ND2E's Blog

I have installed HRD 5 Beta as well as DM780. They are a significant upgrade from HRD 4 and improve digital decoding (subjective since I have no way of measuring .) One of the neat things that Simon has included is the separate executable for the logbook. It has several database options, right now I am using the default db mode but it has the capability to use MySQL when I grow into that. I have MySQL on the machine but I generally do not start it when running digital.

One of the changes automatically uploads the QSO to HRDLog.net – a great little logbook that can be referenced through a little bit of Java on a personal web site. See www.nd2e.com and click on the logbook menu entry. I currently have it running and displaying the last 250 log entries. Logbook also allows direct upload to eQSL and hopefully LotW when I get that worked out.

So far I am very impressed with Simon’s work even if the release s still Beta.

I will be giving a presentation on the basics of Digital Modes at the Kingsport Amateur Radio Club Meeting in February. I will post the power point on  my web site shortly before the meeting. There is a slight hope that we can do a live demo but I doubt that we can because the antenna system here at ND2E does not go to 40 or 80 meters. That being said we will check during the presentation and if we can work a station we will demo the activity.

I will also run HRD/DM780 in Demo Mode so folks can see what it looks like.

If you are interested in the basics of digital modes, you are invited to join us at the meeting.

It has been interesting working on the Gx270. In a previous post I noted that the computer was running a bit slow so I ran a series of diagnostics and when I was though the machine ran so slow that it took 20-30 minutes to boot. I spent several 10s of hours trying to figure out what I did. I ran into brick walls at every turn. Google was not my friend. It didnt take me to anything that was helpful.

I started looking for a new motherboard to replace what I had. I noticed that in one ad for a used motherboard, that the copy said that it had adjustable spped using the “compatibility mode.” Researching compatibility mode, I found that it was a checkoff in the BIOS. Looking at my BIOS I saw that Compatibility was enabled. I turned it off and rebooted and the machine came back to life at the original speed. I was Back in business.

The improvement brought me back to the same point that I had been in several weeks before — the beast was slower and I was using nearly 100% realtime when I used HRD v5. Beta. Now the 5 Beta is not supposed to load the machine badly so I knew that something else was the cause.

I run an external USB soundcard, just because I had a 24 bit external left over from the days when I was running a HP laptop that couldn’t seem to run the PSK software I was using when linked to the internal soundcard. Working may way trough the various options for the soundcard I found that the “monitor” check off was enabled. Unchecking that bit decreased the realtime usage down to a reasonable level <6% before starting HRD.

However when I start HRD, realtime goes to nearly 50%…so something else is in play. I noticed that HRD itself was only using about 10% realtime but my system had jumped considerably. I am still working on that issue and will document it as soon as I figure it out.