BUGS, COMMON PROBLEMS and DIAGNOSTICS
1 - Where did the hum come from? The VCO is not shielded to stray magnetic fields. If you place the transceiver box adjacent to a source of strong 60 Hz magnetic fields you may have some phase modulated hum on signals. Some power supplies are the source of such fields. Move the box a foot or so away from the power supply and all should be fine.
2 - What version is the software? Put the diagnostic mode=1 using Scrl F3 command. The first of the 18 DSP status parameters is the version of the DSP software and the version of the PC software is listed to the right on the same line.
3 - If you are using the ROM supplied by Analog Devices for their EZ-Kit Lite you must putup with the annoying sign-on at full strength from the speakers. The cure is to program a new ROM that does not have the sign-on. An added bonus is having the DSP-10 UHF3 program come up fully loaded. See the DSP-10 home page for mote information.
4-Data does not enter into the CW buffer after doing a loop in LTI (or using CW and then going through the other modes). LTI and CW share common buffers, but the pound-sign loops don't get written to the screen when you change modes. A work-around is to clear the CW/LTI transmit buffer with Shift-Del when you change to either CW or LTI, or alternatively, get into the habit of starting CW transmit entries with the two characters, "@%". The @ will break any pound sign loops, and the % clears the CW or LTI transmit buffer.
5-In EME2 mode, if the bottom diagnostics line (Scrl-F3) is not "Moon:", the moon data will flash on-and-off. Changing the Scrl-F3 will not bring up any other diagnostic mode. To stop the flashing and select the "Moon:" option, either change to a different mode, or watch the "E" below the frequency box. When it is white (default colors) it is properly selected.
6-During startup you may see a message flash by about "Retry -1 to Download DSP Pointer Table." A single retry is not a problem.
7- There is a separate gain control for FM that comes and goes with that mode. The mute will pick up the wrong AF gain if you change into or out of FM while muted. ie: Don't change modes while muted !
PROBLEMS - I will try to list some of the subtle, or in some cases, dumb things that I do on occasion, to have problems. This list could benefit from user feedback. Here are a few, though:
Nothing is happening! - If the time and date is not being updated in the lower-left corner of the display you probably do not have a program running in the DSP. Try a reload of the DSP by going out of the PC program. This can also be caused by a quirk that the DSP board does not always reset if it's power supply comes up too slowly. This is an area that needs some work. It is foolproof if the power is disconnected from the main box and then reconnected. Also, note that when you want to reload the DSP after it has been previously loaded, it is necessary to remove the power to reset the DSP.
It locked up on me! - Are you trying to run the
PC program in a DOS
window?
Otherwise I have not seen this happen.
I have no spectral display! - It is probably off screen. Try 10 dB/div and an offset (that top-right number in the spectral display) of about 0.
I can't get the DSP program to load with EZ-FAST---It locks up! - I have seen this enough to believe it is real, but it is very rare. Switch to Analog Devices Windows based loader. It is a nuisance to switch in and out of Windows, but I have never seen that loader misbehave.
It doesn't respond to keyboard commands! - You probably forgot to turn the Scroll-Lock off.