CW Skimmer

CW Skimmer

General

• This implementation loads and connects SmartSDR to CW Skimmer without using a virtual serial port pair. Connection is accomplished using TCP/IP and special Telnet commands.
• This version only supports F6000 radios.
• This version only works with Slice A.

Setup

• You must own a registered copy of CW Skimmer (v1.83 or later) which can be obtained from the DX Atlas web site.

DDUtil

• In the CW Skimmer group on the Features tab.
  • Select the Skimmer Close check box if you want CW Skimmer to close when the check box is un-selected or when DDUtil closes.
    • Not selecting this check box will cause CW Skimmer to be minimized when the check box is un-selected or when DDUtil closes.
  • Select the Enable check box

CW Skimmer

• When CW Skimmer starts for the first time open the Settings pane and configure the following tabs.
  • Radio tab
    • Hardware Type → SoftRock
    • Sample Rate → to match DAX IQ Stream in the DAX control panel for slice A.
    • Lo Frequency → This is automatically set by DDUtil.
    • CW Pitch → to match the CW Pitch frequency in the SmartSDR CW panel.
  • Audio tab
    • Soundcard Driver → WDM.
    • Signal I/O Device → DAX IQ RX 1.
    • Audio I/O Device → to match your system's Play Back Audio Device.
    • All other settings use the default values.
  • Telnet tab
    • Enable Telnet Server → selected.
    • Port → 7310
    • Require Password → not selected.
    • Do not send callsigns without CQ → user preference, but usually not selected.
    • Allow Skimmer Commands → selected
  • All Other Tabs
    • Set as desired/required.

SmartSDR

• Open the DAX Control panel
  • In the IQ Streams group
    • Set the #1 sample rate to match what you setup in the CW Skimmer settings panel.
    • Enable the #1 stream by pressing the #1 button.
• Open the DAX item of the Panadapter controls group.
  • Select the DAXIQ Channel (1) set above.

Note: → Any DAXIQ Channel may be selected as long as the above settings and the CWS Skimmer Setup panel agree.

Operation

• Use CW Skimmer as you would normally with the following advice.
  • Frequency control is best set from CW Skimmer.
  • Frequency set from SSDR will not always be exact as CW Skimmer has a - 100KHz step. If you set the SSDR frequency to 14.010.123 CW Skimmer will change it to 14.010.100. So depending on where the station is it might be hard to get CW Skimmer close enough to decode properly. Using CW Skimmer to tune the station has more granularity and works better. The next version of CW Skimmer is supposed to accept 10 Hz tuning steps