VARA HF Settings? and HIGH SWR ISSUE
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I am attempting to setup VARA HF with my Windows Laptop, ICOM M803 Marine SSB connected with a DigirRig Mobile sound card device. I have very good luck with Pactor modem on the same HF Winlink RMS stations.?
My first try with the VARA HF and my Digirig yielded good PTT and I did transmit Winlink emails fine. I DID NOT successfully accomplish Rig Control and the radio gave me a "High SWR" which I never get with my Pactor setup.
1: What in the setup of VARA HF could cause High SWR with the same antenna and tuner setup I use with Pactor?
2: I have not messed with radio controls yet in VARA program as I do not know what to use yet. Any help would be appreciated.?
Harley?
KK7HMS |
¿ªÔÆÌåÓýYour high SWR is most likely a result of your tuner being set to another frequency or not being activated. Many tuners default to the last frequency that they were tuned to and you might be trying to transmit on another frequency that the tuner is not set for. That has happened to me several times ¨C and it results in a high SWR. Try retuning to the frequency that you are going to transmit on before you use VARA HF. I have to do that every time I change frequency to a new VARA RMS. 73 Peter AA6EA ? From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Harley KK7HMS via groups.io ? I am attempting to setup VARA HF with my Windows Laptop, ICOM M803 Marine SSB connected with a DigirRig Mobile sound card device. I have very good luck with Pactor modem on the same HF Winlink RMS stations.? My first try with the VARA HF and my Digirig yielded good PTT and I did transmit Winlink emails fine. I DID NOT successfully accomplish Rig Control and the radio gave me a "High SWR" which I never get with my Pactor setup. 1: What in the setup of VARA HF could cause High SWR with the same antenna and tuner setup I use with Pactor? 2: I have not messed with radio controls yet in VARA program as I do not know what to use yet. Any help would be appreciated.? Harley? KK7HMS |
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On Fri, Apr 25, 2025 at 12:49 AM, Harley KK7HMS wrote:
I DID NOT successfully accomplish Rig Control and the radio gave me a "High SWR" which I never get with my Pactor setup. Harley;
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I believe you'll need to have rig-control working in order to have the M803 properly set the antenna tuner to the band / frequency you're working on.
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To enable rig control, set the value in the "Icom Address" field to the the CI-V address of your radio... the default value for the M803 is '20'.?
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If you have rig-control working, but still don't see the M803 antenna tuner activating, see if either of the other choices in the "Antenna Selection" drop-down (Internal 1, Internal 2) make a difference.
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You may also need to choose the "USB Digital" radio-button instead of the "USB" radio-button, so that the radio's receive filter bandwidth is at the widest setting.
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Mark - AD7EF |
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Harley;
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Additionally, you need to have your digirig CAT serial port address ('COM nn') selected in the "Serial Port to Use" drop-down field. The default 9600 "Baud" value will probably work OK, but I've found some online reports that 19,200 bps or 38.400 bps are commonly used with this radio.
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Mark - AD7EF
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Drew
Mark Davis