[Mich VHF UHF Society] Question about WSJT-x and MSK144

[Tom]

Dave,

The folks on the the MS pages do claim that the MSK144 pushes the CPU. I 
only operate my it on my home cpu, a bizarre collection of boards from 
the past. I would recommend that you simply fire up WSJT-x with the 
Signal-link, and set up MSK144. Click on MSK144 under the MODE tab,   a 
T/R of 15s, FTOL of 200.  With the decode tab set to normal, I see about 
20-24% of my cpu as being used by this program. That number is easily 
seen on the bottom left box, showing "Receiving xx%". Then switch the 
decode tab to deep. Mine then moves to 35 to 40%. So the program does 
push a cpu. And several folks have indicated that their laptops can't 
handle it. So try it. We are too close for MS for the most part, but 
this MSK144 modes works really well for extended ground wave. I'm 
curious to see how well it works for E skip.

I'm very new to meteor scatter. I am running around 450-500 watts with a 
KPA500, driving that with a K3. I am using a simple 5 element beam up 50 
feet, in a very poor location, maybe 40 feet above the Grand River water 
level. What really drives one crazy is where on E skip you always point 
the beam AT the station. With MS you have to guess where the meteors 
are. The  experienced guys told me from Michigan to either point to the 
SE and then transmit on the even sequence, or point SW and transmit on 
the odd sequence.

I would love to experiment with this mode across the state. As I am 
typing this, Erv, K8EB just had a QSO with ND0B in North Dakota. Meteors 
at 5 pm?


73 de Tom K8TB



On 3/15/2017 2:25 AM, David Pruett wrote:
> Tom,
>
> Back in January you mentioned in a note on the MIVUS reflector that 
> you had been working with MSK144.  I am going to C6A, the Bahamas with 
> a small group for the June VHF Contest, and I'm trying to put together 
> the gear to run MSK144 using WSJT-x.  I have very little experience 
> using WSJT, and the question I'd pose to you is - how powerful of a 
> computer do I need to run MSK144? Some time back, I purchased a 
> SignalLink USB interface to go between the computer and radio, and my 
> old Dell 1.4 GHz Pentium laptop ran the "plain" WSJT fine with it.  
> The docs for WSJT-x state that a 1.5 GHz computer is required, and 
> that "MSK144 really benefits from a multi-core CPU".  Do this agree 
> with your experience running MSK144?
>
> Thanks in advance for any advice you'd care to offer.
>
> 73, Dave/K8CC