PCHFDL Problems

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BOBRR

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Hi Mike,

You’ve provided me so much help in the past, I have a bit of a
guilty conscience in bothering you again, but perhaps, if you
have a few spare minutes, you can tell me what I am missing, or, as usual, doing incorrectly.

I am trying to use PCHFDL. Using with SDRConsole. W10 pc.

Mode set to USB. Have tried all the Riverhead frequencies.

I am feeding the speaker output from the pc, via a cable, to the Blue line in jack on the back of the pc.

Took me a long to figure out the settings for my pc Soundcard, but I think it is correct now. But maybe still not ?
Have it set, I believe, for “line in”.

*With what I think are the correct sound card settings, I get, finally, the
moving horizontal Grey speckled display in the PCHFDL window. So, probably some progress.

With incorrect settings, there are no grey speckles in the moving window.

But absolutely no decodes.

A hint might be that the small window on the extreme right (with a starburst in it) shows just the
stationary starburst. (what is this for ? What are the arrows for ?)

So, I am sure I have something wrong. Likely simple, but I just don't see it, or what else to try.

Any thoughts on what to try would be most appreciated.

Thanks, stay well,
Regards,
Bob
 

ka3jjz

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It's a little hard to diagnose this without seeing anything, and I haven't had a Win7 machine in years, but let's start with the basics - are you using a Win7 computer? And which SDR are you using- I think you have both a SDRPlay and WinRadio.

Did you check your System tray to see whether the Line in is muted (many times that's the case if you've never used it)?.

This talks about the process in general terms - altho set for Vista, Win7 should be nearly identical.


You should also see if PC-HFDL has some sort of a window to select the source input. You need to point PC-HFDL to whatever you are putting the audio into so it can detect it

Mike
 

BOBRR

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Hi,

Thanks for taking the time to help me out.
Very appreciated. (running W10)

Funny, I did a lot of searches, on Google, etc., but totally missed the MT article.
Will go over it in detail, as it looks quite good. Thanks for sending link to it.

BTW: Know which is the most commonly used freq. I should probably stay on rather than my jumping around ?
I guess Riverhead would be my best bet, as I'm near Boston.
Are the transmissions fairly frequent, more or less continuous, or very infrequent ?

Will let you know if I have any success.
Sure does keep my brain exercised with this "stuff," which I guess is really good at my age !
Lots of fun, particularly the learning part.

Again, thanks for help, stay well,
Bob
 

dlwtrunked

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> " I guess Riverhead would be my best bet, as I'm near Boston.

Let's all say it together...On HF, closeness is not a good predictor of signal strength unless you are very close. On HF, your distance from Riverhead is not very close and you will probably receive other stations better with a lot of the Riverhead signal skipping over you. Such is HF.
 

ka3jjz

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Actually being too close to a HF transmitter may cause more problems than it solves. Under some conditions, the signal might skip right over you, resulting in a very weak signal or none at all. This is where understanding how the bands are acting during the time you are listening comes into play. Tune around and notice the pattern of where the signals are coming from. Learn what is normally there during your listening time so that anything that's new stands out. Understanding what areas are in darkness/daylight is a start, but that typically will cover a large portion of the planet.

Mike
 

ka3jjz

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Just a note about the PDF - to see the next page change the '0074' token to '0075' and it should come up

Mike
 
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