BPSK31 in Rocky 3.1 Version 3.1 of Rocky supports the BPSK31 mode. It has a built-in BPSK decoder and transmitter and does not require any external dll's. You will be surprised to discover that there is no BPSK section in the Settings dialog. Indeed, I/Q Amplitude is the only setting that may require adjustment, the slider that controls this parameter is on the Transmit page of Settings. Assuming that Rocky is already configured for CW RX/TX, you just need to check your transmitted signal for IMD and reduce the I/Q Amplitude if necessary, and you are ready to work BPSK31. To switch Rocky to the BPSK31 mode, click on BPSK31 in the drop-down menu of the Mode button. To tune at a BPSK31 signal, click on its trace on the waterfall display. Rocky will tune at the signal, synchronize, and start decoding within a fraction of a second. Do not tune the frequency manually, this makes decoder's job more difficult. If for some reason the decoder did not lock on the signal, position your mouse more precisely on the trace and click again. Note that BPSK decoding does not depend on the filter bandwidth setting: this filer is used only for listening, the decoder has its own filter optimized for BPSK31. The decoded text is printed on the single-line display at the bottom of the main window. The characters are printed in black or in gray, depending on the data quality: unreliable characters are grayed, which makes it easier to interpret the text under poor receiving conditions. While playing with other psk software, I have noticed that the squelch function is never 100% accurate: quite often it suppresses valid characters or allows garbage to be displayed. Color-coded display in Rocky makes squelching unnecessary: the good characters stand out and can be easily read while the doublful ones are also available when needed. Rocky v.3.2 includes a BPSK31 error correction function based on the character pair statistics. This function can be turned on and off in the popup menu of the text display. When error correction is enabled, the signal is first decoded with the standard decoder, and the ouput text is printed in balck or gray, depending on the signal quality. About 1.5 seconds later this text is replaced with the output of the error-correcting decoder, and the characters, if corrected, change their color to pink. The status of the BPSK31 unit is indicated with a LED on the right side of the text panel. Here is the meaning of the LED colors: Gray - receiver disabled Black - no signal Yellow - poor signal Green - good signal White - idle signal being received Red - transmitting Magenta - finishing transmission. When you change the frequency, the blue <<< symbol is printed to indicate where the new message starts. The post-amble received from the DX staion at the end of transmission appears in the text as >>>. The PSK Console dialog is available via the Tools / PSK Console menu command. The charts in this dialog show how the decoder tracks the signal frequency, recovers symbol timing and performs phase correction. The CPU indicator shows how much of the processor time is used by the PSK decoder. The decoder is desinged to remember the signal parameters during fadeouts, so that it stays tuned and does not jump to another station when the signal temporarily disappears. If you are monitoring a two-way QSO, this may be a disadvantage. When one signal ends and another signal, with different parameters, starts, it may take Rocky a few seconds to realize that the old signal is not going to re-appear, and tune at the new one. If this happens, just click on the new signal, and the decoder will instantly re-tune. To transmit BPSK31, click on the TX button, or press Ctrl-T, and start typing. The text you are typing will appear in red on the same display where the received text is printed. The characters that have not been sent yet are underlined. If you hit a wrong key and press Backspace while the character is still underlined, this character will be deleted from the buffer and will not be transmitted. If the wrong character has already been sent, the Backspace code will be transmitted, and the correction will occur at the receive side. To finish transmission and switch to the receive mode, click on the TX button again, or hit Ctrl-R, or press Ctrl-Enter. After this command is issued, Rocky will not accept new characters, but it will transmit the ones already in the buffer before switching to the receive mode. To instantly abort transmission, hit the Escape button. The BPSK transmitter supports up to 48 macro messages that can be sent by hitting the F1-F12 buttons with optional Ctrl, Alt, or Shift modifiers. These messages are stored in the "Program Files\Afreet\Rocky\Macros.ini" file. The Macros file can be edited with Notepad. Be sure to correct and test all messages before you start using them. In particular, you must replace 'VE3NEA' with your own callsign. The macros support two variables, and . The values of these variables can be set by clicking on correspondent's callsign and name respectively in the received text. The callsign will be recognized and highlighted in green, and the name will be painted in blue. The current values of the variables can be viewed on the mouse-over hint of the text display. To wipe the variables, hit Ctrl-W, to correct them, open the editor panel with Ctrl-E. The Wipe and Edit comands are also available in the right-click menu of the text display. Note that Rocky does not accept any commands or characters until the Call/Name editor is closed. Perss Enter to close and save your changes, or press Escape to exit from the editor without saving. The transmission of the macro messages can be interrupted at any time. To do so, hit Backspace or just start typing new text. 73 Alex VE3NEA http://www.dxatlas.com/Rocky