New Jersey The PSK-80 “Warbler”

A Simple PSK31 Transceiver for 80m

Technical Manual - rev

Brought to you by the New Jersey QRP Club PSK-80 “Warbler” TechnicalManual- rev C 1 (U1) Y1/Y2 Q3/Q4 Q5/Q6 (Q1) Xtal Power PSK-80 “Warbler” Filter Driver Amplif. Audio In A Simple PSK31 Transceiver for 80m Technical Manual (U1) Carrier P Osc. Filter Here’ a little brother to the popular PSK-20 PSK31 transceiver de- signed by Dave Benson, NN1G in 1999. This time, Dave simplified (U2) Q9 his design and took advantage of inexpensive crystals for a popular Audio Out Xtal / 80m frequency to create the “PSK-80”. Wishing to proliferate an easy (U3) Filter Preamp Switch and inexpensive way for hams to get on 80m with PSK, NN1G shared the design with the NJQRP Club who is kitting and selling the project world- AF Amp Y4-Y6 wide. They named the design “The Warbler” for PSK’s characteristic two- Figure 2: Warbler block diagram tone sound through the speaker, as well as for the club’s state bird (the mos- quito!). As it turns out, 80m is a great band for local (200 mile radius) commu- side of the passband. This yields better (LINE OUT) is connected to J2. Q1 is nications, and the PSK-80 Warbler is the perfect, narrow band, low power rig rejection of W1AW and results in lower- ‘closed’ during transmit and passes au- for club round table QSOs and regular fireside skeds with your friends. sideband (LSB) operation. Because the dio- and DC bias- to Q2. Several hun- dred mV p-p of audio are applied to mixer Last winter, while preparing my PSK31 I can’t promise to keep the project to three filter uses series-resonant type crystals, U1 to generate DSB energy at a (sup- talk for Atlanticon, I was casting about transistors, but the concept is an intrigu- the passband is actually above the marked pressed) carrier frequency of 3582 KHz. for a simple means of putting a PSK31 ing one- a standard 80M frequency and crystal frequency. The BFO is pulled to Crystals Y1 and Y2 and C6-C8 provide signal on the air on HF. It struck me that simple transceiver used as a club ‘inter- the high side of the passband using a small a measure of filtering to eliminate the bulk the standard PSK31 ‘watering hole’ on com’ over a fairly wide geographical area. value of capacitance in series with the of the unwanted sideband energy. The 80 meters is at 3580.15 Khz. This brought The hardware design started with an BFO crystal. remaining SSB signal is amplified by Q3 a wave of nostalgia for the New England evaluation of simple filters using color- So what do we do with a filter which op- and Q4. The output of Q4 includes an L- QRP Club’s old ‘colorburst’ evenings, burst crystals . Figure 1 below shows an erates right at the RF? For starters, con- network (collector choke L1 and C10) wherein a half-dozen or so of us would example of a 3-crystal filter and its pass- sider a ‘Neophyte’ DC receiver- it’s noth- which matches the driver impedance to be camped right around 3580 Khz. The band response. ing but a product detector and AF amp. that of the PA stage. rigs for this affair were a simple 3-tran- The asymmetric skirt response is typical By tacking a crystal filter right on the Things begin to look a little different sistor VXO transmitter. It was always a of a Cohn filter- the upper-frequency front end, it’s still a DC receiver, but its around the PA stage! The push-pull con- thrill hearing multiple QSOs within the slope is steeper. We take advantage of this selectivity and its resistance to out-of- figuration used here was done for two of just a couple KHz! by setting the carrier/BFO on the high passband IMD are considerably im- proved! On the transmit side, adding such reasons: to improve available output a filter to the output of a balanced modu- power and for better spectral purity. To 0 dB lator creates an SSB signal right at the the extent that the two halves of the am- RX Filter Response RF frequency. Take a look at the block plifier show equal gains on their respec- (dB- no rm a lized ) 'Standard' PSK31 diagram in Figure 2 ... Pretty simple, eh? tive half-cycles of conduction, this bal- Frequenc Naturally, reducing this simplicity to ance pays off in rejection of second-har- alternate-sidebandslopeSettin the carrier ener on the upper monic energy. Input trifilar transformer yields betterj ectionre of practice always seems to involve adding -2 0 gy. a few components. T1 splits the drive signal into two out-of- (RF output for 1500 Hz tone phase drives to Q5 and Q6. Another from sound card) Fc The complete schematic of this trans- multifilar winding (T2) combines the col- 3580.5 ceiver design is shown on the full-page lector outputs. The third winding on T2 insert to the center of this manual. Please is wound separately and has a different (MHz) refer to it for the following discussion. -4 0 d B turns count. It’s set for a collector imped- 3.578 3.579 3.580 3.581 3.582 3.583 Let’s start with the transmitter. Audio ance of 12 ohms- in theory, up to 6W 3.579545 (W1AW) from a computer’s soundcard output should be available from this stage. In ( arkedy stalcr freq.) Figure 1: Receiver passband response

2 PSK-80 “Warbler” Technical Manual - rev C PSK-80 “Warbler” TechnicalManual- rev C 3 practice, though, IR drop through R13/ end selectivity for the receiver. Q9 is a 13A and saturation effects on Q5 and Q6 preamplifier stage, providing 10 dB of limit this to something a bit less. gain. Aside from the gain feature, its other Kit Assembly purpose is as a ‘flat’ 1.5K ohm source As a result of the balance provided by the Refer to the full-page Board Layout dia- lettering on the IC reads “upright”, the for the crystal filter. The initial design push-pull configuration and the improve- chip is in the same orientation as shown lacked this stage and the filter passband gram provided on the sheet the the center ment in 2nd harmonic performance, the of this manual. Components are installed in the Board Layout diagram. Then, pin was poorly-behaved. Y4-Y6 and associ- output harmonic filtering can be consid- on the silkscreened side of the board. 1 is in the lower left corner of the device. ated capacitors provide the passband se- erably simpler. In this design, it’s a single This part may be held gently in place with lectivity charted earlier. Mixer U2 con- TOOLS section! Thanks to the 15-20 dB of 2nd a pair of tweezers and tacked down by verts the filter output to audio, where it’s You’ll need te following tools: harmonic suppression inherent the push- one lead. Once in place, remaining leads low-pass filtered and amplified by U3. - soldering iron ... ~25W pull configuration, the minimum har- may be soldered. A sparing hand with the R23-24 and Q7 provide a muting func- - 60/40 solder, small dia monic rejection for this design is 33 dB- solder is recommended, but solder bridges tion to prevent feedback problems dur- - Diagonal cutters compliant with current FCC regulations. may still be difficult to avoid because of ing transmit- this is described in more - Needle-nose pliers the close pin spacings. If this occurs, use Components C13,D3-D4, and L3 are a detail in the June 2000 issue of QST. - Small slot screwdriver solder-wick to clear any solder bridges T-R switch and provide a measure of front - Wire-strippers (recommended) Comparator U4 and related components between adjacent IC pins. - Tweezers (recommended) provide T-R sequencing. This logic turns PNP switch Q8 on to provide transmitter TEST EQUIPMENT 3) Q1and Q7 (2N7000) are static-sensi- bias. - Multimeter tive. Handle this part as little as possible, and if possible, ground yourself when LET’S BEGIN! installing this device. Install only 3-4 components at a time be- fore soldering. Doing so makes it easier 4) Diode D6 (near J4) is bent for “up- to check progress as you go, and reduces right” installation on the board. Installa- the chances of leaving some component tion polarity is as shown below. Be sure connections unsoldered. to note the orientation of the silkscreened circle on the board and install the diode 1) Open the main component bag sup- body over this hole. The cathode plied with the kit and verify its contents (banded) end of the diode is oriented at against the Parts List on the next page. the top. The remaining diodes are in- Ensure that you have all parts by putting stalled ‘lying down’- match the banded a check mark next to each line once veri- end to that shown on the silkscreen. fied. Let us know if you are missing any- thing. Components are described by their Component Silkscreen reference designators (C1, R3, Y1, etc., as shown on the Board Layout diagram and Schematic), their values, and when- ever possibleby some distinguishing char- acteristic like size, color, physical mark- ing. There may some discrepancies in these descriptions due to alternate parts supplied by the vendors, but they should be generally okay and useful in identifi- A prototype Warbler mounted in an LMB-139 enclosure ... perfect fit! cation.

2) There are two surface mount ICs for banded end this project. When installing, be sure to is cathode match the orientation of the device to that shown on the pictorial drawing. When the Diode-Schematic

Installation- Pictorial 4 PSK-80 “Warbler” Technical Manual - rev C PSK-80 “Warbler” TechnicalManual- rev C 5 PSK-80 “NJ Warbler” PARTS LIST C3...... 4-20 pF...... trim cap - round, red insert 5) When installing the crystals on the 8) T2 has a primary winding and sepa- C6-8,C15-18...... 33 pF...... disk cap - “33” C4...... 47 pF...... disk cap - “47” board, space these components slight rate secondary winding. The secondary C5...... 68 pF...... disk cap - “68” (~0.5 mm) above the board to preclude should first be wound using 8 turns of C13...... 100 pF...... disk cap - “101J” shorts between the crystal cases and board magnet wire distributed uniformly around C22...... 150 pF...... disk cap - “151” traces. This is best accomplished by sol- the circumference of a dark grey core. C10...... 330 pF...... disk cap - “331” dering the crystals in place and then re- Important: each time the wire goes C11,C12...... 1000 pF...... mono cap - “102J”, blue or yellow heating individual connections and pull- through the toroid center hole it counts C9,C14,C19,C101-106, ing the crystal gently to pull it slightly as a turn. Be sure that the turns do not C108-C110,C112...... 01 uF...... disk cap - “103” away from the board. cross over one another.. C20...... 022 uF...... mono.cap - “223” yellow C21,C107...... 1 uF...... mono. cap - “104” yellow 6) The monolithic capacitors used at C11 The primary is wound next using two 4” C1,C2,C23.C24...... 1 uF...... electrolytic cap - blue and C12 are somewhat fragile. Use cau- lengths of distinctly-colored wire from C111,C113...... 47 uF...... electrolytic cap - blue tion when adjusting the lead spacing to the 4-conductor cable. The two wires are D1,D2...... 1N5236B...... 7.5V zener diode “bifilar wound”, or wound together for 4 D3-D5...... 1N4148...... diode match the hole locations on the PC board. turns over the magnet wire secondary al- D6...... 1N4001...... diode Hold each capacitor body firmly between J1,J2...... audio jack...... 3.5mm thumb and forefinger when spreading the ready on the core. When complete, strip J3...... RS-232 conn.9 pin D-style leads apart. the leads and install T2 as shown on the J4...... coaxial pwr...2.1mm connector pictorial drawing. Note: It’s important to J5...... BNC...... antenna jack 7) T1 is wound using three 4" lengths of ensure that the magnet wire leads are L1...... 6.8uH...... molded RF Choke: blu-gry-gld-slvr wire (leave insulation on) removed from thoroughly stripped- these wire ends L2...... T37-2...... 23 turns #26 on the red core the 4-conductor cable supplied. Four (4) should be scraped gently using a hobby L3...... 22uH...... molded RF Choke: red-red-blk-gld turns of these three wires are wound ‘flat’ knife or other sharp blade. Unless ad- Q2,Q3,Q4,Q9...... 2N4401...... NPN transistor equately stripped, this magnet wire will Q5,Q6...... 2SC2166C....NPN power transistor on a dark grey core, with no wire cross- Q1,Q7...... 2N7000...... MOSFET transistor ing over its neighbors. not accept solder properly, and a cold Q8...... 2N3906...... PNP transistor Example: Assuming red, yellow and solder joint will result. The magnet wire R13,R13A...... 1 ohm...... resistor: brown-black-gold green wires are used, if ‘red’ leads in the winding connects to the ouput harmonic R21...... 10 ohm...... resistor: brown-black-black direction you’re winding the core, ‘red’ filter and should be installed in the R14...... 51 ohm...... resistor: green-brown-black will lead all the way around the core. rightmost pair of T2 holes. Refer to the R4...... 100 ohm...... resistor: brown-black-brown T2 diagrams below: R8,R12...... 150 ohm...... resistor: brown-green-brown Once these windings are prepared, trim R3,R10...... 220 ohm...... resistor: red-red-brown the excess lead length to 1/2" (1.2 cm) R5,R17...... 470 ohm...... resistor: yellow-violet-brown maximum and remove the insulation from R18...... 1K...... resistor: brown-black-red the protuding leads. (It may be helpful to R6,R15...... 1.5K...... resistor: brown-green-red cut the lead lengths at an angle to ease R2,R11,R23...... 2.2K...... resistor: red-red-red installation, since only one lead-pair at a R9,R19,R30,R32...... 4.7K...... resistor: yellow-violet-red time then needs to be inserted into the R1,R22,R24,R25, R27,R29...... 10K...... resistor: brown-black-orange board. ) R26,R28...... 22K...... resistor: red-red-orange Install T1 as shown below. R7,R31...... 47K...... resistor: yellow-violet-orange R16,R20...... 330K...... resistor: orange-orange-yellow S1, S2...... DIP socket....8-pin T1,T2...... FT-50-43...... black toroid cores (see text) U1,U2...... SA612AD...... SMT mixer U3...... MC1458...... dual amp, DIP U4...... LM393...... comparator, DIP W1...... 12"...... telephone wire W2...... 24”...... power cord (and mating coaxial plug) W3...... 24"...... #26 magnet wire Y1-Y6...... 3.579 MHz....crystal, series-resonant HS1,HS2...... heatsinks...... incl. 4-40 nut + screw PCB...... Printed-circuit board

6 PSK-80 “Warbler” Technical Manual - rev C PSK-80 “Warbler” TechnicalManual- rev C 7 Hookup and Alignment Windows Task Bar speaker icon.). Set As illustrated at the bottom of the previ- the level with this control to yield blue- ous page, the Warbler connects to your to-yellow ‘speckles’ on the screen. This computer’s rear panel using the follow- should yield a band covering about one- ing connectors: third of the screen width when properly adjusted. J1: to Soundcard “Microphone” / 3.5mm stereo Adjustment There’s only one adjustment on the trans- J2: to Soundcard “Line Out” / 3.5mm 28 ceiver board itself- trimmer cap C3! The C20 stereo ARRL was kind enough to furnish us a J3: to Serial port (9-pin D) / 9-pin calibration marker to adjust these rigs. 11) Make output filter inductor L2 by male/female Between the hours of 4-6 and 7-9 PM Eastern (local time), W1AW is transmit- winding 23 turns of the #26 magnet wire Setup ting on 3581.5 Khz. You should have around the red T37-2 toroid core. Use the Download DigiPan if you don’t already 9) Before installing Q5 and Q6, mount little trouble spotting their CW transmis- illustration above for guidance. Clip ex- have it. This free software is best accessed the two heat sinks to them using the sup- sions on-screen, and C3 is simply ad- cess length from the ends, strip the enamel through and by fol- plied 4-40 screws and nuts. Install the justed with a jeweler’s screwdriver (Ra- from the ends with a sharp hobby knife, lowing the links to ‘software’. After transistors into the recess in the heat sink dio Shack- $1.99) until W1AW is lined and solder in place on the board. opening the application, initialize the fre- so that the heatsink fins ‘cradle’ the tran- quency display to ‘3582000’, and select up under the 3581.5 tickmark on the sistor. 12) A length of power cord is supplied ‘LSB’, which places 3582 khz on the right DigiPan frequency display. in the kit, along with a coaxial plug to 10) Install final amplifier transistors Q5 edge of the display. Connect an antenna Note: If you’re close enough to W1AW mate with the power connector on the and Q6 last. Observe the installation ori- and DC power (12-15V) to J5 and J4. that their signal causes spurious traces on board. Noting polarity (center pin is posi- entation as shown on the pictorial draw- Adjust the Soundcard microphone sensi- the display, and reducing the microphone tive), wire this cable and plug to connect ing. These parts are quite large and if tivity control (you’ll need to look under sensitivity to cure this effect causes with your favorite 12-15V power source. installed early, will make it more diffi- ‘Options’ after double-clicking on your 15V is preferred for maximum power cult to install nearby components. The output. transistor leads also prone to fatigue if bent too many times during construction.

COMPUTER 'Warbler' Board Soundcard Interface 1 J1 MICR. IN 'AF OUT' 1 J2 Cable LINE or SPKR 'AF IN' connections OUT 2 between J3 'SERIAL PORT' the Warbler SERIAL PORT J4 'PWR' and computer J5 'ANT.'

CABLE DESCRIPTION:

1 3.5mm stereo (3-cond) to 3.5mm stereo (3-cond) Radio Shack # 42-2387 (2 required)

2 DB-9 (Serial port) Female to DB-9 male Cable Radio Shack # 26-117 Figure : W1AW provides convenient calibration! or Jameco (800-831-4242) #25700

8 PSK-80 “Warbler” Technical Manual - rev C PSK-80 “Warbler” TechnicalManual- rev C 9 PSK31 signals to disappear into the mud, DigiPan’s creator Skip, KH6TY/4. He’s a different approach is needed. In this in a condo in SC and his antenna is up Tips & Techniques for case, set the DigiPan start frequency to only 25’ maximum -- one side of it runs ‘3581500’ and adjust C3 so that W1AW through the attic, the other end slopes Building & Operating your Warbler is zero-beat at the right extreme of the down to the ground at the far end. An- display. This takes advantage of the low- other SC station reports a considerably GETTING FULL POWER FROM LINE input! ... de Alan Kaul, W6RCL, frequency rolloff characteristics of the better copy with a better antenna setup. YOUR WARBLER LaCanada, CA [email protected] , http:/ receiver to knock their signal down to For QSOs over shorter paths the situa- Some folks have reported difficulty in /home.att.net/~alan.kaul/index.html manageable levels. I live about 2 miles tion improves considerably. A ragchew getting full power out from their War- IMPROVE WARBLER “IMD” WITH from W1AW and they’re very strong with a VE2 about 250-300 miles away blers. To that end the designer Dave, POT ON AUDIO INPUT here. Once this adjustment is performed, yielded 95% or better copy at both ends. NN1G, has suggested changing C10 from One evening during a round table I asked though, I can copy PSK31 signals with- 220 pf to 330 pf. This has helped some several stations to check my IMD. I was out interference get 3-4 watts PEP on a 13.8 power sup- dismayed to find it was only -15 dB. This FURTHER INFORMATION ply as opposed to 2 before the change. had to be fixed. I discovered that the Transmit adjustment: If you have any questions concerning Here’s the word from Dave: “The NJQRP Click on ‘Tune’ on the DigiPan menu- Windows 98 “volume” control setting your PSK-80 Warbler Kit, please check club has already incorporated this change changed in rather coarse steps, not lin- this sets the transceive into transmit mode the NJQRP website page maintained for into the upcoming run of Warbler kits. If at 100% duty cycle. Click on the speaker early. I was already down to the lowest the Warbler. It’s located at http:// you already have a Warbler, there’s no possible step that produced output but icon and advance the volume slider until www.njqrp.org/warbler/. Useful tips & reason to make this change unless you’re output power (viewed on a watt meter) was still overdriving the sound card. The techniques are also collected on the Kit getting inadequate power output from the cure was to break the PC board trace be- no longer increases. Back it off slightly Notes web page at http://www.njqrp.org/ rig. If you’re already getting rated power until power output begins to decrease- this tween J2 and the junction of capacitors warbler/kitnotes.html. out, this change will not yield more out- C1 and C101 and insert a 100k ohm pot. setting assures linear operation. (If you put from the rig.” For what it’s worth I’ve You may also contact: Audio from the sound card is fed to the don’t have a watt meter, a 50-ohm resis- built two of them, a beta and a produc- George Heron, N2APB outside pins of the pot (from J2) and the tive load and peak detector circuit will tion version and both have produced full 2419 Feather Mae Court center (slider) connects to C1 and C101. accomplish the same job effectively. ) power with the proper power supply volt- Forest Hill, MD 21050 Now with the Win98 volume control set age. Individual mileage may vary depend- Operation: email: [email protected] to mid scale I can adjust the audio drive Clicking your computer’s mouse cursor ing on component tolerances. ... de Joe from zero to four watts output with The NJQRP wishes to thank Dave over the typical “railroad track” PSK31 ., N2CX, email: [email protected] DigiPan in Tune mode. I adjust the pot Benson, NN1G, for his gracious supply should cause text to begin appearing in BEING AN SWL WHILE WAITING to the point where the rf output just stops of the PSK-80 Warbler design to the DigiPan’s upper text window. Clicking FOR THE WARBLER TO ARRIVE increasing and then back down slightly. NJQRP. With it we’re able to proliferate on ‘TX’ in the DigiPan menu puts you in I am happy to report that my IMD has this simple-yet-effective means of getting I can’t wait till the 2nd shipment of War- ‘transmit’ mode, and your typed text in gone from - 15 dB to -24 dB. ... de Bill onto PSK throughout a wide Amateur blers departs NJ! I’ve sent my money — the lower window is streamed out on the Jones, KD7S, [email protected] air. Radio community. Simultaneously, the but I have the fever now!! I was so des- NJQRP is able to leverage the small prof- perate after reading all the posts from MORE MOUNTING DETAILS FOR Results: its from its kitting efforts back into QRP Doug, Bill, et. al., that I actually went to PSK-80 IN LMB-139 ENCLOSURE Success with 80M PSK31 is considerably by hosting its annual QRP forum called Radio Shack and purchased a stereo-mini- influenced by antenna performance. If you use the 1/2" datum shown on the Atlanticon. to stereo-mini patchcord so I could listen diagram for the audio jacks to the inside NN1G’s present 80M antenna is a hast- to PSK! The DigiPan freeware is fantas- NN1G may be contacted at: bottom of the enclosure “floor”, and mea- ily-erected dipole up only 12-13 feet at tic!!! Even if you don’t have a Warbler, Dave Benson, NN1G sure your Warbler, you’ll note that a 5/ the center, and he’s routinely able to work or any other way to transmit PSK, YOU Small Wonder Labs 16" standoff would be needed. That is, OWE IT TO YOURSELF TO LISTEN 80 East Robbins Ave put the 1/2" mark of a scale at the center IN ON THE PSK QSO’S!! The software Newington, CT 06111 of one of the audio jacks and you’ll see is free (look for the links on http:// email: [email protected] that the length of the scale protruding www.psk31.com/ ) and if you have a http://www.smallwonderlabs.com below the board is the length of the stand- computer with soundcard in the shack, it off you would use with the panel dimen- is as simple as RCVR Audio output sions shown. I think I used a 1" long 4- (headphone jack) - patch to - soundcard

10 PSK-80 “Warbler” Technical Manual - rev C PSK-80 “Warbler” TechnicalManual- rev C 11 40 screw in each corner of the board, in- down, the screen was still mostly yellow “original” style it is on the flat side. some of the results at http:// serted from the bottom of the chassis and in the received spectrum area. So, after STANDARD FOR RS-232 CON- www.njqrp.org/mbrproj/enclosures.html secured with a 4-40 nut to the chassis. taking a look at the schematic, I changed NECTOR ON PSK-xx BOARDS Tom Jennings, KV2X tells us that you Then I put another 4-40 nut onto each R23 to a much higher value. After a I’m happy (so far) to report that effective can order the LMB enclosure directly screw and ran it done tight against the couple of experimental tries, I settled on with all new PSK-series shipments, the from LMB (http://www.lmbheeger.com/ first. I then carefully angled the board 56K as a new value. With this value, the transceiver will use the female DB-9 con- products.htm). John Sielke, W2AGN tells connectors into the panel cutouts and audio level to the mic input now gives nector to allow use of the ubiquitous se- us the LMB 139 box is Mouser Part # slipped the board onto the 1" screws. Fi- the proper amount of display adjustment, rial-port extender (male-to-female) cable. 537-139-P @ $7.36. It is 5.5 x 3 x 1.25. nally I secured the board with another 4- from almost totally blue to pretty heavily This is *not* merely a matter of supply- LMB has another box, just the same size, 40 nut on each screw. So as it turns out, yellow speckled. So, if your waterfall dis- ing the other connector flavor- the two but fancier and with dark blue top and two 4-40 nuts were about 5/16" high. ... play is mostly or all yellow in the received genders are physically ‘mirror-imaged’ light blue panel (their “Crown Royal” se- de George N2APB, [email protected] spectrum and your volume control won’t and they are not interchangeable on the ries), which is PN 537-CR-531 for $8.91. FERRITE CHOKE ON AUDIO take it to the level you want, try chang- printed-circuit board. I’m awaiting a ship- NN1G reminds us that many other en- CABLES CURES STRAY RF ing R23 to a higher value. ... de Wayne ment of boards which incorporates a closures will also work, so check out the INTERFERENCE NB6M, [email protected] change in this regard. Jameco (http://www.jameco.com), If I moved the cables going from the Q1 & Q7 PACKAGING AND Along the way, I’d heard from several Mouser (http://www.mouser.com) and sound card to the Warbler, I found that MOUNTING people who threw away the connector I Digi-Key (http://www.digi-key.com) the output power would change slightly. When the Warbler manual was done, the provided and specified and installed one sites! ... de George, N2APB I put a ferrite choke on the cables and the FETs were packaged in the familiar TO92 which matched the picture in QST. Bad RUNNING THE PSK-xx BOARDS problem disappeared. Note that my an- style package which has a pronounced move- that picture made a QST deadline WITH A MAC? tenna is a roof mounted vertical and one “D” cross-section. The manual and with only hours to spare, and once I ac- A number of QRPers have written to ask of the 80 meter radials passes directly over printed circuit board component marking tually applied power, quickly discovered if there’s a software program for the the ceiling of my shack. It is no more than was for that device. However mid-way that there was little Transmit Joy! Macintosh equivalent to Digipan on the three or four feet away. And the Warbler through the kitting we had to make a Anyhow, there’s nothing to ‘vote’ on. PC that controls the PSK-xx boards. Well is sitting naked (no cabinet) on top of the quick turnaround order for 2N7000 de- Both the PSK-series and the Warbler will there is! Check out Multimode at http:// desk. ... de Bill Jones, KD7S, vices and we got them from a different now use the female board-mounted con- www.kender./~edu/psk31.html There [email protected] distributor, what we got was in a differ- nector. If you’ve already got a PSK-20 is also a neat new one for Linux by a CHECK OUT eHAM FOR PSK-80 ent case type. So, if your Q1 and Q7 and want to switch back and forth to a German, but the link eludes me at the BUILDER REPORTS (2N7000 transistors) have the familiar Warbler or a PSK-40 , a ‘gender- moment. ... de Skip KH6TY/4 Post your own reviews, or see those of pronounced “D” cross-section packages bender’ plug (straight- not null modem) WD9EYB RUNNING A WARBLER others PSK-80 builders on eHAM at http:/ follow the manual and pc board mark- is available from Radio Shack, Jameco, GROUP BUILDING PROJECT /www.eham.net/reviews/detail/1137 ... de ings. (This package style is the same as etc .... de Dave, NN1G I have slapped on some of the things I Ken N9VV, [email protected] http:// the 2N4401’s used at Q2, Q3, Q4 and FINDING THE LMB-139 ENCLO- have said about a group building project home.uchicago.edu/~khopper/ Q9.) That is, the flat side of the transistor SURE of PSK-80’s for West Central Indiana and psk80project.html with printed identification matches the In the Tech Manual, and during my PSK East Central Illinois at http:// flat side outline on the board and the talk at Pacificon, we showed a nice and butler.qrp.com/~wd9eyb/psk80/ LOWERING WARBLER AUDIO rounded side matches the rounded out- OUTPUT ON COMPUTERS conveniently-sized Warbler enclosure rantings.html ... Jim, WD9EYB, line on the silk screening. But if the called the LMB-139. There’s really noth- [email protected] HAVING ONLY “MIC” INPUT 2N7000’s you got have a flatter package Because of the fact that I am using a ing special about this aluminum clamshell KD7S STARTS “WESTERN with slightly beveled edges on one side, design from LMB — one could use just Toshiba 2595CDT Laptop for PSK-31 you mount it basically the same way so WARBLIERS” NET - SUNDAYS with the “Warbler”, and the laptop does about any handy enclosure in the junk box 7PM PST that the flatter side faces the flat side of (or even make a NJ Homebrew PCB en- not have an audio “Line” input, only a the board marking, and the side with the I’ve always wanted to coin a new word “Mic” input, the receiver audio from the closure!!) — but it just turned out that or phrase, so here goes: Warblier beveled edges faces the rounded edge of the LMB-139 fits snugly around the PSK- Warbler was much too high for the laptop, the board marking. On this “alternate” (warbel-ear), 1. One who operates PSK- making the entire received spectrum 80 Warbler circuit board. I’ve used these 31, esp. with a NJ QRP Club PSK-80 style transistor package, the printing is enclosures for several years for my QRP bright yellow. Even with the laptop’s re- on the more rounded side while on the Warbler transceiver. 2. Anyone running corder mic volume turned all the way projects in the shack, and you can see PSK-31 (BPSK or QPSK) with any kind

12 PSK-80 “Warbler” Technical Manual - rev C PSK-80 “Warbler” TechnicalManual- rev C 13 of transceiver, QRP or QRO. George manual touches briefly on alignment 1. Power cord (NJQRP supplies the cord was a struggle. Distances seem compa- Heron sold a hundred Warbler kits at usingW1AW as a frequency marker. and the plug, NICE touch) rable to what you’d work using CW. Pacificon [and another 100 via mail]. I Unfortunately, some of us on the west 2. BNC cord to connect to your antenna. Just since I first put the Warbler proto- would guess that 50% of those kits went coast can’t hear W1AW on 80 meters. I If your antenna coax ends in a PL259, type on the air last spring, I’ve watched to west coast QRPers who live within a used my own transceiver to align my then you will need an adapter to connect the PSK31 activity growing on 80M. couple hundred miles of the bay area. If Warbler. Here’s how ... to the BNC connector on the Warbler. Here in the Northeast, you’ll usually see you’re one of those, how about joining 1. In DigiPan, click on the “Configure” 3. DB9 Male to DB9 Female cable to one or more traces on the display at night, Doug (KI6DS), Dave (AB5PC) and my- menu. connect between the Warbler and the se- especially during W1AW’s quiet period self (KD7S) in a round table chat on 80 2. Click on “Band.” rial port on your computer. (9-10 PM Eastern). I’ve seen as many as meters. Set up DigiPan on 80 meters at 3. Click the “Activate” button for 80m 4. Two shielded audio cables with stereo 4 simultaneous traces in the Warbler’s 1 3582 kHz, BPSK, LSB and a 1,500 Hz under “Band.” 1/8" plugs on both ends. One connects to Khz passband. That doesn’t even begin tone. Activate AFC, NET and SNAP. If 4. Under Spectrum Start” type 3582. the Mike input of your sound card and to fill that slice of spectrum with PSK31! you chose to use Squelch, set the thresh- 5. Under “Spectrum Options” click on the audio output of the Warbler, and the We’ve got a unique opportunity here to old fairly low (no more than 2-3 notches LSB. other connects to the audio ouput of the “make it happen”. Don’t let the fact that from the bottom). I’d like to suggest we 6. Click “Okay.” computer and the audio input of the war- it’s 80M, as opposed to a ‘DX’ band, deter create a “Western Warbliers” round table 7. Fire up your Yaecomwood, set it up bler. (Hope I got that right, grin). 5. you in the slightest. Many of us are run- QSO party on Sunday evenings beginning for QRP and CW operation. Digipan or similar software installed on ning short (or low) antennas and still get- at 7:00 p.m. PST. No net control, no for- 8. Attach a dummy load to the your computer. (Available from a link on ting out. Joe Everhart’s ‘Squirt’ antenna mal check-ins, just a round table discus- Yaecomwood. Dave Benson’s Small Wonder Labs page, is half-sized and gets out quite well- look sion using PSK-31 running 5 watts or less 9. Set the dial to exactly 3581.00 kHz. www.smallwonderlabs.com look under for it in the next issue of the NJ QRP from any rig (but especially the Warbler). 10. Key the Yaecomwood. You should PSK31) club’s ‘Homebrewer’ journal. From the Who’s in? ... de Bill Jones - KD7S, be able to see its signal in the DigiPan The antenna that I am using is a Skelton sound of Doug’s recent post, none of the Sanger, California http://www.psnw.com/ waterfall. Cone up about 30 feet at the apex and 6 antennas in their wonderful 3-way QSO ~kd7s/ 11. Adjust trimmer C3 on the Warbler to 10 feet at the end of the radiators. A was a ‘killer’ skywire. This is the season MONITOR PSK31 ACTIVITY ON board until the signal is directly under skelton cone is basically a double dipole. to begin thinking about the low bands, PSK-xx BOARDS WITHOUT A 3581 on the DigiPan display. Your War- Think of having 2 radiators on each side and enthusiasm for 80M yields creativ- COMPUTER bler will now be calibrated to the accu- of the center insulator spread apart, in- ity in the antenna area. This is something I monitor the receive audio output with a racy of the frequency display on the big stead of just 1. It is fed with ladder line we all enjoy hearing about, whether we’re small amplified speaker and can tell if rig. and tuned with a tuner. Works on all WarbleHeads or not, and this enthusiasm there is activity on the frequency without Click the waterfall at about 3580.5 kHz. bands. The legs are 51 feet long, and the gets us off our computers (maybe) and using the computer. ... Dave Epps, From the DigiPan menu, click “Mode” feedline is about 50 feet. *on the air*. ... 73- Dave, NN1G AB5PC, Fresno, CA and “Tune. With a 13.8 volt power sup- With my setup, I am able to work both CUTTING THE REAR PANEL OF ply you should see about3 or 4 watts out- close in and dx stations, having solid copy EASY WAY TO MOUNT CRYS- YOUR ENCLOSURE put. Your transmitter output power on the locals, and being able to work A convenient diagram on the next page TALS ELEVATED FROM PCB should drop off below 3580 and NW7DX from Washington and KI0RO To allow for spacing between the crys- shows hole dimensions for the “rear above3581 kHz. That’s normal. On my from Colorado. Hope this helps. ... de panel” of any enclosure you might hap- tals and the board I cut a strip of heavy Warbler, the “sweet spot” is right at Doug KI6DS paper (or whatever) the thickness of the pen to put the Warbler into. As illustrated, 3580.5 kHz and is fairly flat 400 Hz ei- WHAT KIND OF DISTANCE ARE the enclosure happens to be of the LMB- crystal. I then cut a slot in the center of ther side. ... de Bill KD7S this strip and slide it between the crystal YOU 80m PSK OPS GETTING? 139 aluminum clamshell, but the dimen- and the board. Solder and pull out the HOW DO YOU HOOK IT UP?? I’m using a low dipole at my Connecti- sions are really only specific to the edge strip. ... Dave Epps, AB5PC, Fresno, CA One of the questions that I had about my cut QTH - it’s up only 12-13' at the cen- connectors of the PSK-80 board. Hence, warbler once I got it built was how to ter. Copy is solid out to 200+ miles, al- you can use this diagram as a template ALIGN YOUR WARBLER WITH- hook it up to the computer and the out- though it varies some with conditions. My (when reproduced at actual size) for mak- OUT W1AW side world. Bill Jones, KD7S and Paul 2-way with Joe, N2CX, near Philly was ing the cutouts in your own panel, or just I’ve heard talk about how some PSK-80 Maciel, AK1P have been my PSK gurus. about 80% both ways with our Warblers, use the dimensions to map out the holes Warblers that don’t hear well or have low You will need the following to connect and I’ve had a rock-solid QSO with a VE2 needed on any panel you might want to power output. One possible explanation and get on the air: in Sherbrooke-about 250 miles. Best DX use. ... de George N2APB is that they are not aligned properly. The to date has been the Atlanta area but it

14 PSK-80 “Warbler” Technical Manual - rev C PSK-80 “Warbler” TechnicalManual- rev C 15 and waited for a break. I got my chance a great kit this is. All the parts are there, and jumped in. Bingo, now it was a and it is easy and fun to build. And you threeway between KD7S, AB5PC and know what? There are 2 surface mount KI6DS, all using home built PSK80 War- SOIC 8 pin ICs and I didn’t even think bler transceivers and we had almost solid about it until after it was over. Hey, I just copy for about a 45 minute round table. installed a surfacemount part, and didn’t So, Dave and Bill get the honors for the even give it a second thought while I was first ever Warbler to Warbler qso, but I doing it!! The SMK-1 has done its job. was part of the first ever roundtable with George Heron sold 100 of these kits last production warbler kits. Guys, this is weekend at Pacificon, so I know the y FUN FUN FUN. Hey, it might even be are out there. Get them built guys, and illegal it is so much fun. The round table let’s set 8:00 PM Pacific time as a time to part is great. I live in Dos Palos, Dave check the frequency for West Coast PSK lives in Fresno 60 miles away, and Bill activity. I’ll be on tomorrow night and I lives another 20 miles or so farther south bet Bill and Dave will be too!! in Sanger. Bill was using a vertical, I was Note, you will need to buy a db9 male to using a skelton cone up 30 feet, and Dave db9 female cable and 2 stereo 1/8" plug said his antenna was terrible, and he did audio cables, but that is all you need. The not elaborate, but did say he was doing MAKING A PANEL TEMPLATE & FIRST WARBLER-WARBLER- soft ware is free. Check the NJ QRP CLub some antenna work tomorrow. USING NUT/BOLT STANDOFFS WARBLER QSO: KD7S-AB5PC- web site for full details. Ordering infor- Cut a piece of heavy paper (file folder KI6DS Man, $35 is all that it costs to get on this mation for the kits is there too. Remem- stock) to the exact dimensions of the front Although Chuck Adams, K7QO had the new mode!! Thanks to Dave Benson the ber $35!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A great, great kit. of your enclosure. Then using an inex- first production-version Warbler contact designer and the NJ QRP Club for kitting One more comment. Dave Benson is a pensive (plastic, $1.00) calipers, or even last week right after Pacificon, Bill Jones a fabulous kit. The board is first class, genius! ...72, Doug, KI6DS a ruler, measure the positions of your KD7S and Dave Epps AB5PC had the NorCal quality, as are all the parts. What controls, etc. with reference to some land- first production-version Warbler-to-War- mark, such as the bottom right corner of bler 80m PSK31 contact on October 28. the PC board. Lay these dimensions out And to top it off, Doug Hendricks, KI6DS on your paper replica and make the holes hopped in for the first Warbler round table with a paper punch. Then test it out, mov- QSO with Bill and Dave! Read more ing the holes as necessary. When every- about it below: thing is right, cut a new replica and trans- Oct 29, 2000 ... Wow, Wow, Wow!! fer your accurate dimensions to it to make What a great weekend. I built my NJ QRP a template. Then proceed as you would Club PSK80 Warbler kit yesterday, and with a “real” template. With regard to the took it to Sanger to get a crash course in using nuts as a standoff. You can make operating PSK from Bill Jones, KD7S. this adjustable if you run a screw (4-40 He had me up and running in no time, size, for example) up through the bottom helped me install the software, showed of the enclosure and secure it with a nut me the cable connections, and I was off (and possibly a lockwasher). Then thread for home so we could make the first War- another nut down the screw to achieve bler to Warbler production board qso. I the desired height. Leave some space got home after an hour and a half drive, between the nuts, and you can make very fired up the rig, and there was a qso go- fine adjustments of the standoff height. ing. It was Dave, AB5PC and Bill, KD7S, Then mount the board on the screws and who were both using their warblers. Darn, secure it with a third nut. ... de Richard I missed out on a chance to make history. Meiss, WB9LPU Then I grinned, typed, break de KI6DS

16 PSK-80 “Warbler” Technical Manual - rev C PSK-80 “Warbler” TechnicalManual- rev C 17 terfall’ display at the bottom of the im- touched on the rationale for (and largely PSK31 & DigiPan ... age. This display is a panoramic slice of against ) the use of active error-correc- spectrum 4 KHz wide in the 20 meter tion schemes for this live QSO ‘keyboard- A Short Primer band. New signals appear at the top of to-keyboard’ mode. Since there’s no such by Dave Benson, NN1GDave Benson, NN1G the waterfall just below the frequency tick correction applied, the software provides (as excerpted from the Atlanticon 2000 Proceedings) marks and proceed downward as they get an output whenever it decodes a ‘valid’ older. character in the noise . As soon as the One of the most exciting new develop- PSK31 was developed by Peter Martinez, PSK31 station came on the air, I clicked ments to come down the road in amateur In this image, there are 4 distinct ama- G3PLX, and originally published in on its trace and the text in the upper win- radio recently has been the explosion in teur signals- this snapshot was taken early RadCom in Great Britain as a 2-part se- dow immediately changed to 100% copy growth with the newer digital modes. Of in the day under poor conditions. The ries in 1995/6. It was subsequently re- for this fairly strong signal. these, the best known to the QRP com- printed in QEX2. As originally imple- broad trace on the right side of the water- munity is the PSK31 mode. mented, the PSK31 signal used a fixed fall is a Pactor station present through the The middle window (blank in this in- entire time history onscreen. A second stance) is used to type in messages being What is PSK31? tone-pair frequency and the accompany- Pactor station may also be seen starting transmitted. These can be either typed It’s a narrow band digital communications ing receiver software featured a up (top center of waterfall.) The faint line ahead and then streamed out by clicking mode. It takes advantage of the consid- narrowband tuning indicator. This put a on the left of the waterfall is a steady car- the ‘TX’ button, or once you’re transmit- erable processing power available in your premium on tuning a receiver quite care- rier, and although not evident in the re- ting, the software sends the contents of home computer, and uses Digital Signal fully to put the tone-pair within the range production copy, is accompanied by a this window as you type. If you’re as Processing (DSP) techniques and some of the tuning indicator software. The number of fainter 60 Hz artifacts from skilled a typist as I am , only the plen- other sophisticated filtering. As a result, most recent entry into this mode has been unintentional modulation from that tiful use of backspaces and corrections it does a good job of recovering weak sig- the DigiPan software, and within about a station’s power supply. The signal we’re keeps me ahead of the outgoing data. As nals from the noise, and that attribute is month of its release has proven to domi- interested in, though, is the distinct trace you transmit, your own typing is shown what makes it attractive to our commu- nate the mode. The reasons why will be- to the right of screen center; this is a the upper window- for better or worse. nity. The ‘price of admission’ is a com- come obvious in a moment as we review PSK31 station calling CQ. The upper- puter with sound card and a stable SSB the screen-captured image from the com- The buttons across the top provide ac- most dialog window on the display shows transceiver. During the course of this dis- puter. cess to a number of menus used to set the decoded text from this station’s trans- cussion, I’ll be referring to the Digipan display options and also to access vari- The most dramatic feature in this image mission- it appears onscreen as it’s being software, this is free software available ous Windows functions such as “Save”, [at least in the color rendition] is the ‘wa- decoded. for downloading from the Internet1. “ Edit” and so on. The “Call” and You’ll note a small black diamond cen- “Name” boxes are used to store personal tered over this signal’s waterfall trace. information on the station you’re talking This symbol is placed by ‘pointing and to, and when you click on the “BTU” clicking’ with the computer mouse. If (‘Back to you’ button, it incorporates that you tire of reading the mail with one sig- information into your transmission as you nal, click on the next one and ‘you’re turn it over. there’. There’s no need to touch any tun- How does the mode work? ing adjustments, as the frequency selec- Transmitted signals use a pair of tones tion is done in the software. This point- which are separated by 31.25 Hz. Be- and-click feature obviously represents a cause of the modulation method and re- significant advantage over narrow-band quirements for the hardware, nearly all tuning indicators, and is now being used of the energy in a PSK31 transmission is Figure 8 for other narrowband digital modes as in only these two tones. As a result, this 3 well . mode is very spectrum-efficient. In As you can see from the upper dialog theory, anyway, you could fit about 80 window, the early copy for this session PSK31 QSOs into the space occupied by is ‘gibberish’ resulting from the a single SSB voice transmission! A spec- software’s best efforts to make sense of trum display for this mode is shown be- the noise it’s receiving. Peter Martinez low, this is a “clean” signal. In actual

18 PSK-80 “Warbler” Technical Manual - rev C PSK-80 “Warbler” TechnicalManual- rev C 19 two or more sequential zeroes. When there’s no data being sent but the trans- mitter is on, it’s sending zeros continu- ously so the waveforms resemble that of the first picture above. Each character in the alphabet contains primarily ‘ones’- never is a ‘zero’ seen for more than one bit time within a character. The charac- practice, non-linearities in the transmit- ter set encompasses all 128 ASCII char- ter chain will degrade this signal quality acters- alphanumerics, punctuation and somewhat. control codes- that last one a crucial ad- In the time domain, the signals closely vantage for the average typist. I’ve grown resemble the classic two-tone SSB test to love my ‘’ key! waveforms, as you might expect from the Receiving PSK31 Signals spectrum plot above, The recovery software employs a rather clever scheme to ensure good freedom from data corruption by noise, and this is one of the features of PSK31 which variety of levels of sophistication. Some volume slider (in the Windows lower makes it attractive to our QRP commu- of the more recent mult-mode controllers tray) sets the output level to adjust trans- nity. In addition to the narrowband DSP include PSK31 modem functions in DSP, mit output power. filtering which is centered over the tone- and this is a ‘Cadillac’ approach. At the frequency pair, there’s a special-purpose Needless to say, with no adjustments on other end of the spectrum, I know there’s algorithm at work as well. This is a so- the transceiver itself, this lends itself to at least one gentleman using a PIC to de- called Viterbi decoder, and it consists of some pretty neat ‘remote’ applications modulate PSK31 data. Without know- The above picture shows a stream of logic 32 parallel functions. Each of these func- like telephone or cross band HT control. ing how robust his algorithm is, that is, tions is examining the DSP output over There are now a number of Internet-ac- ‘zeroes’. If you’ll observe closely, each how sophisticated the correlation process the last 5 bit times and ‘scoring’ the cor- cessible amateur transceivers- if they’re waveform envelope has an opposite is, it’d be tough to predict how well this relation between its own code (00000 not doing anything else at the moment ‘sense’- starting positive or negative-go- approach would work for all but the stron- through 11111). In a sliding-window you can steer them to the PSK ‘watering ing in polarity. A logic ‘0’ is defined by gest incoming signals. a phase-change at the bit period. fashion - at each bit time- the sixteen holes’ and monitor the goings-on from codes with the best correlation scores are Operating adjustments: “Look, ma- anywhere. Just the thing for those busi- The figure below shows a logic ‘1’. This kept and the next 32 parallel functions no hands” ness trips with a laptop but no rig! is mechanized by the absence of a phase will include the 16 ‘winners’ plus the two change, and as you see from the figure, At present and for the foreseeable near- Hardware requirements ‘children’, i.e., a ‘1’ or a ‘0’ at the new- the envelope is briefly a steady carrier for future, PSK31 activity is clustered within Computer: The requirements for the est bit time. This processing means that an extra bit period. a narrow band of frequencies on each computer portion of the system are pretty there’s a 5 bit-time delay or ‘pipeline’ band. This means that aside from dialing simply stated: Windows 95, 75 MHz before received data starts trickling out in a particular transceiver frequency, Pentium (or equivalent) or faster, sound of the decoder. there’s nothing to be done with the trans- card and Serial port. This correlation process may be extended ceiver hardware after that. All operating Transceiver: This is worthy of a little in time up to the point where the evalua- adjustments from there on out are handled more attention, since many of us will be tion delay becomes objectionable to the by the computer sound card interface. interested in the homebrewing or kit-com- user- somewhere around one second or The figure below illustrates the Windows patibility aspects of this mode. PSK31 so. sound card dialog box used to set Micro- uses SSB rather than the simpler (Class- The character set devised by Peter phone Gain. This actually refers to the This sounds like a fair amount of process- C) designs used for CW for the transmit- Martinez is called Varicode, and like Microphone input to the sound card, so Morse code, uses shorter code sequences ing is involved, and indeed it is. There’s ter design. nothing to prevent the homebrewer from it’s functionally the transceiver’s receiver for the most commonly-used letters. The gain control. The sound card’s master First and foremost, if you have a synthe- space between characters is formed by tackling this rather interesting topic at a

20 PSK-80 “Warbler” Technical Manual - rev C PSK-80 “Warbler” TechnicalManual- rev C 21 sized SSB rig - a ‘Yaecomwood’ , high- Linearity: approaches are practical. For an approach tions to that design to put it on the 20M end Ten-Tec, Index Labs QRP+, etc., It’s possible to transmit- and decode- sig- with the minimum number of cables be- PSK31 frequencies using crystal control you’re all set. The phase-locked commer- nals which have been amplified and dis- tween the rig and computer, a VOX (au- for high stability. Best of all, the crystals cial rigs provide sufficient frequency sta- torted to the point of being 100% duty- dio-derived) switching scheme seems at- are all standard microprocessor types! bility for PSK31. In the kit domain, the cycle transmissions. Besides being tractive. On the ‘plus’ side, the outgoing When this became a ‘real project’, as op- K2 offered by Elecraft (Wayne Burdick tougher on your finals, it’s not in accor- audio to the transmitter is pretty well de- posed to a marathon e-mail correspon- and Eric Swartz), with its SSB adapter, dance with good amateur practice. In this fined in terms of its wave shape. Several dence, I re-laid out the WM-series with a fits the bill nicely. I’ll also touch on my special case, the signal becomes FSK and practical considerations soon intrude, number of changes, largely for reasons work in this area later in this discussion. sprouts considerable extra sideband con- however. Due to the wraparound / feed- of improved ease of construction. This Technical Considerations: tent. One of the very nice features of the back situation mentioned earlier, the au- also provided the opportunity to incor- dio out of the sound card is never really Frequency stability: panoramic display environment is that all porate the necessary I/ connectors onto transmitted signals are on-screen for all shut off. Further, with some of the Win- the PC board itself. These connectors As a narrowband mode, PSK31 is pretty to see. Set your SSB drive level too high dows functions liable to make noises mate with standard computer interface intolerant of drift. With the ‘AFC’ fea- and you may rest assured that you’ll hear when the operator performs a mouse- cables (3.5mm stereo and serial port/DB- ture in PSK31 decoding software en- about it!- overmodulation is easily seen click, there’s a potential for triggering the 9), available through electronics retail gaged, it’ll retain good copy on strong on the waterfall display. As a rule of transmitter at unintended times. Users of outlets. Interested readers may request signals for drifts of up to 0.5 Hz/ second. thumb, the 3rd-order intermod products several different PSK31 software pack- copies of that project’s schematic from This means, though, that for successful should be down at least 27 dB, this is ages have reported this behavior and have me (business-sized SASE for mail inquir- QRP operation you want good stability. roughly comparable to a decent SSB largely shelved the VOX approach. ies, please). This requirement may be filled either by signal’s distortion figure. There’s one other factor in this discus- a synthesized rig or by the use of crystal sion- remember the ‘CD volume” adjust- “Onward and, er, Upward”- A still- control. The full band -coverage analog- If you’re building a rig for PSK31 from ment? The computer soundcard probably simpler PSK31 rig VFO rigs are likely problematic in this scratch, several other considerations come finds use for other applications. Remem- Last year, I had some remarks about the regard. into play- bering to turn off the rig power before ‘rock-bottom’ approach to getting on the exiting the software application is neces- I had considered the ‘Huff-and-Puff’ fre- At least in the software implementations air, in that case with some relatively sary in this case. This ensures that you’re quency-stabilization as an adjunct to my I’ve seen, the sound card settings are not simple ideas for 50 MHz. I’d like to con- not treating other band users to your fa- ‘stock’ White Mountain SSB series. Al- accessible and re-configurable between tinue in that vein, and in the case of vorite music or game sound effects! though this type of scheme is capable of the ‘transmit’ and ‘receive’ intervals. PSK31, there appears to be a very the necessary long-term frequency stabil- This means that the receiver output, for A more secure method in involves the use straightforward way to put a low-parts ity for PSK31, there’s a catch- the ‘Huff- instance, is always being applied as a of one of the RS-232 signals present on count transceiver on the air successfully. n-Puff’ schemes are prone to ‘limit-cycle’ sound card input (along with the desired your computer’s Serial port connector. The result of this simplified PSK31 trans- (frequency cycling) behavor as they two-tone output) during transmit. This While this increases the number of con- ceiver is my design of the PSK-80 trans- dither between several pseudo-lock raises the specter of unwanted feedback nections between rig and computer, it ceiver ... or the “Warbler” as the NJQRP points. Although this behavior may paths, and indeed, without the proper care adds some ‘piece of mind’. The currently guys like to call it! taken, the transmitted waveform ends up available software packages use either sound fine to the ear for SSB and even As I hope you can sense from the tone of distorted by the unwanted receiver-wrap- DTR (Data Terminal Ready) or RTS (Re- CW applications, it exceeds the drift-rate this material, I’ve really enjoyed getting around path. Similarly, unless the trans- quest to Send) to signal the transceiver to limit I mentioned earlier. It’s possible into PSK31. I hope also that some of my mitter chain is effectively disabled dur- do the T/R switching. When connected to filter the error voltage very heavily (in enthusiasm is contagious! The PSK31 ing receive, the unwanted modulation will to the PTT line of most transceivers, these effect making the loop response as slug- mode really combines the best aspects of be clearly audible in the receiver, giving signals require modest extra circuitry to gish as cold molasses) but that in turn amateur radio and computer technology, rise to the same sort of distortions. In convert the (bipolar) RS-232 signal to a affects cold-start lock time. This approach and it’s a natural for our QRP specialty. is not for the faint-of-heart homebrewer. both cases, effective muting of the trans- PTT-compatible level. mitter and receiver paths eliminates these Further Reading: The Ten-Tec Scout uses this scheme, and In search of the simple PSK31 rig feedback paths. For more information on PSK31, check although I know it’s being used to receive I was approached by KH6TY regarding out the following sites: PSK31, I haven’t heard yet how it stacks Transmit-Receive Switching modifying my existing WM-20 trans- up with the more demanding ‘transmit’ A means of switching a rig between trans- ceiver for PSK31 use. With a sample in http://psk31.com application. mit and receive is needed, and several hand, Howard came up with modifica- and http://aintel.bi.ehu.es/psk31.html

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