ND2E's Blog

The USB Serial device that has given me a problem is the IOGEAR USB to 2-Port Serial RS-232 Converter, Model GUC2322. I reinstalled it and reinstalled the driver on their web page.  Again I noted the major increase in the System Process CPU usage. I removed it and placed an old USB 1.1 Prolific adapter in and the CPU usage for the System task went to 7% on the peaks and stayed down at zero most of the time.

I will eventually contact IOGEAR and Moschip to find out why.  But for the moment the Dual Port device is not usable in my system.

Last year when I lost my big Dimension 8400 to a series of power faults, I started using my old Dell 900MHz laptop. It was horribly slow and was really limping when running the Ham Radio Deluxe V4 package. To fix the problem I bought an older 2.2 GHz Pentium 4 Dell GX270 figuring that it would be much faster than the Dell laptop. Since is was supposed to be so much faster I upgraded to the latest HRD V5 Beta package expecting blindingly fast operation. I was disappointed and started looking for the reason. I somehow got the machine into a state where it was so slow that it took 20 minutes to boot. I finally fixed that problem so I was back to the original complaint that when running HRD it would slow to a stop  for several seconds. I couldn’t run another background tasks without significantly impacting the QSO.

I have spent several hours off and on looking for the cause of the slowdown. I have finally located one of the reasons slowing my computer when using Ham Radio Deluxe.

According to the info on the HRD website, HRD is a very light load on the computer. I concur that it is a very small load but whenever I ran HRD/DM780/HRDlog my computer bogged down. I spent several hours tracking down what was causing the slowdown. Finally, I noticed that the System process was consuming valuable realtime. I searched the web for System process information and came across several articles that indicated USB-connected peripherals such as USB-Serial adapters can cause the System process to balloon.

I changed the interface point to my only serial port and the load presented by the System process dropped from 50-70% to 0-5%.  That is a really significant change that may allow the HRD package to run without hesitation or slowdown that have plagued me since I brought the Dell GX270 on line.

Hopefully this info will be of use to others.

73 de ND2E

This has been a really nice week, the sun has been shining and I haven’t been stuck inside except by choice. Monday before last we also had a bit of sun and even though it was a cold day I used a bit of it to hang the 40 meter hamstick dipole. It is sitting at 12 feet so it didn’t want to tune down to the CW/PSK end of the band. I used a bit of copper wire off the ends to move the resonance down to where my AT-897 could handle the SWR. It isn’t pretty but it is working. I have even made a couple of contacts with it.

I have also been working on getting caught up on the QSLs. I have a batch ready to go to the bureau and have mailed several US QSLs. Having lost the old database, I can not be sure of covering all of the offshore QSLs, so If you need a paper copy for DXCC use the contact form on my web site to let me know. Same for folks needing paper for WAS. I apologize for the delays but things have just been out of hand for a while here.

In the last couple of months, several of my friends have had significant computer problems and I have been called in to fix the problems. In all but one case it appears that the problem has been anti-virus malware causing the problems. Compounding the problems has been dirty heat exchangers/cpu coolers. They have to be cleaned every now and then.

I will be sending my ts-2000 in for service shortly to ensure that it is working properly before I sell it. I want a Elecraft K3 but need to sell off a bunch of equipment that I don’t use.

73 de ND2E

Well, it isn’t a bad soundcard-just needed to reinstall the software. So now I have to make a decision…do I reinstall the audio lashup to get back on the air or do I wait for the Signalink USB to arrive before I set things up again?

The other day I was in a QSO when the other operator mentioned seeing what he called hum bars on my transmission. It seemed stranged at the time but I did back off on the Tx audio a bit and he said it was better.

A couple of days later I was trying to work to the North East and the FT-857 would not key. (I was running digital VOX.) Knowing that I had not changed the Tx Audio levels since the previous session, I started testing. The radio would key when I changed the PTT logic to the CAT but it was extremely insensitive when set to digital VOX. That seemed a bit strange so I pulled the Tx audio connector and plugged in my headset. What to my wondering ears did appear but a harsh low pitched growl when I started to transmit.

I switched DM780 to the internal soundcard to verify that it was a soundcard problem not a computer problem. It was the external soundcard so I am now off the air waiting for my new Signalink USB to arrive.Hopefully it will be here Thursday of Friday so I can get back on the air this weekend.

Late last summer when I was having computer and radio problems, a station in South Carolina mentioned that I was driving the Tx audio a bit hard because he could see distortion on the waterfall. There was a noticeable but faint set of tracks … not nearly as bad as some of the Cuban stations but still noticeable. At that time I dialed back on the audio going to the TS-2000 and he said it cleared up – Mostly. At that time I did not recognize a sound card problem…I monitored the audio with my headset but did not notice any distortion. I my mind the external soundcard I have used for several years was degraded and continuing to fail but I did not notice it.

So now I wonder how is the best way to actually monitor the output signal of the soundcard – really, how to monitor the IMD of the radio/souncard combo. I am open to suggestions, not all Digital Mode software supports IMD measurement and in most instances it really is only a measure of the Rx audio path from the receiver to the waterfall and is subject to significant overdrive in the audio and DSP chain.

If anyone has a good recommendation – I am willing to try it.

73 de ND2E/Joe