protocol for interconnection between WSJTX and the radio. When you do not have it right you get this annoying message. Within QUISK (SDR Software) are settings for remote operation identifying the Port Number where HamLib should go -- kind of like an I2C address. The default is Port 4575 on the localhost (HL2/RPi4). 

In the WSJTX set up pages you have to either identify the radio you are using like the Kenwood TS2000 or identify the generic HamLib Rig Control. You also must select CAT control and the Localhost Port (4575). It wasn't until I used the bigger screen that I spotted the issue with FT-8. My entry was localhost 4575. Then it hit me it has to be localhost:4575. 

The missing colon was the issue and hard to see it was missing on the 16-inch screen. Now no longer error messages and FT-8 was working. 

The operational FT-8 confirmed that it is the preferred DX mode. I called CQ twice using the software and just look what happened.


CT2HEX in Portugal at 2026 PDST on 20M

Also in the mix are other DX stations all operating on 14.074 MHz using FT-8. The band appeared totally dead but look what is out there.

The lack of a front-end colon sure made the back-end colon pucker just a bit.

TYGNYBNT

73's
Pete N6QW




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