[WT-support] Stopping a station from sending

[Tom Rauch]

>I believe I understand what you are referring to, I also 
>use an external
> CMOS interlock device for two rigs with a priority 
> selector.  I have desired
> a similar feature in CT in the past, and it never 
> happened.  The scenario I
> would describe is you are running on the first rig, 
> sending a CQ or
> something, and you find something to work on the second 
> radio.  If you
> decide to call the station on the second radio (I usually 
> would do so with a
> parallel external keyer), the message sent from the 
> computer to the primary
> radio would be interrupted by the interlock box.  But the 
> computer would
> keep "sending" out of the interface port and would think 
> it had successfully
> sent its message payload.

This is exactly what I mean.

My interlock watches the amplifier keying lines to see if 
the radio is calling for an amplifier. When the line goes 
low, it locks out the other radio. It opens the CW and PTT 
input to the other radio.

Any radio that calls for the amp and antenna can grab the 
amp and antenna if the other radio is not transmitting. It 
disables the PTT and CW keying inputs of the radio that has 
been excluded from the amp and antenna. My system will even 
transfer antennas!

> My solution has been to deal with this situation in 
> hardware, it is always
> easier for me to swap around a few IC's, logic-wise, than 
> to hope for a
> software developer to make my desired changes.  Good idea, 
> though, thanks
> for bring it up

What the logic cannot do is stop the computer from sending 
information to nothing.

What I was planning on doing is building a storage device 
that will hold the CW in memory until the other radio 
clears. After the amplifier send or transmit line drops it 
will then release the data to the radio being held off. Say 
radio 1 is CQing while radio 2 finds a contact. An exchange 
with a VOX drop between words might go like this:

radio 1: cq test (interrupted)
radio 2: W8JI (interrupted) (calls other contact up band)
radio 1: de W8JI W8JI  (interrupted) (continues CQ test)
radio 2 :  599T5 (interrupted) (exchange up band)
radio 1: K (drops) (CQ ends on radio 1)
radio 2 R TU de W8JI  (end of QSO up band)

now radio one is free or radio two is free to work more 
stations.


What I was going to try to build is a storage system that 
held the CW input to each radio and alternated between 
radios, but it would be a very simple thing to add a line of 
code that watches an interrupt pin on a port to simply hold 
the CW (or voice keyer) message being sent with a long space 
until the hold line drops.

I hate computers, but I could struggle through a PLC system 
that would hold a little data. The problem is it would take 
me weeks to do that when a simple few lines of code in 
win-test could probably do the same.

Almost every multiple operator or multi-transmitter class 
(like the run multiplier in a multi op or  multi single, or 
both radios in a SO2R) could use this, or it could be used 
to implement a hot antenna transfer using the Ameritron 
RCS-12 switch I designed a few years ago. The RCS-12 will 
output an interrupt that could stop the CW while the antenna 
was being transferred, and then after a programmed time 
delay (I use 25mS) drop the interrupt. Right now I only turn 
the amps off while the antenna relays transfer during an 
operator hot switch, so some data (~25mS) is lost from a hot 
switch attempt.

I was wondering why none of the software ever allowed an 
external hold on a voice keyer or CW keyer, since it would 
be very useful for almost any application.

Just my thoughts. It would keep some illegal mult radios 
legal.

73 Tom