PSK up and running at the Club
The World of PSK31 has hit the Radio Shack down at the Humber Fortress DX ARC.
The club is using a Club made interface on an old reclaimed XP computer, and running it on an Kenwood TS-440s with 35 watts output into a 40m Dipole at 110ft high.
So far the Club has been operating on 40m PSK31.
Hopefully looking into starting to join in the RSGB 80m Data Contest’s as the Members learn more about operating this great mode.
Well, many members will be running the system, so we are going to call the PC and PSK31 system the Name Data so if you see Data on the Air
please call us, the PSK31 system is using the club call sign M0HFC.
What is PSK31
PSK31 is a method of communicating by sending data over radio which was developed by Peter Martinez, G3PLX.
It uses a very narrow band, phase modulated signal and special data encoding, to allow operators to “chat” in a manner similar to RTTY.
However, PSK31 is much more effective than RTTY, being more resistant to interference and needing less power to achieve solid copy.
Most PSK31 operators use PC software that generates and decodes the audio PSK signal using the computer sound card.
The output from the radio receiver is fed into the sound card’s line input socket and the software decodes it and displays the text on the screen.
To create a PSK signal for transmitting the sound card generates the audio which is taken from the speaker socket and fed to the transceiver.
With many transceivers (including the Elecraft K2) the audio must be connected to the microphone socket after some fairly heavy attenuation.
Many desktop-style transceivers have a dedicated data interface which avoids the nuisance of disconnecting the mike whenever you want to operate on PSK.
Software
Many programs are now available that enable you to send and receive PSK31. Interface to your Sound card good site to start looking at is http://qsl.net/wm2u/interface.html
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