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2E0ECN

Joined: Sat, Jul 18th 2015, 08:34 Roles: N/A Moderates: N/A

Latest Topics

Topic Created Posts Views Last Activity
Durability of Handheld antenna SMA sockets Sep 29th 2015, 11:25 3 10,959 on 29/9/15
High CPU load / battery drain in fldigi on OSX Jul 19th 2015, 16:01 1 6,624 on 19/7/15

Latest Posts

Topic Author Posted On
Durability of Handheld antenna SMA sockets 2E0ECN on 29/9/15
Thanks Zack,

I never suspected such a thing existed, but in retrospect they would given how long the problem has been around.

I've located a UK source, thanks again.

Mark
Durability of Handheld antenna SMA sockets 2E0ECN on 29/9/15
I have a Yaesu VX-6E, and one of the features I appreciate it is is wide range receiver.

If I substitute its short antenna with a longer one, I can not only get local broadcast VHF stations, it also does a decent job on shortwave stations too.

I have two conflicting dilemmas: If I continually swap the stubby VHF antenna (essential for cycling with the radio) with a longer one for broadcast VHF, and an even longer one for shortwave, the SMA connector is going to rack up duty cycles - I understand SMA is rated to around 500 connect/disconnect cycles.

An attractive solution is to dedicate the VX-6E to portable VHF (leave the antenna on permanently), get another handheld, either another VX-6 or perhaps VX-8, and put a long antenna on that.

This introduces my other dilemma: I'm happy to have a second HT with a long antenna permanently attached (so, no cycling with that one!), but if I am to avoid the wear and tear problem, what is a practical way of transporting such a radio and protecting the antenna from damage ?

Hope this makes sense !

Mark
2E0ECN
High CPU load / battery drain in fldigi on OSX 2E0ECN on 19/7/15
My MacBook Pro experiences high CPU load and correspondingly short battery life when compared to my very cheap (small and awkward to use) Windows 8.1 tablet.

Whilst the tablet allocates about 7.5% of its rather modest Atom CPU towards fldigi, the i5 processor in the MacBook allocates around 25% !

Has anyone discovered a way of mitigating this high load. I've checked the option for slow CPU and adjusted the algorithms for speed to almost no effect. The fldigi forum on Yahoo Groups seems to be more Linux focused so I wasn't able to solve the problem there.

Mark

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