Setting Sound Board levels

Windows 95/98/NT has all the tools you need to set the transmit and receive levels for RTTY. They're just not labeled for RTTY work. Use the menu entry Start/ Programs/ Accessories/ Multimedia/ Volume Control (or else double click on the little speaker icon on the task bar tray). The volume control comes up configured to set your output levels, and looks like this:

The "Wave Volume" control is the one that controls the AFSK output level (and so does the Master Out). Don't overlook the other controls! Be sure to turn off the Line control-that is the Line in and the audio from your rig. You don't want it tripping your VOX. To set the receive levels, use the Options Properties menu command and you get this dialog:

Click the "Recording" button under "Adjust volume for" and turn on the "Line" (or "Mic") buttons and click OK. You get the next picture:

If you want to see the display with the color coded level meters as shown here, then you need to be running RttyRite in receive mode (or run the Windows Sound Recorder and press its Record button). You want to not see any red indicators as shown in this picture. That means the receiver audio is overloading the sound board's receive input. Lower the slider position until you see only green and yellow peaks.

The "Select" buttons in this picture enable/disable the corresponding input to the sound board, so if you have your receive audio connected to the connector on the sound board labeled "Mic" then you need to turn the Mic control on. And the same for the Line control. The Line input is preferred because its input impedance and sensitivity are more suited to direct connection to receiver audio.