Sometimes I have a QSO terminate for no obvious reason, this morning I was in QSO with a station that was very strong and noticed the VU meter dropped to zero as if the USB audio had vanished, which is probably what happened, after a few re-tries the meter came back up and the QSO continued, then it again dropped to zero and the QSO timed out. After the QSO terminated, the meter was again showing a good level. It is hard to know why the meter/audio drops. The setup is a Dell Optiplex PC running Windows 11 Pro, the radio is an IC-7300. The problem is likely to be related to "Windows" but it's too easy to blame Microsoft... Any thoughts? 73 Dave

While my beacon transmissions are received from distant stations, and I receive well enough, I am not sure about the inevitable latency involved in a QSO over a remote internet connection to the radio. Ideally, it would be nice to configure Vara to run on the server PC and VarAC on the remote one, but in the mean time, are there any settings or considerations to minimise any potential problems? The frequency control and Log4OM all work fine with Win4IcomSuite. 73 and thanks Dave

If I run VarAC (ver 8.0.6) before my intenet has connected, VarAC doesn't re-try to connect. Can a "re-try connection" be included? 73 Dave

I received a connection from IU6HWW, following a beacon from myself. Luciano sent a QSY request, my radio changed from 14.105 to 14.102 but the VarAC frequency still showed 14.105 in the top left of the screen... After a short while the QSY or the QSO will end message appeared and the program terminated the QSO. If I move the transceiver dial the frequency changes and is correct in the VarAC program. I am using Omnirig with an Elecraft K4D. Is that a bug, or should I have done something other than tap the "QSY" button that came up? 73 Dave

I noticed a mention of some latency issues in another thread on this forum. Rob Sherwood has made some latency measurements of a selection of transceivers on receive at this page: http://nc0b.com/latency/Latency%20tests%20on%20several%20transceivers-11.pdf My own oscilloscope and pulsed audio testing, both on transmit and receive, give the following results on the two transceivers I have in the shack and which incidentally both work fine on VarAC. Icom IC-7300 RX measurements using Data mode: 3 KHz bandwidth, 3.3 mS 2 KHz bandwidth, 3.5 mS Icom IC-7300 TX measurements using Data mode: 4.2 mS Elecraft K4D RX measurements using Data mode: Any bandwidth, 32 mS Elecraft K4D TX measurements using Data mode: 23 mS The above figures are the pure delay timing through the respective transceiver chain, not including any additional TX/RX switching delays. As you will see from the above, the humble Icom IC-7300 has significantly less latency than some other full SDR transceivers and indeed my IC-7300 works "out of the box" without any issues on Amtor using an SCS or Kantronics KAM, which is much more critical on timing and latency than VarAC. 73 Dave

Probably Windows 11 update related. Twice this morning my VarAC "froze" during a QSO, something that has never happened before. Symptoms are the VARA HF audio input drops to zero and says disconnected. The Windows 11 update is this one, updated today. 2023-04 Cumulative Update for Windows 11 Version 22H2 for x64-based Systems (KB5025239) Vara HF version 4.7.6 VarAC version 7.0.8 Anyone else suffering from a dropped connection and a frozen program? 73 Dave G4AON

A couple of days ago I had a reply to a CQ call from a German station, the signal was very strong but after many connect attempts all I saw was a callsign. The signal sounded distorted, probably due to over driving the radio. I couldn’t send him an email as he didn’t show one on qrz.com I find that running 1/4 to 1/2 max power and little to no ALC seems to give the most reliable comms. Working 10,000 to 11,000 mile paths to fairly ordinary antenna equipped stations (G to VK and ZL) seems reasonably easy with my modest doublet on 20m. No need to run QRO or “flat out”. Just my 2c worth. 73 Dave

Yesterday I updated VarAC to 6.3.3, however it ended up with a new folder and potentially having to go through the settings all over again. I copied the new "exe" file into the old folder and it appears to work fine. However this doesn't seem like a good idea going forward... What is the best way to update VarAC without needing to create another fresh install? Thanks Dave