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Thanks, Hans, this update (AGC) really makes a huge difference! ?As a feature request, could the S meter have a peak hold function? ?
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I've listened to this weekend contest in 20 and 40m bands and tinkered with AGC settings some more. I've also tried Paul (W9AC) suggestion to increase "Smooth samples", and it seems to alleviate the clicks on TX.
My goal was to keep reasonable good dynamics and make RX as less tiresome as possible. Here's what worked for me:
It's nice to have so many options =) =)
Regards,
YO3GFH
op. Adrian
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Hi Roy
> Something to do with reducing > the value of Sample blocks > appears to make QMX grumpy.
Thanks... I'll fix that. No problem. It's just that pesky AGC sample buffer again... It's in use all the time audio is running. When you go in and change the size while it's in use things can get confused. You'll find probably it crashes sometimes not others, when you change sample size. I can fix it easily don't worry. For now, restarting QMX will recover it.
73 Hans G0UPL
Hans, FYI:
I just tried to set Paul's "good start" settings (post below), not through Terminal, but through the QMX menu. After finishing, selecting the right push-button to step out, my QMX locked-up with just "Audio" showing. No buttons worked including power off, so had to power off by pulling the plug.
On re-start (plugging back into power and starting), QMX came up just normally, and all settings I made were still present.
I was able to reproduce the issue (again, Menu settings via QMX, not terminal) by trying a few things. This is what did it in:
- moving "Sample blocks" back up to 5 (your originally published settings to try)
- backing all the way out of menu. (QMX working OK here)
- returning to Menu -> Audio -> AGC Settings -> Sample blocks
- reducing the Sample blocks to "2".
- back -> back (to AGC Settings) -> back (to Audio)
- QMX totally hung now
Something to do with reducing the value of Sample blocks appears to make QMX grumpy.
Roy - KI0ER
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Very pleased with the new features.? The QMX is growing up now. Well done Hans! One thing for my wish list would be a variabel filter setting for CW. I'm working a lot of guys using homebrewed tx or ww-2 gear. They are not spot on most of the time and VFO' s tend to drift. This morning I had a QSO? with a om who returned to my cq about 150 Hz lf and I first did'nt hear him. Now I'm using RIT and tune around my calling frequency after a cq.
73 Durk PA3BYW?
Hans,
Thanks so much for this, a great improvement on CW!? Paul, thanks for thes ettungs, I've been playing around with them a bit with QSOs on 30M and litening to the 'test on 40M.? Think I'll end up somewheer between youe settings and Hans LOL.? Owning an Elecraft K3 and K4 means I've done a lot of playing around with AGC settings!
73, Bill NZ0T
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Hans,
Thanks so much for this, a great improvement on CW!? Paul, thanks for thes ettungs, I've been playing around with them a bit with QSOs on 30M and litening to the 'test on 40M.? Think I'll end up somewheer between youe settings and Hans LOL.? Owning an Elecraft K3 and K4 means I've done a lot of playing around with AGC settings!
73, Bill NZ0T
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The DX contest is proving to be a great way to test the AGC.
And it is working quite nicely.? Thanks, Hans!
Just hopped on 20m and snagged two Spanish stations and a Hawaiian station.
Amazing what 4W and a 15ft dipole can do when the band is open.
73, Mike KK7ER
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Hans, FYI: I just tried to set Paul's "good start" settings (post below), not through Terminal, but through the QMX menu. After finishing, selecting the right push-button to step out, my QMX locked-up with just "Audio" showing. No buttons worked including power off, so had to power off by pulling the plug. On re-start (plugging back into power and starting), QMX came up just normally, and all settings I made were still present. I was able to reproduce the issue (again, Menu settings via QMX, not terminal) by trying a few things. This is what did it in:
- moving "Sample blocks" back up to 5 (your originally published settings to try)
- backing all the way out of menu. (QMX working OK here)
- returning to Menu -> Audio -> AGC Settings -> Sample blocks
- reducing the Sample blocks to "2".
- back -> back (to AGC Settings) -> back (to Audio)
- QMX totally hung now
Something to do with reducing the value of Sample blocks appears to make QMX grumpy. Roy - KI0ER
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On Fri, Feb 16, 2024 at 02:04 PM, <nz0tham@...> wrote:
I got 17 loaded just fine.? Anyone have suggested AGC settings to start with?
73, Bill NZ0T
See below.? The high "Smooth Samples" setting seems to eliminate much of the audio clicks.? The remaining settings give reasonably good dynamic range while limiting strong signals. I'm still experimenting with values but this is a good start. Paul, W9AC ?
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I loaded .17 and it is working well on digi with iFTx on the iphone. ?Thanks to Hans ill be trying it out on the next SOTA outing.?
On Friday, February 16, 2024, 3:30 PM, Hans Summers <hans.summers@...> wrote: P.P.S. yeah there's a lot of clutter in there. Like my workbench (see attached)... the QMX "Lab" is almost as cluttered as the real one.? On Sat, Feb 17, 2024 at 1:27?AM Hans Summers via <hans.summers= [email protected]> wrote: P.S. Attached... "The Lab" Easter egg...?
On Sat, Feb 17, 2024 at 1:25?AM Hans Summers via <hans.summers= [email protected]> wrote: I got 17 loaded just fine.? Anyone have suggested AGC settings to start with?
Adrain?YO3GFH said:
"I configured AGC with the values seen in your screen captures, they seem pretty sane, I only changed "Recovery dB/s" (from 10 to 15) and "Threshold S" (from 8 to 7)."?
I think that is reasonable...?
I remind all that: - I was being a little extreme perhaps in my settings, because I wanted to see what goes on, during my development and testing
- I had long hang time and slow recovery dB/second because again, I wanted to see what was going on, and be able to demonstrate in the video?
- My video test case was also extreme... S9+30dB... to demonstrate the extreme capability of the AGC system to totally delete any possibility of that massive signal reaching the earphones, in this case it instantly applied about 36dB attenuation, and no blip at all is seen on the Audacity software's recording of the audio (which is also streamed over the USB sound card interface concurrently to the audio output). And also to clearly show everything for the video.?
- My 40m noise floor is too high here right now, as I said on the video, my antenna fell down. It doesn't work as well lying on the roof which has a metal frame inside the tiles.?
Easter egg: If you press the D key on the terminal screen, in the main menu, you get my secret "lab", it's my playground which I use during development of my various functional additions, and for debugging, etc. What's in there now is some debug info on the AGC as that's the task I had most recently on the lab bench. Might be interesting, if you are wanting to play with the AGC.?
--
Jginaz
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P.P.S. yeah there's a lot of clutter in there. Like my workbench (see attached)... the QMX "Lab" is almost as cluttered as the real one.?
On Sat, Feb 17, 2024 at 1:27?AM Hans Summers via <hans.summers= [email protected]> wrote: P.S. Attached... "The Lab" Easter egg...?
On Sat, Feb 17, 2024 at 1:25?AM Hans Summers via <hans.summers= [email protected]> wrote: I got 17 loaded just fine.? Anyone have suggested AGC settings to start with?
Adrain?YO3GFH said:
"I configured AGC with the values seen in your screen captures, they seem pretty sane, I only changed "Recovery dB/s" (from 10 to 15) and "Threshold S" (from 8 to 7)."?
I think that is reasonable...?
I remind all that: - I was being a little extreme perhaps in my settings, because I wanted to see what goes on, during my development and testing
- I had long hang time and slow recovery dB/second because again, I wanted to see what was going on, and be able to demonstrate in the video?
- My video test case was also extreme... S9+30dB... to demonstrate the extreme capability of the AGC system to totally delete any possibility of that massive signal reaching the earphones, in this case it instantly applied about 36dB attenuation, and no blip at all is seen on the Audacity software's recording of the audio (which is also streamed over the USB sound card interface concurrently to the audio output). And also to clearly show everything for the video.?
- My 40m noise floor is too high here right now, as I said on the video, my antenna fell down. It doesn't work as well lying on the roof which has a metal frame inside the tiles.?
Easter egg: If you press the D key on the terminal screen, in the main menu, you get my secret "lab", it's my playground which I use during development of my various functional additions, and for debugging, etc. What's in there now is some debug info on the AGC as that's the task I had most recently on the lab bench. Might be interesting, if you are wanting to play with the AGC.?
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P.S. Attached... "The Lab" Easter egg...?
On Sat, Feb 17, 2024 at 1:25?AM Hans Summers via <hans.summers= [email protected]> wrote: I got 17 loaded just fine.? Anyone have suggested AGC settings to start with?
Adrain?YO3GFH said:
"I configured AGC with the values seen in your screen captures, they seem pretty sane, I only changed "Recovery dB/s" (from 10 to 15) and "Threshold S" (from 8 to 7)."?
I think that is reasonable...?
I remind all that: - I was being a little extreme perhaps in my settings, because I wanted to see what goes on, during my development and testing
- I had long hang time and slow recovery dB/second because again, I wanted to see what was going on, and be able to demonstrate in the video?
- My video test case was also extreme... S9+30dB... to demonstrate the extreme capability of the AGC system to totally delete any possibility of that massive signal reaching the earphones, in this case it instantly applied about 36dB attenuation, and no blip at all is seen on the Audacity software's recording of the audio (which is also streamed over the USB sound card interface concurrently to the audio output). And also to clearly show everything for the video.?
- My 40m noise floor is too high here right now, as I said on the video, my antenna fell down. It doesn't work as well lying on the roof which has a metal frame inside the tiles.?
Easter egg: If you press the D key on the terminal screen, in the main menu, you get my secret "lab", it's my playground which I use during development of my various functional additions, and for debugging, etc. What's in there now is some debug info on the AGC as that's the task I had most recently on the lab bench. Might be interesting, if you are wanting to play with the AGC.?
|
I got 17 loaded just fine.? Anyone have suggested AGC settings to start with?
Adrain?YO3GFH said:
"I configured AGC with the values seen in your screen captures, they seem pretty sane, I only changed "Recovery dB/s" (from 10 to 15) and "Threshold S" (from 8 to 7)."?
I think that is reasonable...?
I remind all that: - I was being a little extreme perhaps in my settings, because I wanted to see what goes on, during my development and testing
- I had long hang time and slow recovery dB/second because again, I wanted to see what was going on, and be able to demonstrate in the video?
- My video test case was also extreme... S9+30dB... to demonstrate the extreme capability of the AGC system to totally delete any possibility of that massive signal reaching the earphones, in this case it instantly applied about 36dB attenuation, and no blip at all is seen on the Audacity software's recording of the audio (which is also streamed over the USB sound card interface concurrently to the audio output). And also to clearly show everything for the video.?
- My 40m noise floor is too high here right now, as I said on the video, my antenna fell down. It doesn't work as well lying on the roof which has a metal frame inside the tiles.?
Easter egg: If you press the D key on the terminal screen, in the main menu, you get my secret "lab", it's my playground which I use during development of my various functional additions, and for debugging, etc. What's in there now is some debug info on the AGC as that's the task I had most recently on the lab bench. Might be interesting, if you are wanting to play with the AGC.?
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Bill,
I simply used the values from Hans¡¯ video on YouTube.
I put out a CQ on 40m after the upgrade to 1_00_017 and worked Ralph DL1HR who was also using a QMX.
The AGC certainly makes 40m more pleasant to listen to. Thanks, Hans.
73
John
G4YTJ
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I got 17 loaded just fine.? Anyone have suggested AGC settings to start with?
73, Bill NZ0T
|
Hello Bojan ? Hi Hans,
well, perhaps I did not explain my observations well.
When doing the SWR scans we transmit a preset portion of RF power into a load/antenna. In my case it is 45%. And the scan stops before the LPF begins to attenuate. Here, on the other hand, when doing the LPF scan we transmit over 1W of RF power thru the LPF into a load but up to the frequencies which are well beyond the cut-off of the LPF. So, most of the scan time we get great VSWR. I get quite a current increase (up to the current limit) when that happens. I feel the 1/4 of full RF power is too much for such a measurement.
I'm not sure it's so bad. Problem is, if you use lower power, the noise floor hits you sooner. So the range of the measurement is less. If you use more power, then as you say, VSWR hits. But there is a difference too - the SWR sweep is done into an antenna. The LPF sweep should be done into a more innocent resistive dummy load. I did check the BS170 suffering when sweeping the LPF, done at 25% power output... it seemed harmless to my judgement... of course, I could make it configurable; so the constructor owns his responsibility. Which is also a danger... but I did try at 100% also and still had no fails?or anything, and some extra dB of vertical range of course. But chose the 25% power (50% voltage) setting as it seemed conservative. But maybe I am still too much of a cowboy, I don't know.?
73 Hans G0UPL
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On Fri, Feb 16, 2024 at 08:15 PM, Hans Summers wrote:
Hello Bojan
?
With the LPF sweep I suspect that the chosen output power is too much for the LPF test as it is obvious that half of the sweep goes into the filtered zone.
?
Please could you explain? I didn't understand what you're getting at?
?
?
Hi Hans, well, perhaps I did not explain my observations well. When doing the SWR scans we transmit a preset portion of RF power into a load/antenna. In my case it is 45%. And the scan stops before the LPF begins to attenuate. Here, on the other hand, when doing the LPF scan we transmit over 1W of RF power thru the LPF into a load but up to the frequencies which are well beyond the cut-off of the LPF. So, most of the scan time we get great VSWR. I get quite a current increase (up to the current limit) when that happens. I feel the 1/4 of full RF power is too much for such a measurement. ? -- 73 Bojan S53DZ
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S-meter and AGC seem to work very well, however, as Danny noted, when transmitting, some artefacts like static can be heard on each dah or dit. With AGC disabled, these are gone.
I'll look into that.?
I configured AGC with the values seen in your screen captures, they seem pretty sane, I only changed "Recovery dB/s" (from 10 to 15) and "Threshold S" (from 8 to 7). Couldn't they be used as defaults after a factory reset? It would reduce the hassle involved after a reset, IMO.
Yes I definitely want to set up some reset defaults. Once it becomes clear with some use, what values are typically appropriate.?
The values I used in the video are probably a bit extreme. I was tending to use extreme values because it makes it easier to see what's going on and make sure the AGC logic is working properly. Also easier to see in a demo.
73 Hans G0UPL
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Hello Bojan
With the LPF sweep I suspect that the chosen output power is too much for the LPF test as it is obvious that half of the sweep goes into the filtered zone.
Please could you explain? I didn't understand what you're getting at?
73 Hans G0UPL
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Hans, thanks very much!
S-meter and AGC seem to work very well, however, as Danny noted, when transmitting, some artefacts like static can be heard on each dah or dit. With AGC disabled, these are gone.
I configured AGC with the values seen in your screen captures, they seem pretty sane, I only changed "Recovery dB/s" (from 10 to 15) and "Threshold S" (from 8 to 7). Couldn't they be used as defaults after a factory reset? It would reduce the hassle involved after a reset, IMO.
Nice work, as always!
Regards,
YO3GFH
op. Adrian
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S meter works well.
With the LPF sweep I suspect that the chosen output power is too much for the LPF test as it is obvious that half of the sweep goes into the filtered zone.
--
73 Bojan S53DZ
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Andy M0VVA
Paul Christensen