United States Air Force
Military Affiliate Radio System
"Providing the reins of command in emergencies"

Instant Tips
Tip #1
Navigate the Web Site
When navigating the web site, either public or member's only, you will find that the Site Map can be a valuable tool. The site map lays out the entire Public portion of the web site pages by subject and links. This same pattern is repeated in the Member's Only portion of the site and makes moving around that section of the site much easier.

Tip #2
Static Crashes
Having trouble with static crashes, such as lightening?
Here are some receiver settings that will help you tolerate the noise and make most stations "Q-5."
1. Turn off your pre-amp, if you have one.
2. Turn off your Fast AGC.
3. Turn off your Noise Blanker.
4. Decrease your RF gain so only the static "burst" is heard.
5. Increase your AF gain and readjust your RF gain.
Once you have a good balance between the reduced RF and increased AF gain, you will find that the static has been reduced dramatically but most stations are good copy.
Tip #3
MT-63 Automatic TX to RX
You can have your MT63 switch from transmit (TX) to receive (RX) automatically. When you copy/paste or compose the message, click your cursor right after the last letter or character of the text, this will put the flashing cursor there. Now click on on the "RX" ICON at the top of the screen this will place the RX icon as the last item in the transmit screen and will cause the program to automatically stop sending after clearing the buffer. This will also unkey the transmitter if you are using one of the commercial interface machines such as Rig Blaster. If you fail to click on the "RX" ICON the program will "hang" in the transmit mode; you can see the current mode (TX or RX) in the action tool bar at the bottom of the screen.
Tip #4
MT-63 Garbled
Suddenly your MT63 transmit or receive is garbled. Open Mode/Mode Settings and make sure the program hasn't changed: Inverted unchecked; squelch checked; bandwidth 1000; interleave long; threashold slider about half way; TX and RX settings should be around 500 (default) but may vary if you changed them during calibration; Video ID both unchecked. For what evere reason these will change from time to time, especially if you have done calibration or run another sound card program such as ALE.
Tip #5
Check your Receiver's Frequency
From Clete, AFA1DJ

You can varify if your rig is on frequency by comparing the audio tone frequency that WWV is transmitting to your receiver, set to the USB mode and another receiver tuned to the same WWV signal but set to the AM mode. If you can't get a good signal from WWV then you can use their telephone line, 303-499-7111 to listen to the AM audio being transmitted instead of a listening on a second receiver (it is not toll free). WWV transmits 24/7 on 2.5, 5, 10 and 20 Mhz. ( WWV on the Web)

If you tune your receiver to WWV, USB mode, readout set to 1 Hz resolution, (I'll use the IC-706 as my example, open the manual to Page 1 "Front Panel" Item 5, "Tuning Step Switch" for setting 1 Hz), and place the speaker to the left or right of you, then get WWV on the phone, or tune in WWV AM on a second receiver, so that you can hear it using your other ear. You'll be hearing two sources of the WWV audio tone; one from the phone or AM receiver, and one comming from the 706. Adjust the volume of the 706 so that the levels in both ears are about the same. You, the human, are the comparitor.

If you vary the 706 frequency slightly you should hear a beat (of pulsing sound) between the two audio sources. You want to carefully adjust the 706 so that the beat (or pulsing) is at or very close to zero (nul). Experiment with that by bracketing the frequency (rocking the dial back and forth) on the 706 until you get a feel for where the 706 frequency is that produces two audio tones that are near-coherence. Now read the 706 dial frequency and now you know what the 706 frequency error is at that WWV frequency.

That error can be interpolated to other frequencies. For every 10 MHz above the WWV frequency add the error and for every 10 MHz below the WWV frequency subtract the error. So if you measured the error at 10 MHz and it is 12 Hz, then at 20 MHz the error will be 24 Hz, and at 5 MHz it will be 6 Hz.

Of course you can use this method with any modern digital readout receiver, but you need to set the readout to the 1 Hz setting to be very accurate. You can "get in the ballpark" with greater then 1 Hz readout, but that probably will not put in the 20 Hz tolerance we are now looking for.

Tip #6
Notch out the carrier! Click Here.
Tip #6
If you are constructing an Office file (Excel or Word) and want to make sure the keyboard stays locked in UPPER-CASE, this is the script you need! There are several variations of the script in this file, pick the one that works for you. I've found they work with most versions of Excel and Word. The script is easy to install and just as easy to erase.
Thanks to Gordie, AFA1GH for this tip!
Upper Case! Click Here
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