Still getting the hang of this "voice" thing...(and remote station update)

99% of my contacts have been digital, mostly because it's far easier to find stations to talk to, call CQ, and operate. My remote station setup and touch typing skills make it very comfortable for me, as well.

However now that I finally expanded my remote station capabilities to voice I've been spending more time spinning the dial in the voice parts of the band. It sure is a jungle out there!

Last night I spun the dial for a bit on 20 and 40. Still getting the hang of this voice thing Answered some guy's CQ from Newfoundland on 20M. S9+a lot in both directions. He eventually caused a pile up. A pile up for Newfoundland? Any port in a storm, I guess It seems nobody calls CQ on voice anymore.

Then I spun the dial for a bit on160M and answered a guy's CQ on 1904. He was about 100 miles away and we had a nice chat for 15 minutes. All the while the idiots who "own" 160M whistled into their microphones in the background And I heard this guy call "Is this frequency in use?" at least once. Sure, the usual suspects were on 1900, but that's 4KHz away! We couldn't hear them in our passband, it should be vice versa. Interestingly this guy is a big time ham. Got a live webcam on his QRZ page! And he remote operates his station just like me a lot of the time.

Continue to get nice voice quality reports on my Lifechat USB headset running through the Microham USB III interface into the IC7000. The Silex SX2000 USB server that makes all this possible has proven reliable but has also proven to require a fast, low latency link to be that way. A few times I've tried running it at my BOL where either it and/or my laptop have been in marginal wireless conditions and the connection will drop out even though the web browser and other stuff keeps on trucking, etc. However as long as I've got a good wireless connection at both ends (or wired, the SX2000 has an ethernet port as well) life is good. Also, the Virtual Audio Cable "Audio Repeater" application I use to make the software connection between the headset and the Microham must be set to "realtime" priority in order to keep the audio buffer from overflowing. This does not seem to have any effect on CPU load.

eta spelling

ya there are sme asshats out there, ssb can be alot of fun though working a pile can be hard but rewarding

Regarding the 4 khz away stuff... lots of the guys on 80 and 160 are running converted commercial broadcast equipment or high end radios and are running wide signals... my group on 80m had several guys running Flex radios and we normally ran 5 KHz wide signals, so a guy 4 khz away would certainly be in our passband. Of course, it's no excuse for rudeness, though if they were there first it's understandable that they might be grumpy.

Also, with the guy asking if the frequency is in use, often he might not be able to hear one side of the QSO, or depending on antennas might not be able to hear either. I've run into that before with people running beams. Again, no excuse for rudeness.

Very interested on your remote setup. Can you describe the data link from remote to station? Also can you tell me more about your station's remote location?

Here's my setup:

[Radio] <––-Microham Interface Cable ––> [Microham USB III Digital Interface (sound card & CAT interface in one box)] <––-USB Cable––-> [Silex SW2000WG Device Server] <––––Wired or Wireless Network––-> [Any Other PC/Laptop In My House]

So it's as if the computer is right next to the radio/digital interface in the shack, but it can be anywhere on the network. You can use any combination of USB sound card interface (e.g. Signalink, etc.) and CAT/C-IV interface you want. You might need a USB hub if they are two different devices as the Silex only has a single connector. I like the Microham because it's all-in-one. Other all-in-ones include the Rigblaster Advantage (not recommended) and the Rigexpert Standard.

The one thing to watch out for here, as I've found out, is that the network link to the Silex has to be very good. Otherwise you get a bunch of dropped sound packets that ultimately lead to unintended disconnects from the sound device.

The drivers for the Silex are only available for Windows as far as I know.

On the PC/laptop, you will need at least two pieces of software. One piece will allow remote control of the radio. Most people typically use Ham Radio Deluxe. The second piece will allow you to route audio directly to/from the USB soundcard interface (MIcroham, Signalink, etc.) to a speaker and microphone. For this I use a software product called Virtual Audio Cable. Also, I use a nice USB headset microphone, in this case a Microsoft Lifechat headset, instead of the crappy built in microphone and speakers of the computer.

Anyone running digital modes with rig automation would already be familiar with 90% of the above setup. The only things that are different are the remote link to the USB devices and Virtual Audio Cable.

There are other ways to accomplish all of the above. For example, you can dedicate a computer to the rig and remotely attached to it using Remote Desktop or VNC. In that case you've got to use something like Skype to move audio between the two PCs and you still have to run VAC on the rig PC to route the audio streams. I've done this as well and it does work.

we got hammered after the net last night with some asshat who asked "is the freq in use... ok good" -and started BSing with his buddies

According to the tips and hints on the Heil website, the reason I'm getting above average audio is because my IC7000 has wider audio bandwidth on the accessory port, which of course is what I'm working through with the remote setup.

As for that issue I experienced on160, even if the guys at 1900 were using wider bandwidth equipment, there was no evidence of that because none of their signal was overlapping in our passband. And if we were stepping on some folks we couldn't hear (one way propagation), well at least one guy was in range of us and he could have simply asked us to move instead of whistling into his mic. It's not like 160 is exactly crowded!

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