Setting Up Vara Wide, Is It Worth It? You Decide...
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- Опубликовано: 13 сен 2024
- Setting Up Vara Wide, Is It Worth It? You Decide... is the first of a group of videos on FM digital modes and getting them to work with your equipment. If you are thinking of trying to get Vara Wide to work with your setup, this video is for you!
Thanks Stu for taking the time to do this. Good fun as an experiment, less than useful as a communication tool. I can’t imagine trying to make it work in an emergency environment.
Hi Pedro,
Vara FM Narrow is pretty quick all by itself. If you have the resources and can dedicate some setup to use Vara FM Wide, there is a slight advantage, but maybe not enough to maintain the setup...
Stu
AG6AG
Fantastic video, great explanation and lots of helpful insight to making this work!
Glad it was helpful!
Stu
AG6AG
I've got the Yaesu FT 991A, 857D and 3000. Your explanation about setting the menu items and reasoning behind the 9600 baud speed was spot on for me. I also have the rig blaster (USB) and signal link so I am looking forward to your further comparison and contrasts between these devices. I appreciate your humor and always look forward to seeing your next video. 73.
Looks like the 991 and the 857 should be able to do VaraFM wide. Glad to hear your game to test!
Stu
AG6AG
Thanks for the great explanation.
You are welcome!
Stu
AG6AG
In Sarasota Fl. where I recently moved from we have Winlink Gateways set up with VARAFM Wide. Some of us started using Masters Communcation DRA-36 and DRA- 70 soundcard devices that are capable of 9600 baud. I connected mine to a Kenwood V71A set at 9600 baud. First of all these can be purchased in kit form if that is what you want or fully tested units already built for a few dollars more. They work very well and I personally liked using them.
Great Info Les, thanks for chiming in!
Stu
AG6AG
Exelent video! Well made and informative. Thanks! I would recommend turning down the pc recording audio though, boy that was loud.
I think that vara wide works much better and faster P2P without using Winlink. Vara Chat for sending files works great.
Great comment! Here in my neck of the woods we seem to center on Winlink messages and less on chat and file transfer directly. I'll see if I can get some folks to play!
Stu
AG6AG
Hello. I get much more speed. Level 12/13 wide using VaraC with other ham radio. 73.
Hey StuartK7ELM, I am looking for your video with 8900 and 9600 baud setup. Did you make that one? Thanks Edwin
There are a couple... Here is a link to the playlist: ruclips.net/p/PLvg1CrZfziQswpLfJhg0QNrlBB611nvUh
Not very successful, but educational...
Stu
AG6AG
Very interesting video. Considering the effort to get this up and running properly, in your opinion what would the the minimum transmitted file size that would make the increased data transmission speed worth doing this?
Between Vara FM Narrow and Wide, you would really need a lot of data to make it worth while. I need to do some tests with a large number of smaller emails using Narrow against Wide and see what the total time difference really is.
Regardless, Vara FM is certainly faster then Packet at any speed...
Stu
AG6AG
Be wary of putting too much faith in an "Approved" response from auto-tune, which my system reported when the system turned out to be very poorly tuned. Using pings for tuning and a final tweak with auto-tune, against a well tuned station, finally resulted in screaming fast data transmission. VARA FM can be very impressive when configured and tuned properly.
Hi PNWcruiser,
Yes, you are correct. The auto-tune can get you close, but what I found was that I needed to push my gain farther past with the auto-tune suggested to get it to move at a proper speed.
Stu
AG6AG
I'm having trouble getting VARA HF to connect using FT-891 something wrong in my settings? I'm trying to get into Digital traffic handling got any suggestions Thank you N8MRS
Hi Mike,
I haven't worked with the FT-891 yet. From what I can see on the web site, it looks like the 891 has a USB port on it. It only talks about the CAT interface though the Virtual Com Port provided by the USB and doesn't mention an on board sound device.
Have you got any digital programs working, like FLDigi or WSJTx? If so, how do you have that configured?
Stu
AG6AG
Hi Stuart, isn't the build in FT991 soundcard fast enough for this? 73 Werner PA3GYV
Hi Werner,
Great question! This was a surprise to me. To get enough AF filter width, you have to switch to 9600 baud packet mode. When you do that, it will only except audio input into the data port on the back of the radio.
So... I had to configure a secondary sound card to feed into that port.
Why?
Well it turns out that the engineers at Yaesu placed a audio filter that limits the output of the audio input width under the size of Vara Wide...
Hope this tweaks your head as hard as it did mine... :)
Stu
AG6AG
Thanks for clearing that out Stuart. Then we have no other way to go with the FT-991 on high speeds.
In regards to AFSK style transmissions, yes. There were other strange things I ran into regarding the FT-991(a) that you might find enlightening... Check out these videos:
ruclips.net/video/gSm0o9O6Q3Q/видео.html
ruclips.net/video/Jf5EZQ0so3w/видео.html
Anyways, let me know your thoughts on some of the issues I had.
Stu
AG6AG
I will watch that video to. Nice experiment: Use the internal soundcard from the 991, fire Vara Wide up and see what the maximum speed is and compare that with your find out (via 9600bd dataport).
Last question, don't you have ground loop problems connecting the Soundblaster directly to the 991?
PLEASE stop shouting at me!
*LAUGH* Yeah, my friends say I learned how to talk in a saw mill...
Stu
AG6AG