Keyboard shortcuts for making fine adjustments to frequency or other settings?

Nick

I switched from a mouse to a track ball to make operation easer. The track ball is great, but making fine adjustments to the frequency is harder. Is there a keyboard shortcut to bump settings like the frequency up or down in small increments?

Ken - NM9P

I have found my best solution is to get the FlexControl Knob. I use the mouse with my right hand and the flex knob with the left and drive this thing two-handed! I know that there are a lot of people who want to get rid of knobs altogether, but that doesn't make sense. There are some control functions that cannot be done with a mouse. Otherwise we would be using mice and joysticks to drive our cars. A knob or wheel that can be grasped and rotated around an axis has much better fine control than sliding a little box across a desk..... On the other hand.... a series of keyboard shortcuts for adjusting frequency might be a good solution. perhaps using the right/left arrows for frequency excursions, and the up/down buttons in the cluster (NOT the Page UP/DN) in order to change the tuning step. I could go for that "inverted T" control as an alternative. or perhaps use a cluster on the keypad for the same.....Though I still think a large, weighted control knob with "auto-speed-up" is the best choice for easy control of transmit frequency. Most other functions can be done as well or better in a GUI.

Al_NN4ZZ

Nick, Several track balls have scroll wheels or scrolling rings also. Here are a few models from Kensington and others. Regards, Al / NN4ZZ

WX7Y

I really miss the Keyboard functions when running remote with SmartSDR, the Keyboard give precise tuning running remote or local on PowerSDR. If you have a scroll wheel on your mouse or Track Ball that would help and give you the basic functions of the Flex Control Knob I believe at least on PowerSDR running Remote it did I haven't tried it with SmartSDR yet but should work I think. You just need to have focus on the program. 73's Bret WX7Y

DonS

I thought the Flex Control Knob always maintained focus on PSDR and possibly SSDR - not sure about the later. I will find out tonite when I install the Flex Control Knob.

Ken - NM9P

Flex Control Knob is always active in both versions of the software. That's beauty of it. I can have the "focus" on my logging program or Digi program and the Knob still works to tune and do other functions. It is well worth the $99 if spent for it.

Gerald-K5SDR

FYI - The new beta also supports RIT & XIT from the FlexControl. Press the knob once to engage RIT and click again to go back to slice tuning. Double click to zero RIT. You will see the Mode LED light when in RIT mode. You can press the AUX3 button to engage XIT and then double click the knob to zero XIT. A single press of the knob returns control to the slice frequency tuning.

Ken - NM9P

Loving it already! Thanks!

DonS

Ken I added the FlexControl. Upon installation it grabbed a comport I setup with SmartCAT. I am guessing the comport that the FlexControl should use is one that was not been created by SmartCAT. Is that correct? Don

DonS

I answered my own question by removing the comport I created in SmartCAT but was not using. Are you using DDutil3 in your setup and is there anything special I need to know use DDUtil? I have read some using FlexControl through DDutil

Ken - NM9P

Hi Don, I have used DDUtil in the past but not currently. It seems to work a little more smoothly directly connected. But DDUtil has some additional features that are pretty nice. Right now I am trying to keep as low a CPU profile as I can, and I don't need many of the other equipment interfaces that DDUtil offers, unless I am slaving my 1500 to the 6500 to monitor my signals. Then I will reconfigure. I have done it so many times that it doesn't take long any more! Good luck, and you will love the new Flex Control Knob and the new features in the latest beta release are awesome!