The Advantages of Waterfall Displays for Contesting and

The Advantages of Waterfall Displays for Contesting and DXing Presented by N 6 TV n 6 tv@arrl. net

Presentation Overview l l l Legacy “Panadapters” Waterfall scope in CW Skimmer Latest radios with waterfall displays Waterfall display advantages & disadvantages How to use waterfall displays while contesting or DXing Q&A Dayton 2016 2

Legacy Panadapters l Kenwood SM-230 Station Monitor (25, 100, or 250 KHz): Dayton 2016 Photo courtesy http: //www. universal-radio. com/ 3

Legacy Panadapters l “Band Scopes” in Icom IC-781, IC-756 Pro. III, IC-7800 (before V 3. 0), IC-7700 (before V 2. 0) Dayton 2016 4

Spectrum Displays Hide Weak Signals Dayton 2016 5

CW Skimmer’s Band Scope • From the CW Skimmer menu, select View → Band Scope • Much better resolution, but display is very jumpy • No “peak signal” memory • Not useful on SSB Dayton 2016 6

Legacy Panadapter Limitations l l l Big signals dominate the display Weak signals very difficult to spot Signal peaks disappear, no history Difficult to find “clear spots” on a crowded band Limited zoom in or out Display jumpy, distracting l Signal averaging helps, but it also hides things Dayton 2016 7

CW Skimmer Waterfall Limitations l l l You only see 10 - 15 k. Hz of the band at most Scale is fixed, cannot “zoom” in or out, or tune smoothly Narrow 500 Hz CW filter – not usable on phone Dayton 2016 8

Better Waterfall Displays l The Elecraft P 3 Panadapter l Major improvement over legacy designs Dayton 2016 Photo courtesy http: //www. elecraft. com 9

Elecraft P 3 + P 3 SVGA Option l l P 3 resolution only 480 x 272 pixels P 3 SVGA: internal SVGA Large Screen Adapter l l l 1024 x 768 1280 x 1024 1440 x 900 1920 x 1080 Displays far more signals Dayton 2016 Photo courtesy http: //www. elecraft. com 10

P 3 Built-in Display at 480 x 272 Dayton 2016 11

P 3 SVGA at 1440 x 900 Dayton 2016 12

Old Icom IC-7800 firmware (no waterfall) Dayton 2016 Photo courtesy http: //www. icomamerica. com 13

Icom IC-7800 with V 3. 0 firmware Dayton 2016 Photo courtesy http: //www. icomamerica. com 14

IC-7800 V 3. 0 Screen Shot IC-7700 V 2. 0 Also Supports Waterfall Feature l 800 x 480 (with or without external monitor) IC-7850 significantly improves waterfall (800 x 600) Dayton 2016 15

IC-7850 / 7851 – Huge Improvement l l Fast, 800 x 600, MAIN only, or MAIN + SUB “Click to tune” with USB mouse Dayton 2016 16

New IC-7300 has fast waterfall too! l With touch screen Dayton 2016 17

Kenwood TS-990 S Dayton 2016 Photo courtesy http: //www. kenwoodusa. com 18

Flex. Radio FLEX-5000™, FLEX-6700™ Dayton 2016 Photos courtesy http: //www. flexradio. com 19

Flex. Radio Systems® Smart. SDR Dayton 2016 Image courtesy K 3 UK 20

Winrad Software Dayton 2016 21

HDSDR Software Dayton 2016 22

SDR-Radio. com SDRCconsole (V 2) by HB 9 DRV Dayton 2016 23

Web. SDR: Waterfalls on the Web l http: //websdr. ewi. utwente. nl: 8901/ Dayton 2016 Watch 5 Bands at once! 24

Waterfall Display Advantages l “Click to Tune” – direct access using a mouse l l l Weak signals easy to spot (faint traces) Many zoom levels: 5, 10, 30, 60, …, 800 KHz+ l l IC-7300, IC-7800 V 3. 0, IC-7851, Flex/Smart. SDR, HDSDR, SDRConsole (but not Elecraft P 3) Watch the whole band at once, or a small slice Find clear frequencies fast Find who the DX just worked, fast Spot the gaps in a crowded CW pileup Dayton 2016 25

Listening “Up”? Not a problem Waterfall direction Oldest Last JA wkd Newest 500 Hz Who will W 1 AW/0 answer next? Dayton 2016 26

E 30 FB CW Pileup on P 3 display Newest DX Waterfall direction Who got Him? Oldest Where will he listen next? Dayton 2016 27

Advantage: Waterfall l l l Find “good spots to call” in a CW pileup Find clear spots to call CQ QRM? You can see where to move your VFO to minimize it During S&P, find the “next” signal fast (who needs careful tuning? ) Position VFO B or 2 nd receiver without having to listen to it l S&P while CQing, “SO 2 V” (single-op, two VFOs) Monitor overall band activity Keep an eye on the local competition Dayton 2016 28

Waterfall Display Disadvantages l l l Radios don’t automatically tune from signal-to-signal like CW Skimmer (yet) Clicking on a signal with the mouse not as precise as tuning with VFO, must still fine tune, contest software loses focus Some find it visually distracting Cumbersome to adjust scope width and band edges But, if you’re not using a waterfall display in a contest, you’re really operating “blind” A waterfall display is really the “killer app” Dayton 2016 29

Recommendations While Contesting l l Always enable the waterfall Use Fixed Mode (never “Center” mode) l l You want the VFO cursor to move, not the scope Use narrow 5 - 20 k. Hz span for CQ, running Use wider 40 -100 k. Hz span for S&P, tuning Logging software can and should automate this: l l In Win-Test, type SPAN 20 [Enter] to set a 20 k. Hz scope span, limited to band edges See http: //bit. ly/wtscripts - Win-Test Scripts P 3 scripts. zip, Icom. Scripts. zip, includes source code Dayton 2016 30

Winrad on Top, Win-Test on Bottom Dayton 2016 31

Winrad & Win-Test (zoomed) Dayton 2016 32

Click-To-Tune with a “Legacy” Transceiver + SDR Dayton 2016 33

Use Omnirig support in Winrad or HDSDR to synch freq. with any transceiver Dayton 2016 34

Try Winrad Waterfall Demo l l l Perseus SDR used to make a wideband recording (122 KHz for 10 minutes = 300 MB) Demo will play back that recording and others To try the demo yourself, follow instructions at l http: //www. kkn. net/~n 6 tv Dayton 2016 35

Questions? l l l http: //www. winrad. org - Winrad software http: //www. hdsdr. de/ - HDSDR software http: //sdr-radio. com/Software - SDRConsole http: //www. kkn. net/~n 6 tv - Winrad demo file http: //www. qrz. com/db/n 6 tv - Links to this and other presentations Dayton 2016 36