I used to enjoy Olivia until folks running high power and/or excessive audio gain began to use the mode. Those signals generated sidebands eclipsing 200 to 800 hz on both sides of their signal. A popular bandwidth used in Olivia is around 500 hz, so other close-by signals can be obliterated. So, with that and the lack of Olivia activity these days, I'm back on cw where old-school traditions still prevail: courtesy mostly, and the occasional long QSO with someone of similar interests. Maybe someday the digital modes (Olivia, psk31, etc) will spread out from their tiny allotment and move up-frequency into the rtty and automatic digital domains and probably sooner than we think with myriads of new digital modes popping up so frequently. Operators could also move down-frequency into the cw domains as we dinosaurs die off. It's just change, and to me it's all just a pastime.
Thanks, Thomas, for the re-introduction into this mode. Haven't used it in quite a while, but time to re-give it a try. Running HRD 5.24 here and hope all this works in the older versions. Look forward to chatting with you on Olivia.. Brian, WA5M
Regarding CW traditions... that includes full break-in amps at 1500 watts (input or output, depending on era) as I remember. And some pretty significant battles during DX pileups.
I think every FT-8 version should come with a folder full of awards, say the 50 most common. You're gonna get them all in a week or two anyway, may as well save the time and effort.
It's pretty funny that a few operators actually believe the SDRPlay RSP-1A can match even a compact comms receiver or tranceiver for performance. It can't and never will - not in its current incarnation. There is a REASON that Icom R75, R8600 and IC-7300 boxes are BIGGER. But then, a lot of them are held to "The Sherwood Test" and do not make major compromises in performance to lower cost the way the SDRPlay does. But the popularity and usable performance of the SDRPlay RSP-1, which appears to be a clever re-purposed adaptation of a general-purpose tuner chip-set, shows that Sherwood-level performance is not necessary to be useful, whether it be for a 2nd receiver, waterfall display or poor man's spectrum analyzer. Its not clear how much improvement moving from a 12 bit to 14 bit ADC in the RSP-1A will yield. Its the Effective Number of Bits (EOB) that counts, the quality of front end filtering before the S/H and what the DSP system does with the usable bits it actually gets. They could even be thrown away. So let's try out the new 1A and see how it compares to the 1 model. At $119, its just not that expensive. And the 1 was very useful, I doubt the 1A will be worse.
I still have my KamPlus and Timewave PK96 for good old tried and true RTTY - HF Packet - Gtor - Amtor the Timewave for 1200/9600 packet KEYBOARD TO KEYBOARD for me !!
Olivia is a nice mode for rag chewing that has various bandwidth's and speeds. I still see allot of Olivia use especially on 20 meters. Another of one of my original favorite digital modes is MFSK16. I made 74 contacts with it prior to 2013 but I see very few operators using it now. It has FEC and holds up pretty good under poor band conditions and lightning QRN.
Isn't it interesting that there will always be people who feel the urge to convince everybody else that the thing they do is wrong and that they should switch to whatever that person deems the better? FT8 is just fine. Maybe not everybody is interested in long ragchews. Live and let live. There's no need to disparage one thing to promote another.
How about teaching operators how to adjust their system to generate a clean signal even at higher power levels. At the same time teach those complaining about QRM how a filter works. Does switching to a digital mode cause immediate amnesia regarding filter operation? Always interesting how other people know how much power is enough to complete a contact with a station without knowing the distance, propagation, antenna systems used, noise levels, and other details. Fascinating.
On another note, looking at the activity on 20m today on CW, SSB, and FT8 I wouldn't speak of burnout or fatigue as it pertains to FT8. Quite a lot of activity.
Ditto! Twenty to thirty watts is plenty to work the world, 5 to 15 often do the job. Also, in error is the fact that Oli(as the fans call it) IS a 100 % duty cycle mode so running 100w for a typical Oli chat would be like key down CW for a couple of minutes at a time. You WILL damage the typical 100W SSB radio doing this, in addition to making enemies. A 100w SSB radio peaks maybe 100W while averaging 30 to 40, to say nothing of 97.313a.
Oli is great and 8/500 though wider, is not that slow, but there are other great chat modes. FSQ is a good one, good to-10 to 12 db snr. Use the FSQ Call program or Fldigi and tune to 7.104. Also Contestia is a 2x faster version of Olivia though you givr up lower case. Thor, another IFSK mode is also robust and is resistant to phase shift, multipath and some drift. Set you rcvr on .072(7 or 14 for example), turn on RSID and have fun with minimal antennas and power. 72 to all, K3FHP
100% duty cycle at 100 watts or more is no real problem, especially to those who run RTTY at 500W, which is often the minimum needed in this down cycle to close the link. It just requires a decent amplifier, and not a very big one (the KPA-500 works fine for this). And I've heard no actual complaints about Olivia or RTTY operators, maybe because It's relatively rare. Also - isn't it really about EIRP? So... it would be logical from your argument to conclude that Olivia (e. al.) users should be limited to a dipole antenna, as a beam antenna or large array could provide 3-9 db of gain, resulting in EIRP 3-9 db above a dipole. That means 25 watts in to the antenna nets as much as 200W EIRP above a dipole. Oooops! So... Whats in your shack?
