Last week while making some FT8 contacts I received a message from one of the contacts I had made and he asked if I was going to be taking part in the upcoming WW Digi contest? He told me if I used WSJT-X software it was a simple matter of a few mouse clicks and I was good to good for the contest. I do have WSJT-X on my desktop but I am a user of JTDX for my digital operation. I had to update my WSJT-X software to 2.2.2 and as I was advised it was just a few simple clicks to set the software up for the contest. As I began the contest and started to send my CQ WW on the waterfall I was met with frustrations. Here are some of the issues I had:
- At first, the auto sequence was not working and as stations that were answering my CQ were going unanswered unless I did it manually. I don't have an issue with that but the auto sequence was turned on but not working.
- In the frequency drop-down menu, WSJT-X did not offer the contest frequency which was 14090 to 14092.8. When I tuned my radio manually to this frequency the software had the frequency in red and not the normal green.
- For some unknown reason and it was very random my rig would tune back to 14074. This had me calling CQ WW outside the contest frequency.
The above things kept happening and it was very frustrating and I ended up just shutting down. I did try JTDX and it did have the contest frequencies in the drop-down menu. I had no auto sequence issues and the rig stayed on frequency. One might ask why I just didn't stick with JTDX and keep going in the contest? The main reason was frustration but also I needed to have a contest log of the contacts to send off at the end of the contest. Maybe I could have configured it in JTDX but as I said earlier I was very frustrated.
4 comments:
I thought JTDX has no contest features in it, does it? Well, you probabely read my mistakes. I have been into a lot of contests but don't know if a digi contest like this is working out. 73, Bas
Good morning Bas and always nice to hear from you, well you are very correct the software does not support contesting. I was entering the information manually which was a pain. The main purpose of me starting up JTDX was to make sure I did not have the same issues with the radio wanting to on its own head back to 14075 when it was set for 14090. I found all to be good and at that point the radio was shut down.
Have a great week,
73,
Mike
VE9KK
With the robot software now for FT8 I can now let it run 24x7 on my 7300 while I use my Yaesu FT1000mp to yack on 40m.Robot will make WAS for me now
Good morning John and very nice to hear from you, true the robot can do almost all the work it's still the ham that has to apply for the WAS award....:))
73,
Mike
VE9KK
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