Getting started with Olivia mode |
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03/02/14 |
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Getting Started On Olivia
Olivia users do it with frequency too! So you have gotten the
computer, the interface, and the rig hooked up. You have installed the
digital program that you want to use and have set the appropriate keying and
audio settings for it. You've got your macros ready and you're
ready to give Olivia a shot. So what next? Well, it's time to
mention the best frequencies to listen and call for Olivia mode contacts.
HFLink is a good web site to start
with.
They have a suggested list of Olivia frequencies for most of the ham bands. Most Olivia activity seems to be in line with their suggestions but many
operators go beyond that also. My current favorite
frequencies (at least for now in the sunspot minimum) are : 160mtrs :
1835 - 1838 (used to be some activity around 1808) 80mtrs
: 3583.25 and 3577 40mtrs
: 7035 - 7038 (used to be activity around 7072.5) 30mtrs
: 10141 - 10144 (used to also be activity around 10138) 20mtrs
: 14.072 - 14075.65 (500,250,or 125hz modes mostly) and 14106.5 (1000 or 2000 hz wide
modes mostly) 17mtrs
: 18102.65 15,12,10 and 6mtrs : Usually
1-2 khz above PSK activity - 21.072, 24.922, 28.122, 50.291 ***Update! Recent solar
activity in Fall of 2013 has seen a fair amount of Olivia activity on 10mtrs
OTHER than just above the PSKers 10mtrs
: 28.106500 (center frequency) for 32/1000 Olivia, and some other more
narrow modes spotted there also.
The most popular Olivia
band in the last few years seems to be 80mtrs - at least in the Fall and
Winter months at night time. I also hear some activity in Spring and
Summer but not as much since the noise levels starts to get really high
during those seasons. The 40mtr and 20mtr bands
have a lot of Olivia activity too. 40mtrs has more activity in the
late evening during the Fall and Winter but also has some retired hams,
nighttime workers, and others who occasionally get on in the day time too.
20mtrs seems to have something to offer throughout the year - though day time
and night time activity may vary a lot with different seasons. The DX and
sporadic E usually keep it open to one place or the other but in this current sunspot
minimum even 20mtrs has it bad days and even worse. The higher bands are
tough to find any activity on a good deal of the time. However, during
the Summer E Skip season I have worked more than a few Olivia stations on
17mtrs and above. As sunspot activity increases the higher bands, of
course, will be much more active. Most of the wide
bandwidth Olivia I have heard is on or about 14.106.65 - mostly on 1000/32
and 1000/16. However, I have worked stations there on 2000/64 and even
2000/128. I have also worked stations on 2000hz and 1000hz Olivia
modes on 40mtrs and 80mtrs too when there is little activity and less chance
to QRM others. But I don't hear any activity ... It always pays to listen a lot in many
aspects of life and ham radio is not an exception. However, if you
spend an inordinate amount of time just listening for calls to respond to -
you are short changing yourself and others. That's why there is a CQ
... I have made well over a 1000 Olivia QSO's in the last 2 years and the
large majority of those were by calling CQ when I heard little or no
activity. If you like being a SWL that is fine but if you want to talk
to others you need to make some noise. Prepare a few Auto CQ macros.
Preferably ones that last 40-50 seconds - not short ones like the PSK/RTTY
folks do. Longer CQ's give people time to switch from a different
mode, identify which Olivia configuration the station is using, and to start
decoding your CQ. Set your Auto CQ to repeat every 40-50 seconds too -
same time as the length of the CQ so you give the other station time to
reply AND rest your transmitter. I sit down at my computer and find an
open frequency, make sure it's not in use, and set my Auto CQ macro going.
I keep the audio on the rig turned up slightly to keep an ear on it and then
start catching up on my emails while that is going on. I do all sorts
of other things while keeping an eye and ear on the rig to see if I get any
replies. It's amazing the amount of QSO's that an Auto CQ macro can
generate. Optimizing Your Experience ... Hams of all modes seem to
gravitate towards loud and strong signals. It's human nature.
Many hams won't talk or communicate with someone unless they have a strong
signal. I've seen hams get nervous when signals start to fade and sign
out quickly for fear of losing good copy on the other station. Some of
that makes good sense - especially with phone modes like SSB, AM, and FM.
If they get close to the noise level it's hard to hear what they are saying
and you might as well as sign out. With PSK, RTTY, and other less sensitive
digital modes the same applies - once they get close to the noise level the
copy is spotty and not all that good. With Olivia it makes LESS
sense to shy away from weak signals. Olivia can copy signals below the
noise floor a lot better than any of the aforementioned modes do.
Don't be afraid to even ragchew with weak signals on this mode. I've
had numerous 1 hour ragchews, more than a few 2 hour wind fests, and even a
few 3 hour marathons with signals up and down into the noise and all sorts
of atmospheric effects going on. Try that on PSK and RTTY with a low
profile - low power station ... Lotsa luck. Also, since Olivia decodes
accurately well below the noise floor it makes sense to NOT run any squelch.
If you turn off the squelch you may get random "garbage" generated on the
text readout when an Olivia signal is not present BUT that is much
preferable to not decoding a signal that the squelch would have masked. I
highly recommend NEVER running squelch in Olivia mode. Other "out of the
box" (default) settings of your software may NOT be all that optimal
either and may not give you the best experience - meaning best copy. For example - below
is a screen capture of Ham Radio Deluxe's DM780 program in 500/16 Olivia
mode with it's default settings :
Just above the white area
where the received decoded text prints out there is a bar that has Olivia
settings on it. There are drop down boxes for the Tones, Bandwidth,
Search, and Sync. The Tones and Bandwidth
drop down boxes can be used quickly and easily to change to any one of the
40 different Olivia configurations. The Search setting can
set to none, +-25%, or +-50%. Most of the time it would be best to
leave it on +-25%. This setting determines how far from the center
frequency the Olivia algorithm will search to lock onto and decode an Olivia
signal. The percentage of the current Olivia bandwidth configuration is what the
+-25% and +50% refers to and uses it to determine how far on each side of
center freq it will search. If you are trying to decode a signal that
is very very weak and you can't really see it well on the waterfall AND not sure that you
are even near it's center freq - then setting the Search to +-25 or +50% might
make the difference between decoding it or not. And under QRM conditions
when another Olivia signal is actually overlapping the station you are trying to
decode it MAY be useful to set it to NONE so that you can be sure to decode
the signal you are centered on AND NOT the one that is overlapping.
Most of the time, however, it is the best to keep it on the +-25% setting. The Sync setting is VERY
important. The higher it is set the better it will decode a weak
signal. If you leave it on LOW all the time you will never see the
true value and magic of Olivia. I would HIGHLY recommend leaving it on
Medium or High all the time. And if you are getting errors in the
decoded text, the signal is very weak, or the QSB is rough then it is
usually best to have
it on the HIGH setting. The down side to doing that is that the delay
between the time the signal is received - to the time it starts decoding it is a lot longer when
the Sync is set to medium or high. However, the decoding on very weak signals
can be so much better that the tradeoff is worth it. It is also best to set the Sync on HIGH if you use any of
the faster NON standard Olivia configurations like 250/4, 500/4, 500/8,
1000/16, 1000/8, 2000/32, 2000/16, and 2000/8. If you run these faster
Olivia non standard modes with Sync set to none or medium your decoding
accuracy will suffer a lot under less than ideal conditions. In the FLDigi program the
equivalent settings are on the Configuration dialog in the Olivia modem
setting tab as shown below. They are called Tune margin (Search) and
Integration period (Sync). Instead of none, high, and low, FLDigi uses
a scale that goes from 2 to 128 on both settings. The default is 8 for
Tune margin and 4 for Integration period. This is adequate for most
standard Olivia configurations BUT higher settings for Integration period
(Search) may be required when signalss
are extremely weak OR running NON standard Olivia configurations that are
faster like 250/4, 500/4, 500/8, 1000/16, 1000/8, 2000/32, 2000/16, and
2000/8. When running standard Olivia configurations like 125/4, 250/8,
500/16, 1000/32, and 2000/64 - I typically have my Integration period set to
4 but will increase it to 5-10 on extremely weak signals. IF I set it
any higher (for standard configurations of Olivia) it doesn't really seem to
matter that much AND the DELAY becomes obnoxiously long. IF you set it
up to 50 -100 on standard configuration modes it might not start decoding
for several minutes or longer after you click on the signal.
MixW has a setting for Frequency margin (as
shown below) which appears to correspond to the Tune Margin
settings of FLDigi and DM780. 25-50% seems adequate for normal
operation. ALSO be sure to DESELECT the Squelch checkbox and set the
threshold to the bottom. It apparently does NOT have a Sync or
Integration period setting like DM780 or FLDigi has. I am NOT as familiar with
this program as I am with the other two BUT I have talked to many Olivia
stations running MixW who swear by it. One thing to note (besides the
fact that it is NOT FREE) is that when you download the program you also
need to download the Olivia support DLL separately to enable Olivia
operation. The MultiPSK program does not appear to have
a Sync or Integration period setting either BUT, as shown below circled in
red, it does have a button to turn on and off it's fixed value Search or
Tune margin setting which is marginally useful. Sound card calibration
is another area that can make a big difference in decoding and encoding
properly. It is much more important to have your sound card input and
output setting calibrated for Olivia and mfsk related modes than it is on
PSK and RTTY. FLDigi, MultiPSK, and MixW all have the
ability to set soundcard offsets for your TX and Rx (input and output)
audio. As of this writing DM780 does NOT have that capability. Most sound cards are off a little bit on
their sound sampling - that is just a fact of life. Though, most are NOT off
that much so that you would EVER notice it by playing music or anything of
that nature. However, if the sound sampling is NOT calibrated for
digital operation in Olivia (and other mfsk related modes) you run into
instances of hearing perfectly good sounding loud signals that decode poorly
OR erratically. I have copied stations coming in S 9+ who I could
decode for a few words, then garbage, then decode a few more, then garbage,
etc., etc. My soundcard offsets had been measured already by using the
CheckSR.exe program that comes with MixW and entered into the appropriate settings
fields for
them in my digital software (FLDigi). So, I can be pretty sure the
other station had NOT calibrated his offsets or was NOT able to. So,
it is VERY important to get your calibration offset values and put them in
your digital software if you can. Anyone can download the "trial" version of
MixW and use the CheckSR.exe progam that comes with it to measure their
soundcard input and output offsets. It is recommended to run it for
15-30 minutes or until the PPM values it displays stabilizes. Also, you
must enter your soundcard sampling rate. Most modern inexpensive
soundcards or on board sound chipsets have a 44100 sampling rate. You
may want to check your documentation or look on line to be sure.
In the FLDigi digital program the offsets are
entered on the soundcard settings dialog under the settings tab as shown
below in the RX ppm and TX ppm fields (mine are 127 and 125) : MixW is similar, as shown below, in the Clock
adjustment ppm fields in it's Sound Device Settings dialog box: MultiPSK has it's own built in facility for
calibrating the Tx and Rx as shown below - you may want to read the help
file before you run it : ++++ END ++++ |
This site was last updated 11/08/13