Swedish ham radio station - digital modes

Content: COM ports - Dig.mode configs - PSKreporter - WSPR - WebSDR with dig.modes - SDR experiments - CW Corner - The Rig - MUF NVIS 

I enjoy the digital modes, chatting with hams through the laptop.

I have a small digital HF station. Basic info about it: QRZ.com
The transceiver is a ICOM 7300 and it can be controlled by a computer via USB or RS-232, ideal for digital modes and handle full 100W power on digital modes. For portable use I have an ICOM 706MkIIG, which also can use digital modes, but lower power.

A station like this is capable of this and much more::

• run digital FT8 or JS8 and reach far /many countries for DXCC- and WAS-awards
• getting help to choose ham stations to call, needed for awards
• easily get more information about the other station and previous contacts
• run other digital modes such as PSK, Olivia, THOR, RTTY, where you chat in clear text
• run CW or RTTY from FLDIGI with the rig in CW or RTTY native mode
• the transceiver is controlled by the programs in my computer, and transceiver data are shown in the programs
• handling the station log and QSL-reports digitally and (almost) automatically
• send information to an interactive propagation map for ham radio (PSKreporter) and use DXspots.

Here is my comparison and information on some digital mode protocols (pdf, in Swedish), appeared in Swedish ham magazine QTC 1/2019.

• Att sätta ihop en digital HF station av (nästan vanliga grejor (2023)
• NanoVNA intro (antenna analyzer, 2023)
• Grounding and Bonding (jordning för radioamatörer, 2023)

• Digital HF station (2018/06)
• About WSPR - check antennas and conds (2018/07)
• Hints on digital HF (WebSDR & FLDIGI, 2018/10)
• FeldHell old digital mode and contest (FLDIGI, 2018/11)
• CW training part 1 (2018/12) - part 2 (2019/02)
• Compare digital protocols (2019/01)
• CAT control of your Rig (2019/05)
• Logging functions in your ham PC (2019/12)
• Web services for amateur radio (2020/02, 2020/03)
• How to hang a longwire antenna (2020/04)
• Become an FLDIGI Power User (2020/06)
• Experiments with NanoVNA antenna analyzer (2020/10)
• Antenna books (2021/02)
• Antenna modelling (2021/06)
• Moxon antennas (2021/09)
• VFview external waterfall, CAT and Remote (2021/07)
• Loopantenner för HF (2023/03)
• Intressant CW keyer OpenCWkeyer del 1 (2023/03) del 2

Configuration help for a digital station

Here you have digital HF station configuration help when using an IC-7300/IC-706MkIIG/FT-991, FLDIGI, WSJT-X, JTAlert-X and logger N3FJP AClog. 

My computer runs Windows 7. It is assumed you are a LoTW, eQSL and QRZ.com user. 

COM ports

Several programs can't share a COM port for CAT rig control. Although it perhaps shouldn't it seem to work with a free (32-bit) VSPE Splitter.  With the 32-bit version you get a free activation code.
VSPE has also a nice function to see which programs that are connected to each Splitter (select one and click the blue i icon.

If all your programs use OmniRig or FLRIG for CAT, there is no need for the COM port splitter, since OmniRig and FLRIG handles the COM port splitting - I wish all Windows radio programs use OmniRig or FLRIG for CAT. Many do, like WSJT-X, JS8Call and FLDIGI. On Linux, there is TTYBUS on Github.

My present VSPE configuration: VSPE config file with 2 Splitters. You can put the config file where you like, e.g Desktop or Quick Start bar.
Usage in my case is as below. If you use my other config files below and VSPE, please adjust to your COM port numbers.

• COM8 is the Enhanced COM port for the rig (FT-991)
  with COM9 connect to VSPE/OmniRig and ham radio programs for CAT
• COM5 is the WinKeyer port for CW user
  with COM10 connect to CW sending programs (e.g FLDIGI, AClog, 1200 baud)

Digital mode programs configs

• My drivers and audio setup
• My FT-991 configuration 
  Yaesu FT-991 page drivers & docs (Files tab)
• My FLDIGI configuration (2018)
  
  FT-991 (old) macros: fldigi digital macros - fldigi CW macros - fldigi RTTY macros - RigCat file: FT-991 v3
  
  IC-7300 macros: fldigi digital macros - fldigi CW macros - fldigi RTTY macros - RigCat file:  IC-7300
  
  IC-706MkIIG macros: fldigi digital macros - fldigi CW macros - fldigi RTTY macros - RigCat file:  IC-706MkIIG - ALL are under development.
  
  Please edit in each macro file: update the file path to the other macro file path, so you can switch between them with a button click!
  
  There is also a config script for FT-991 (2019) and a config script for IC-7300 (2022) that you can execute in FLDIGI to set up all configuration. It contains all my FLDIGI setup + macros, BUT then you must go through the settings and adjust to your data.
• 2022 CW, RTTY: From version 4.1.20.47, FLDIGI will handle "direct keying" (via COM) for both CW and RTTY with good results. That is included in the above config script for IC-7300 above. CW uses(virtual) COM pin DTR and RTTY uses pin RTS. Advantages is that rig can be in CW / RTTY native mode, and use the rig functions.
• You can disable CAT PTT in fldigi Rig control, if you activate Data VOX in the rig (FT-991: Mem 143 VOX select: DATA).
• You can also add my digital FLDIGI frequencies list IC-7300 in FLDIGI: menu File - Folders - Fldigi config....
• My WSJT-X configuration
• My "enhanced" OmniRig file for IC-7300: IC-7300-DATA.ini in C:\Program\Afreet\OmniRig\Rigs\
  My OmniRig settings OmniRig.ini in C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Afreet\Products\OmniRig
  Then you can use OmniRig Rig 1 for CAT when you have installed OmniRig. 
• My JTAlert-X configuration
• My N3FJP AClog configuration
• Your computer must have exact time, try using NetTime instead of Windows clock set.
• If you have a FT-991 or FT-991A, I recommend the free FTRestore utility to save and restore rig memories and menu values (donate to Chris though).

Good hints on IC-7300: menu intro, overview&mods
You can e.g change to a more silent fan.
Detailed instructions for FLDIGI digital mode setup on IC7300, see w1hkj.com wiki

Hints for IC-706MkIIG: a home-brew computer interface and tune control.

Other hams' hints on FT-991 and digital modes: N1RWY + notes and on IC-7300: WA7EWC and Mr Fldigi W1HKJ.

My article about digital mode setup (pdf, in Swedish) in Swedish ham radio magazine QTC 6/2018
and my article about FeldHell and contests in FLDIGI (pdf, in Swedish) in QTC 11/2018.

Suggestions for improvements are welcome to: sa7cnd-at-ssa.se

Enjoy!

Some PSKreporter links:

• Recent FT8 traffic (all bands) for Swedish stations, a good condition overview
• Recent JS8 traffic (all bands)
• Recent reports on 20m band for Swedish stations (all modes)
• All reported traffic om 40m band last hour (all modes)
• All reported PSK traffic last hour (all bands, PSK31, PSK63, PSK 125 etc)
  
• All reported RTTY traffic last 2 hours (all bands)
• All reported Olivia traffic last 6  hours (all bands)
• All reported HellSchreiber FeldHell traffic last 24 hours (all bands)

How nice to have two screens when running digital modes:

Below is the left or lower screen here with WSJT-X and logging program AClog:

Below is the right or upper screen with PSKreporter in web browser (other tabs show QRZ lookups), JTAlert-X with yellow alerts, and WSJT-X Waterfall.

WSPR Weak Signal Propagation Reporter

As you may know, you can use WSJT-X for WSPR reporting, condition monitoring and antenna evaluation also. If you make a new WSJT-X Configuration, you can easily switch between FT8 and WSPR. Here is my article about WSPR in WSJT-X (pdf, in Swedish) that appeared in Swedish ham radio magazine QTC 7/2018.

Digital Audio (Windows) for WebSDR to FLDIGI

If you want to control what sound reaches your digital program e.g FLDIGI and speakers, I find Voicemeeter very useful. It lets you control what source that go to your digital program e.g when receiving audio signals from a WebSDR on the internet. You also need a VB-Cable that transfers audio digitally from one program to another. Note that these programs are Donationware, so please donate to VB-Audio.

My setup allowing different audio sources to FLDIGI:

This is my voicemeeter "audio environment" and its settings.
The buttons above control which left source that go to the right destination (speaker and FLDIGI).

The settings in Voicemeeter menu are:

• Auto Restart Audio Engine
• System Tray
• MacroButtons: Run on Voicemeeter start
• Hook Volume keys (A1)
• Check in Options that all audio use same sampling rate, 48 kHz.

The macrobuttons select which program is delivering audio to FLDIGI, such as a CW skimmer, the USB-Audio from the rig and Windows default (e.g from a web browser getting audio from a Web-SDR). The button

In FLDIGI you configure input device: "Voicemeeter Output (VB-Cable...VAIO)" in Configure - Audio - Devices - Capture, instead of "USB-audio-from-rig".

Here are my Viocemeeter settings and macro defs (Save link as... to My Documents\Voicemeeter\).

My article about WedSDR and FLDIGI (pdf, in Swedish) in Swedish ham radio magazine QTC 10/2018.

I should also mention DJ0MY's program CATsync if you need to use a remote WebSDR receiver and you own transmitter/antenna regularly at home. CAT rig control (OmniRig) and Internet connection needed. Here is a demonstration of CATsync.

SDR experiments

I am experimenting with SDR in the form of a SDRPlay RSP1a, running it with HDSDR, a very capable SDR controller also good at CAT (transceiver control). You need a RSP1a ExtIO controller/API/driver that sits between the receiver (SDR controller) and the RSP1a..

If you want to use your SDR on same antenna as your transceiver, you need a safe switching arrangement to protect your SDR while transmitting. Some rigs have it built in and a separate RF SDR output. Otherwise you can dig into your rig and tap the RF signal after the TX/RX relay, on the RX input side. This is possible e.g  with the FT-991. But this may not be enough protection: I have 2 back-to-back BAT43 Shottky diodes in parallell to cut RF level  to SDR during TX. This keeps the level at SDR input at 1 dBm or less on all bands (except 6 m where my max TX is 30 W). Another alternative is a separate switching box such as the MFJ-1708SDR (various variants) T/R switch.

Band skimming (CW, RTTY etc)

Another use of my SDR is to run a CW Skimmer Server, controlled by Aggregator (ReverseBeaconNet RBN) to organize scanning and send spots to RBN. To report to PSKreporter also, you let a CW Reporter "listen" to Aggregator telnet spot server on port 7550.

To control the SDR for skimming you also need a special driver SDRPlayIntf.dll so RSP1a gives you 192 kHz bandwidth and 3-band switching capability, thanks toSteve N2IC.

Aggregator can even control which 3 bands you monitor over the day by switching CW Skimmer server's ini files and restart it. Here are my CW Skimmer ini files that also include the 60 m band (legal for Swedish hams from 2018-11-01). I use only Rate=2 192 kHz bandwidth, but the definitions in the files are valid to Rate=1 (96 kHz bandwidth also).

If you use the ExtIO_CWSL_Tee dll also then you can control the RSP1a from more than one program. The CWSL site has a good overview picture. I have been able to run both CW Skimmer and RTTY Skimmer at the same time this way, but the 2-core laptop cpu didn't have CPU enough, and got sluggish (and warm!). A lot of conditions apply to this; best advice here: N6TV (see "Quick Summary, for Windows" but adapt for RSP1a). It should be possible with HDSDR and ExtIO_CWSL.dll, but I have not been successful so far when CW Skimmer server runs.

Here is a picture of the reception with RSP1a and RTTY Skimmer server from 24 hours of the WAE RTTY Contest 2018-11-11, where 1106 stations in 73 countries were reported to PSKreporter on 3 bands 80-40-20m.

The CW Corner

Learn CW

Try LCWO.net:

CW Practice texts from ARRL. Training CW 100 common English words: 18 wpm - 22 wpm (mp3 from lcwo.net).

My CW training articles in Swedish ham radio magazine QTC: Bolder telegraphy + Develop your telegraphy (pdf, in Swedish).

Here is the rig:

Maximum usable frequency (MUF),e.g for NVIS: MUF charts from KC2G

My local weather station: v.pk2.se

© 2018 -  Copyright SA7CND