N1MM Logger for ARRL Field Day

It seems that the two most popular logging software programs are N1MM Logger+ and N3FJP Logger. Both operate only on Microsoft Windows, so if you're using Linux you either need to use Wine or a different logging program.

I've used N1MM for contest logging for a long time, but I feel I've only scratched the surface of its capabilities. It has hundreds of features designed to shave fractions of a second from the contest exchange and logging process. Calling it a logger is an understatement, as it can also control and operate the radio by sending CW or recorded voice messages. It also knows how to interoperate with WSJT-X or JTDX for use with FT8/FT4 and other modes.

N3FJP is also very popular. It is simpler than N1MM+ and has fewer features, although its capabilities have been increasing steadily. Most of our operators on Field Day use it. It costs around $10-20 for a perpetual licence including updates.

Let me give an example of shaving fractions of seconds from the exchange. The CW in N1MM+ messaging facility will send CQ for you, as well as the contest exchange (e.g. "5A GTA" that the club station uses on field day) and the final thank you at the end of the exchange as well as messages like "AGN?" which can be useful from time to time. The CW can be tailored to speed up when there's something that is totally expected by the other station, like his own call sign, then slow down again when the exchange information is sent. Another example is that the spacing between CW characters can be changed from the standard 7 dits to 6 dits. That might reduce the message time by 50ms or so, which might add up to 5 or 10 more contacts over a 24 hour contest.

Learning N1MM+ can be daunting, but well worth the the time invested. The first time I used it I had it set up for RTTY in a hour or so. Support by N1MM himself and the team is excellent on the Google group and the program is free-of-charge (but not open source). I don't use N1MM+ for my general logging but after the contest I can produce an ADIF format file for upload to my regular logger which I then use to confirm the contacts in ARRL Logbook of the World.

It is truly an amazing and comprehensive tool to make your contest experience fun and productive. Here's a link to a video by the RATPAC team (who have lots of great videos) on using N1MM+ on ARRL Field Day.

Topic: N1MM Logger for Field Day

Speaker/Presenter: Anthony Luscre, K8ZT
View Video: https://vimeo.com/561658305
Download Video: https://vimeo.com/user107547861/download/561658305/d3de10fd9e
Documents: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/1mvexqaudmkd4jc/AABgFaleuXUzwDVtiK8XZek0a?dl=0

My Field Day 2015

This is the third post on the YRARC Field Day 2015. The first talked about the melted coffee pot award, while the second was mostly about the weather.

This time I'll cover the 40m SSB station, which is not coincidentally the one for which I served as band captain. This was a departure from my last two fields days where I captained the digital station (PSK31 and in 2014 RTTY). The decision to move was partly to do something different, and partly to give the opportunity for Brian, VE3IBW, to lead the charge this year (we can always use more band captains!).

As usual, my preparation was full of optimism and ambition. Fortunately Bob VE3WY had agreed to help out with the antennas, and in return I set up the rest of the 40m station, serve as monkey for antenna setup, and supply N1MM Logger Plus on my spare laptop for 6m and 160m.

Speaking of N1MM, there were two firsts this year. With the exception of 40m CW and the satellite station, all stations in YRARC Field Day were networked together. Setting up N1MM was the easy part, with the heavy lifting done by David VA3DCY who handled the wireless network infrastructure. Networking provided a running total of what was going on at all stations, a way of using contacts on other bands to check the exchange information, and replication of the log providing an automatic backup.

The second innovation, only used on 40m SSB, was a prerecorded CQ call. Not only does the prerecorded call pack more audio punch, thanks to preprocessing of the signal, it saves the vocal cords for long sessions. I don't know about other people, but after half a dozen or so calls with no answer, I'm usually ready to give up. With N1MM automatically repeating the call every few seconds, it was easy to keep going for an hour at a time. The problem of course is holding a frequency against all the kilowatt operations out there.

For some reason, which I now forget, we started a couple of minutes after 2pm, and the band was full of stations calling CQ. So spending time on search & pounce operation was in order. It went pretty well although I was getting a bit of noise from the Digital station. Unlike the last two years, where the digital station ran my Elecraft K3, this year's transceiver didn't seem to be as QRM-friendly (although maybe being on the receiving end this time coloured my perception). Fortunately the dipole, with partial cross-polarization (it was a sloping dipole), provided a bit of relief. The noise on the vertical was about 2 S-units higher most of the time.

I finally found a frequency about 10KHz from the top of the band, and had moderate success calling CQ there. Unfortunately at no time during the 24 hours did I have more than 4 or 5 stations answer in a row. I can only dream of commanding a frequency for long runs.

The rain did not relent until the 24 hours was almost up, and in the late evening the winds really picked up and made our leaking tent even less hospitable, but it wasn't until we saw lightning at about 1:30 AM that we shut everything down and disconnected for the night, despite having modestly good band conditions. It was a small storm and I probably could have waited an hour and resumed operations but to be honest I was a bit fed up with the conditions and longed for a warm bed.

The tent was still standing when I returned and we finished the morning with a bunch more contacts. The power to the station from the generator kept getting interrupted which was a minor inconvenience because I had a battery backup for the rig and a good battery in the laptop, although it would take out the second screen and the desk lamp. The problem was traced to panel of electrical outlets attached to the generator. They were all GFCI outlets and they kept tripping, no doubt due to the wet conditions. This was solved by plugging the extension cord into a different generator without GFCI protection.

Ending up in the neighbourhood of 250 contacts was lower than I would have wanted, but the upside is that it will be an easier score to beat next year. I hope the weather will be more cooperative but at least we had the chance to prove our deployment capabilities under less than ideal conditions, furthering the emergency preparedness objectives of the day.

N1MM Logger Plus for Field Day - Part 1

N1MM is the world's most popular logging program. Best of all it's free. For YRARC's Field Day Operation in 2015, it will be the recommended logger.

Also recommended is that you get the program installed on your computer well before the day and learn to operate the basic functions.

So let's begin. To download the code, first go to the N1MM Logger-Plus site. Under the Files button you can download the Full Install. Under the home button, check out the Features link to see what the program does (it does a lot!). At the bottom of the main page there's a link to the features of the new Plus version.

Under Support, there's a link to instructional videos. These are useful, but apply to the older N1MM Logger (no Plus) version. It's close, but there are differences. In the download and install video for instance, Larry K1UT mentions downloading update files. This isn't necessary (unless you're installing off-line), as N1MM Logger Plus will download updates automatically (after you give it permission). There are other sections of the video that are obsolete and possibly misleading. Other videos on operations will give you some good hints on how to get the most out of the program but you should try them out before depending on them for field day.

Speaking of updates - I recommend that you run N1MM while connected to the Internet a day or two before Field Day starts to make sure you have the latest updates installed. It will be harder to do at the site.

Installation is actually quite straightforward. Just run the downloaded program and follow the prompts. Once it is installed, reboot your computer and run the program. It may prompt you to update it which you should do first, then fill in the station information. If you don't plan to try N1MM on the air before Field Day, you can use VE3YRA as the station call and use the coordinates for Al's Tack Shop (44.019138, -79.309132).

One of the best features of N1MM is it's ability to connect all the computers in the station together, so that everyone sees everyone else's log. This means that duplicates can be avoided when two station operate on the same band, but also that the log is replicated on every computer, so that if a hard drive crashes the log isn't lost. We will be setting that up later.

Next instalment will cover interfacing N1MM to your transceiver. This will really demonstrate the power of the program to improve your QSO rate. Recording of common vocal phrases (like CQ CQ Field Day, Victor Echo Three Yankee Romeo Alpha Field Day) is preferable to saying it five thousand times in the course of the contest. I have also found that by compressing the recorded message it cuts through better than using the microphone.

73 'til next time.
Chris VE3NRT

P.S. I know there's experienced N1MM users out there so feel free to chime in with your own suggestions.

Setting the Time

I'll admit it. I'm a little bit obsessed with time. I like it when every clock in the house ticks over in perfect synch. Indeed, I will avoid ever buying a clock or device that doesn't keep perfect time.

It is only a minor obsession. I'm satisfied to be within a second which is good for digital communications modes that depend on accurate time, rather than the millisecond or even microsecond precision. Human technology can keep time to within 1 part in 1,000,000,000,000,000 or so but I would soon find myself single if I started investing the family nest egg in Cesium or Hydrogen Maser clocks.

Around a second accuracy is good for the JT modes like JT65 and JT9 (in the WSJT-X or JT65-HF programs), as well as WSPR. It is also handy if you're networking the N1MM logger program so that stations do not enter logs that are in the future, as far as the other stations are concerned.

There are 3 ways I've used to satisfy the craving for accuracy.

1. The Network Time Protocol (NTP). This protocol runs over an IP network and does a great job of keeping computers in synch with each other despite the delays inherent in networks. Windows supports NTP but the implementation is not the best, so I generally use another free package from Meinberg to keep the system aligned with expensive atomic clocks at the National Research Council and other centres around the world. My only complaint with Meinberg is that it takes its time setting the clock after the system starts - around a 1/2 hour - which is pesky, especially on a laptop. All Linux systems have an NTP client available to install.
2. Short Wave Stations. WWV, CHU and others transmit precise time signals, although they are somewhat skewed by the ionosphere unless you happen to live near one. I have an inexpensive clock that is always right which uses WWV. I'm sure there's also an inexpensive way to use WWV to set the computer clock but I've never tried to find one because GPS is so readily available.
3. GPS - GPS (also GLONASS and Galileo) satellites send out very accurate time signals as each satellite contains a Cesium timepiece. Technology is available to use GPS to keep very accurate time for advanced computer and telephony systems but simple software is available for using a standard GPS dongle (either a USB or Serial Port) that usually runs around $20-30 to keep the system clock from drifting. The GPS solution is useful if you don't have an Internet connection, like with portable operation, although NTP works just fine over a mobile phone hotspot.

At home I run NTP. Rather than have each of the computers (and some other devices like NAS storage, TV sets and music players) connect directly to external time servers, I have my Raspberry-Pi single board computer handle the external connection and then act as a server for all the other devices over my local area network. This reduces the load on the external servers and the network traffic, as well as keeping the computers together if the Internet becomes unavailable (together, although only as correct as the Raspberry Pi's clock can maintain).

Computer clocks drift. My desktop system is pretty good at 1-2 seconds per day. The laptops drift several seconds per day. This isn't good enough for JT65 and it is very hard to set them manually. 

I've tried two software applications with my GPS dongle. The first thing you should know is that these applications have to be run with Administrator privileges (e.g. right-click, "Run as Administrator") so that they can change the system time. You wouldn't want any old app doing that.

The first one was a free app from TimeTools called "GPS Clock". It is a very simple app in which you just tell it the com port and it runs, displaying your position, the time and the NMEA messages coming from the GPS dongle. Unfortunately it is a very cranky application so I will only give it two starts out of five (two instead of one because it does work if you're nice to it). There is a configuration setting that determines how many seconds elapse between clock updates ranging from 1 to 60. If it is set to anything but 1 the program will bomb with an error. Also, if you forget to run the program with administrator privilege, it reports an error every second until you kill the program.

The other program is NMEATime from VisualGPS. It works solidly and can use both GPS and a somewhat less accurate NTP called Simple Network Time Protocol (SNTP). In addition to the latitude, longitude, altitude and time, it shows the position of the GPS satellites it can see and the signal strengths from each. It also managed to find my GPS dongle on its communication port without me having to tell it which COM port it was on. Unfortunately, perhaps inevitably, the program that works the best is not free - but you get a one month trial and the registration key is a reasonable $15. 

If your GPS unit has the capability, the program will also accept a hardware 1 PPS (pulse-per-second) input, which will give you sub-second accuracy. The 1 PPS output from even very inexpensive GPS devices is usually accurate to a microsecond, and over long periods can be used to synchronize a very stable oscillator to within a picosecond of "atomic time".

For both programs you must make sure that the speed of the COM port matches the device and the program you're using. It won't work otherwise.

For most of us, installing Meinberg, as recommended by the authors of both N1MM and WSJT-X, is all we need to do to guarantee accurate time-keeping by our computers.

73,

Chris

Notes from the Shack - February 2015

The K1N Navassa DXpedition is now history. Several club members reported making contact with them, which considering the pileups and QRM, was an accomplishment. I had a pretty hard time myself as my antenna decided to succumb to the winter weather. It's still upright but the VSWR went through the roof.

I made a recording of my first contact of a total of three was on RTTY (the others were CW) because I thought it was interesting.

VE3NRT VE3NRT

1!
0NJT N59PCNCT KON VE"FRTP "&9&;3NRGCVAK

K1N 599 VE3NRT

VE3NRT TU K1N DN

Short and sweet. Based on VE"FRTP containing 4 letters of my call and "&9&;3NRGCVAK containing 3, I decided he was replying to me and acknowledged with a slightly exaggerated 599. His response actually was perfectly readable, as were most of his transmissions, but likely he was hit by QRM (probably "UP UP UP") when he came back to me.

A lot my RTTY DX is like that. You just have to read between the lines. From a technical standpoint, running multiple decoders is useful. The two most popular in the contesting world are MMTTY and 2Tone. Those, unlike DM780 (part of Ham Radio Deluxe), don't come with a waterfall but are more suited to working with narrow filters that make it easier to decode weak signals in the presence of strong stations nearby. Having two different decoders provides a second opinion on the contents of the message giving you a better chance of decoding it correctly. Operation with multiple decoders is supported by both the DXlab suite and the N1MM contest logger.

73,
Chris

SPAR Winter Field Day - N1MM User Defined Contest File

If you’ve been trying out N1MM Logger+ in preparation for SPAR Winter Field Day, you may have noticed that it is not one of the predefined contests. Don’t panic! N1MM Logger+ allows the creation of “User Defined Contests” which are quite flexible. I found an old contest definition on the web and modified it a bit. I took out the unnecessary signal report fields and made separate fields for the class, section and temperature. I also set it up to track sections even though they are not multipliers (just like Summer Field Day). There is no provision for SSTV or Satellite, just phone, CW and RTTY/PSK. I don’t expect we’ll be racking up a ton of contacts in SSTV or Satellite so those can be tracked (semi-) manually.

The new user defined contest file should be saved in the /My Documents/N1MM Logger+/User Defined Contests/ folder.

73,
Chris

YRARC Board of Directors Meeting - December 16, 2014

Meeting held in the Magna Centre. Called to order at 19:00. Chaired by Chris VE3NRT. Board members attending; Chris VE3NRT, Rob VE3RQB, Chris VA3DXZ, Eric VE3EB, Barry VA3LLT, David VA3DCY, Steve VE3UT, John VA3JI, Geoff VA3GS. Board members absent; none. Guests attending; none

1. Review of the agenda as proposed by Chris VE3NRT
   
   • Motion 2014-12-16-01 to adopt agenda. Motion carried.
2. Adoption of Nov 18/14 board meeting minutes
   
   • Motion 2014-12-16-02 to adopt minutes as published in the splatter blog at http://yrarc-splatter.blogspot.ca/. Motion carried.
3. Governance
   
   • Treasurers Report – John VA3JI
     
     • Balance as of Nov 30-14 [Balance available to members upon request to Secretary]
       
     • Expenses: Total $5,621.50 (Hamfest $5,279.09 + Christmas Party $278.20 + Trailer $64.21)
       
     • Income: Memberships $50.00
       
     • Balance as of Dec 16-14: [Balance available to members upon request to Secretary]
       
   • Insurance coverage – John VA3JI
     
     • John VA3JI is working toward providing a report to the board at the Feb 2015 board meeting
       
     • It was confirmed by John VA3JI that the trailers are considered commercial and are not covered while being towed by a typical personal motor vehicle insurance policy
       
     • Rob VE3RQB indicated he had received a quote of $80.00 flat rate one way commercial towing. The idea being that the club could avoid purchasing a vehicle policy for the tower trailer (similar to what is in place for the communications trailer) if a commercial tow operator was hired to move the tower trailer when needed. Depending on the frequency of use of the tower trailer, this could be a more cost effective option for the club.
       
     • John VA3JI presented a list of the insurance requirements (including a list of club assets) to be provided to the club’s insurance broker for the purpose of requesting a quote. The value of some of the assets was still outstanding. In particular, John VA3JI was looking for the original purchase price of the communications trailer and equipment installed in it.
       
     • Eric VE3EB indicated that the value of the communications trailer as equipped was approximately $27,000.00 excluding in kind contributions.
       
     • The requirements list was amended to reflect a value of $27,000.00 for the communications trailer.
       
     • Motion 2014-12-16-03 by Chris VA3DXZ to confirm that the board is in agreement that the list as amended adequately captures the club’s insurance requirements, seconded by Rob VE3RQB. Motion carried.
       
     • Chris VE3NRT will provide the list to Russell VA3WTR who had indicated that the region was willing to solicit a competitive quote on our behalf.
       
4. Property – Rob VE3RQB
   
   • Potential retired ambulance acquisition
     
     • There was a short discussion about the utility of an ambulance in addition to the communications trailer and the concern over the limited resources available to the club to support and maintain both assets.
   • Go Kits
     
     • Chris VE3NRT confirmed that he has all of the hand held radios
       
     • Chris VE3NRT will retrieve the remaining go kits and prepare an inventory
       
   • EMCOMM Leadership
     
     • Russell had indicated at the last general meeting that EMCOMM would be looking for a new leader as he focused this year on support of the 2015 PAN AM games.
       
     • Barry VA3LLT will contact Russell VA3WTR to understand his plans and report back at the next board meeting.
       
5. Repeaters – Steve VE3UT
   
   • Steve VE3UT suggested that the board consider allocating a fund to cover miscellaneous expenses for materials etc… that are needed from time to time to maintain or improve the performance of the repeaters.
     
   • Motion 2014-12-16-04 by Steve VE3UT to allocate up to $200.00 for funding of incidental expenses incurred in maintaining the repeaters, seconded by Eric VE3EB. Motion carried.
     
   • Intermodulation interference was causing issues with the link radio linking VE3YRC UHF to VE3YRA. This problem is being investigated.
     
   • The radio linking VE3YRC VHF to VE3YRC UHF should be replaced. Any club member willing to donate a replacement radio is asked to contact Steve VE3UT
     
   • Steve VE3UT proposed increasing the audio recording library for the repeaters. The board was in favour of this. Steve VE3UT will contact Cindy who has helped the club in the past. An honorarium (approximately $25.00) will be required and will be funded from motion 2014-12-16-04.
     
   • The VE3YRA controller will be removed from operation to facilitate a firmware upgrade and reprogramming. Steve VE3UT will make an announcement at the next general meeting and on the Yahoo group advising that the repeater will be off the air for a period of time in January while the work is being done.
     
   • Steve VE3UT re-iterated the goal of the repeater committee which is to provide coverage across York Region. VE3YRC VHF, VE3YRC UHF, and VE3YRA will be continuously linked together to facilitate region wide coverage. The linking radios can be enabled and disabled in the event that the repeaters need to be isolated.
     
   • Steve VE3UT will provide copies of the scripts and codes to the club Secretary.
     
6. Events - Eric VE3EB
   
   • Recognition Plan
     
     • Eric VE3EB reported that recognition certificates were handed out at the last general meeting. There are still a few to deliver to members who were not present at the general meeting.
       
     • A report will be provided indicating the total volunteer hours of the club for future reference
       
7. Membership – Chris VE3NRT
   
   • Meeting schedule
     
     • Ideas proposed included a talk on IRLP, a presentation by the Ontario Contest Club
       
   • Winter Field Day
     
     • N1MM logging software will be used
       
     • David VA3DCY has collected $90 for meal tickets
       
   • Junk night
     
     • Will be held at the January General meeting
8. Other Business – None
   
9. Motion 2014-12-16-05 by Geoff VA3GS to adjourn meeting, seconded by Rob VE3RQB. Motion carried at 9:10pm.
   

My Field Day 2014 - Digital Station

As band captain of the digital station once again, I had two important goals for 2014. The first was to beat last year's score (and targeted 500 contacts compared to 243 last year). The second and far more important goal was to lose the competition for the coffee pot award, which I won handily last year due to antenna and software problems. Fortunately this year things went better and there was more competition so I lost by a mile.

The antenna setup was much easier using the club's radial-free Cushcraft R8 instead of my 30 year-old Butternut HF6V. By Friday evening we had it up, tested and made a couple of DX contacts on 15 metres. We also strung up a home made 40m dipole which I'd built and tuned as an inverted V during my diving trip to Florida in April. True to theory, in the dipole configuration the antenna tuned a bit higher in the band but with about 2:1 VSWR on the digital subband of 40m and 3:1 on 15m it was well within the capabilities of my tuner. The club tri-bander was also available but we soon decided that it would need some repair work before it could be used again, so we set it aside for the event.

Another advantage over FD 2013 was a year's experience with my transceiver. My first contact on that transceiver was on Field Day 2013 and since that time it has logged another 5000 or so, probably about 1/2 of those in one digital mode or another.

Start-up was not without challenges, though. Digital operation requires an audio interface, rig control, PTT, etc. etc and the software didn't work quite right at the beginning causing a few minutes delay that was quickly resolved. I'd brought my docking station to provide extra USB ports and used every single one of them. The worst of the problems was that input monitor switch on the audio interface became set by accident and caused a sharp feedback sound on transmit that took a few minutes to locate, but we were shortly up and running RTTY on 15 metres.

Unfortunately Brian VE3IBW and I didn't get the QSO rate we were looking for, partly because of band conditions and partly because there was less RTTY activity than expected, so by about 6pm we were well short of the QSO rate we needed to be to hit our target. We had started on 15m but had trouble finding new RTTY stations to work so we went to 20m to work some more. After a while 20m became unproductive so I went over to the 40m CW station and talked to John VA3JI who was the operator at the time to let him know that I was going to try 40m and to let me know if he was getting any QRM. Fortunately there was no QRM even though we were operating at the maximum power for our class and the next 12 hours or so was entirely on 40 and the QSO rate started to pick up.

As night fell the tent filled up with mosquitoes and other annoying insects so Publius VE3XS commandeered the bug zapper from the (now closed) kitchen which made short work of them, and surprisingly didn't cause any QRM. On my list for next year is to bring my own zapper.

By 3AM however, the doldrums set in once again so in desperation I took a break to configure FLDIGI (software for digital modes) with N1MM. Having access to the Internet via my cell phone really helped get it up and running. Once configured, we went to PSK and spent most of the remaining time in that mode. There were many more PSK operators and we really started to make hay, even though the sunshine was still hours away. By the time Brian returned at 6:30 AM I was able to turn the station over to him with just 25 contacts to go to beat the previous years' high water mark.

The other change we made this year was to use a home-made dipole and an additional antenna. On 40m it seemed to work better than the Cushcraft so we turned the R8 over the GOTA station and ran the dipole for most of the remainder of the contest.

I went home to get a few hours of sleep and when I got back to the site at around 1PM I found that Brian had had an outstanding morning on PSK and we were closing in on 300 contacts. By the end we'd reached 309 QSOs using two modes on 3 bands, a new high water mark to beat in Field Day 2015. Next year we are thinking about using a second receiver for spotting unworked stations and maybe setting up for 80 metres as well. The multi-band capability of the digital station really helped rack up the points. In the picture below, you'll see the Coffee Pot Award being presented to someone other than me.



With the great weather, great food (Thanks Peter!), great organization (Thanks Steve!) and great company (Thanks everyone!) it was all in all an excellent weekend.

Notes from the Shack - March 2014

Contesting isn't for everyone, but when we talk about ARRL Field Day as an emergency preparedness exercise it isn't just about establishing long distance communications in the face of widespread disaster, but operational readiness and reliability. As the recipient of the Coffee Pot Award for my first shot at being a band captain, I've seen how important it is to have a solidly reliable setup.

Mazes of Software

Over the holidays I used Ham Radio Deluxe to participate in a few phone and RTTY contests. The last of these was the RTTY Roundup, and 30 minutes into the contest I was so frustrated with HRD I quickly installed the N1MM logger, MMTTY and 2Tone. Setup took less than an hour and the result was a much better QSO rate, easy identification of dupes (for non-contesters, this is slang for duplicate contacts, not for operators who are easily hoodwinked), and flagging of multipliers. The sudden increase in efficiency let me log more contacts in the dozen or so hours operating the contest than in 24 hours of Field Day - not necessarily an apples to apples comparison but still encouraging.

In conjunction with N1MM I used HDSDR to find signals using a Softrock Lite II connected to the IF of my K3. HDSDR can't control N1MM directly and rather than try to hack a solution while the contest was running I didn't use it for rig control. This resulted in a fair amount of knob spinning to tune in signals but as they were so close together it wasn't a big deal even at the dial's most precise (i.e. slowest) setting of 200Hz per turn. The IF output is picked off prior to the radio's crystal filtering stage, so the narrowest filter (250 Hz) can be used to feed the RTTY decoders while still being able to see a 100 KHz wide swath of the radio spectrum.

The default display in the MMTTY and 2Tone RTTY programs is amplitude over frequency rather than a waterfall. In general I keep the filter narrow (250Hz) and it's more like regular tuning than just clicking the mouse on the signal you want. What the programs lacked in point-and-click was made up by the better decoding accuracy, integration with the logger (worked call signs display in grey, new ones in blue, and multipliers in red, based on the rules of the contest), and fine tuning ability. Using two different decoders at once also helps to figure out the message when there is noise, interference and fading as they use different decoding algorithms. N1MM supports up to 4 decoders at a time which can be used to "vote" for the right interpretation.

I'm still working on finding the best way to integrate all the software without having them fight over the control ports and audio interface. LP-Bridge is a way to have two programs share the same serial port but it's a hassle managing all the layers of software, and is reputed to have performance problems as well as some restrictive licencing.

For non-contest operation, N1MM is usable but not ideal. It doesn't like to flip modes nor can it log modes that aren't supported in the Cabrillo format (JT65 and JT9 for instance, which I frequently use). So I set out in search of a better way, which will be the subject of a future post.

The Bottom Line

I'm not a competitive contester (yet), but using N1MM has transformed the contest experience. By using a footswitch and mounting the microphone on a boom for the January 18th North American QSO Party, it left my hands free to work the radio and the keyboard.

With that in place, the logging process didn't slow down the QSO rate and the number of contacts per hour has gone up substantially. With ARRL Field Day only 5 months away, the job now is to perfect the digital operation and reach the goal of doubling last year's score.

Postscript

I should hope that every club member who uses simplex communications, whether on HF or VHF, has signed up for Logbook of the World. While signing up isn't the simplest of tasks, setup is getting easier and uploading logs is simplicity itself, especially with a good logging program LoTW accepts both ADIF and Cabrillo files, typically used for general and contest logging respectively. I have noticed that contesters are much more likely to load their QSOs into LoTW, as are digital operators. The confirmation rates have been pretty good. Excluding the contacts from the 80's that I transcribed from my paper logbook and uploaded, the percentage confirmation is 59%.