Lack of time and the death of my radio PC conspired against me. However I’ve used the xmas break to cobble together a new radio PC. This is an old AMD Athlon XP 2000; I’ve upgraded the RAM to 1Gb, added an additional soundcard (the onboard sound proved buggy under Linux) and added an additional 2xRS232 card. One of the ports is currently connecting to the FT847 for CAT control (hamlib) and the others ports are set aside for dedicated TNCs. I’m currently running PSK/QPSK modes using fldigi and attempting SSTV using the new version of QSSTV. The box is running headless so all GUIs are run remotely over SSH to my main workstation.
So far this year (Q/PSK) I’ve worked UX11W (Serge), DL3DJ (Joerg), SP3SLO (Paul), OS4U (David), G3PQB (Sid) and 2E0ZDX (Phil). I’m trying to stay away from rubber stamp macro QSOs so you may see me calling “CQ NO MACRO” or “CQ KEYBOARD QSO”. It may be a little unconventional but it’s certainly more enjoyable!
