Configurations in WJST-X plus human decay.

Thanks to those of you who enquired about my health. I am not too bad. Perhaps I can try to explain what happened in terms which a radio amateur might understand.

1) First they went under my outer panel by cutting a hole, rebuilt a leaking electrolytic capacitor and then they put the cut bit of panel back and waited for it to rust back together again. Painful and slow to recover.

2) Second they decided to check out the circuitry by shoving a camera and a pair of wire cutters up the rear SO-239 antenna socket. Leaving me to watch it all on the screen, they cut a few bits of circuitry out and retrieved them for testing. Undignified, but at least it avoided cutting another hole through the outer panel and leaving it for weeks to heal over. Of course the RF stage had to thoroughly emptied before all of this, which was more of an issue than anything else. It was rather like applying a depth charge down the rig from the microphone end and then blasting everything out the antenna socket.

3) Ongoing knee issues which are like a sticking VFO control. This is one of those old time VFOs with ball bearings. Either the VFO control is rubbing somewhere and some easing will help, or the ball bearings have gone and are crunching and biding together. Both have happened in the past on this old worn equipment I live in.

So there we are. None of this is unusual or unexpected on old equipment. It is just that it is all happening together. Thanks for asking and for your support.

Moving on...

I have mentioned WSJT-X Configuration settings before on this blog. It is time for some discussion about what use these can be put to. Sadly I cannot cut and paste the drop down menus so I will photograph them, which means that the images for that part of this posting will not be up to the usual standard (whatever that is).

As is well known, I monitor several bands at once using several radios. However, you do not need to be as mad as me and configurations can be useful for many set-ups including just one radio.

First of all I will consider my 70MHz layout where I use an IC-7300 for either MSK144 or FT8. I can also use the IC-7300 for 50MHz by swapping round antennas and rigs using an RF transfer relay. For MSK I use different settings for the watchdog from the ones I use on FT8. For FT8 I only use a 3 minute watchdog, whereas for MSK I prefer it much longer. Also, for 50MHz I use more power as 70MHz has a more limited peak power authorisation. Sure, I could use a single configuration and change the power or the watchdog time each time I switch. Maybe somebody else can do this, but when I tried that I tended to transmit for the wrong time or with the wrong power.

Configuration options for the IC-7300 at GM4FVM

Now if I want to change bands or modes all I do is select the right configuration. In each configuration you can set lot of parameters beyond power and mode such as stored frequencies, reporting preferences and so on. What you cannot do is use one instance of WSJT to control two or more rigs - for that you need separate instances.

Unfortunately you cannot alter the received signal strength as recorded by WSJT-X using configurations. This is set at rig level in the audio tab. Early versions of WSJT had a slider for receive gain which you could set independently. That setting disappeared years ago. I would find it handy to have that setting back as the background noise levels here on 50MHz and 432MHz are very different (see later about controlling the IC-7100). Last time I used MSHV it did have a receive gain setting slider, but here I am only talking about WSJT-X. As it stands I believe that you cannot set the receive level to a different value for different bands on one instance of WSJT-X. Unless you know differently ....??? 

Actually setting up the different configurations is a bit tricky as the options on the drop down menu are hard to understand. I generally clone the one I am using, switch to the copy, and then rename it and reset all the other settings.

Another advantage of using different configurations to change band rather than changing band on the WSJT-X panel directly is that changing configurations closes that instance of WSJT-X and reopens it afresh. The benefit of that is that, unlike changing just the band, you do not report to PSK reporter all the stations you heard on the first band but marked as stations on the second band. I see this often on PSK Reporter where a band suddenly seems to have opened, but on close inspection somebody has changed from the 20 metre band or the like onto 2 metres, and all the stations they heard on 20 metres just before they changed are reported as 2m contacts. That is hardly earth shattering but I do not want to look like an idiot any more than I need to. I find that being an idiot in private is less concerning than proving I am an idiot to the entire amateur community.

Configurations can do much more than this. I use my cheap second hand IC-7100 for both 50MHz and 432MHz (plenty of scope for reporting the wrong thing to PSK Reporter there).

Configuration options for IC-7100 at GM4FVM

Here I need to switch between the power levels and modes for 4m and 6m in the same way as I do with the IC-7300 but adding 70cms makes it even more complicated. If I use the 70cms configurations the IC-7100 also changes over to UHF and transfers the antenna connection to the right port. My 70cms linear needs only 3 watts drive so the power change is very important to avoid blowing up the linear - the 70cms configuration takes care of that. So too does selecting 6m WSPR, where the power is already set under 5W in that configuration.

For the 70cms JT65 configuration I have various beacon frequencies programmed in and power set to zero. When I do EME I put a long series of moonbounce frequencies in on a separate configuration called 70cm EME, but I have deleted that for now and it will reappear in Q65 mode. It is very handy to have the moonbounce frequencies in that configuration but missing from the others as it makes the lists of frequency both mode-specific and shorter. That creates less of a chance of getting things wrong. 

Since I set this up I hardly need to touch the IC-7100 at all. That is a big plus as it is not a great device to work with. It tends to tip up when I try to use the VFO (even with the stabilisers extended) and it slides around when I adjust anything directly. Plus, the display and ergonomics are not in the same league as the 7300 or 9700. However it has many other pluses such as it is quite cheap and it does a lot of things the other two cannot do.

With the IC-9700 the multiple configurations are not so straight forward if you use the second receiver. This problem has nothing to do with WSJT-X configurations; the 9700 is apt to confuse me in any mode or band. I have two instances of WSJT-X, one for the main radio and the other for the second receiver. The second receiver cannot be controlled by CAT. The rather odd way the IC-9700 works means that if I change the frequency to a different band in the main radio using the CAT, what happens next depends on the VFO in use for the second receiver. If, as in my case, the second receiver is set to a 23cms frequency, the radio changes to 23cms and substitutes the 2m frequency I was using into the second receiver, making this a different frequency from that shown on the second instance of WSJT-X on the second receiver. To prevent mis-reporting to PSK Reporter I have turned PSK reporting off for the second receiver, which stops mis-reporting but means that version of WSJT-X then shows 2m contacts with a 23cms frequency readout. At least only I see that, not the whole PSK Reporter world. Handily, just two clicks brings up the 2m configuration on the second receiver instance of WSJT-X.

As I monitor four bands I find it far too complex to remember all the permutations of settings and power levels needed. The risk for me is that I might exceed the power limits, blow up a linear or, deary me, miss some DX. Missing DX would never do. Setting up different configurations takes a bit of time but it is worth it for me.

If you install any new version of WSJT-X to the same location as the one you are using the settings should transfer to the new version. It is worth being careful over this as other settings could be lost too if you get the installation wrong.

So there we are. Simples! Well, not so easy with my set-up because I make my life unnecessarily complex whatever way I run my shack. But still, if you want one click to change settings, bands, power, reporting or any other thing short of changing rig, that is the way to do it in WSJT-X.

Incidentally, this is period of the year when Trans-Equatorial Propagation occurs. Occurs somewhere else, not for me. Maybe on the Southern extremities of the UK, but not in GM. I have to sit and watch, waiting for Sporadic E to restart. Grrr.

50MHz on PSK reporter, as seen at GM4FVM on 5 April 2022

Well I suppose I cannot have everything.

Hey, why not?

73

Jim

GM4FVM