Need help with Fldigi

butch alline

I am retired, so any time is OK.  
I have 6300 ver. 1.6.21, Fldigi 3.23.09, Win 10 and I am new to all of the above.
I would like to go over profiles, fldigi, and other facets of operating.
QSL to occamrazr...yahoo.com

Would really like to eyeball any Elmer(s) near Oak Ridge, TN.

Thanks & 73
Butch

Scott - WM7C

I used this video to help setup fldigi  https://youtu.be/GSRIefEWjcc

butch alline

Thanks Scott.
I did look at Steve's video and I did have fldigi working at one time, but it no longer works.
My  hunch is that DAX is not getting enough audio to fldigi. Here is a screen shot:



I forgot to include the DAX window (which shows the audio streaming) and the image may be too small.  But notice the audio level in fldigi (lower right corner).  It sometimes shows some green and the increasing DAX "gain" does little.  This is hard to describe in text and pix, which is why I would like to do Skype in real time.

Scott - WM7C

Not sure if this helps at all.  I could possibly help you tomorrow.  I can call you on the phone if you'd like.  Also, I am an IT guy and we could use TeamViewer temporarily I could remote to your PC so we can both see what's happening together.  Also, if it helps, I can take more screen shots of my setup.  I just followed the video though and set mine up the same way.  

If you DAX levels are low, maybe that's the problem.  Here's my giant screen shot.

Scott - WM7C

I haven't used digital modes in a while, so I am rusty.  The screen shot may not show everything working correctly as far as transmit.  I can read signals there though.

Scott - WM7C

You could try my fldigi profile here.  https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2958067/fldigi.ssdr_cfg

k3Tim

I think Scott is spot-on in several ways. The DaX level can be adjusted at the screen capture above. He shows BPSK31 as the op mode and I would respectfully suggest trying that mode and also CW. Note - when I first was testing this I had to restart DaX as even CW was not copying properly. I simply stop then restarted it and the SSDR and Fldigi picked up where they left off. 
I tried the mode DominoEX-4 but had no luck with it, even though PSK31 is working like a champ. It appears from the screenshot the DaX RF gain setting is reasonable (some yellow pepper on a sea of Blue).
GL,

Tim

butch alline

Thanks for the input.  I have set up a way to record and play with fldigi off the air and I need to study it in more depth.  Stay tuned...

Scott: The drop box link did not work on Safari.  Can you send it via email ?

Scott - WM7C

Try right clicking on it and choose "Download Linked File".

km9r.mike

Butch,

It appears from your screen shot that you have fldigi set up correctly at least from the CAT standpoint. Fldigi is displaying same mode as your flex and same freq as well. Please note, fldigi does not do jt65 nor jt9. I do not know how that will reflect on fldigi's receive level indicator but it should have some impact. Try receiving psk and ensure you select psk 31 in the fldigi "op mode" selector which is just above the "1"  of the 14.076.950 readout in your screenshot.

It appears the current mode that you had selected was DominoEx 4. Fldigi is not smaert enough to select the appropriate digital mode. That has to be done manually via the "op mode" selector.

Jay Nation

Butch

The "input level" indicator diamond in Fdigi, when set with default colors only has 4 possible indications.

Black = Low
Green = Normal
Yellow = High
Red = Over

You want to see green if your hearing signals. If there are no signals in the passband you want to see Black. If it occasional flickers to yellow, when a strong signal pops into the passband, that's normal and OK. In other words, if its Black increase the audio on the input until it's Green, If you start to see Yellow to often back off the audio level a little.

The AGC-T settings, DAX Audio channel level settings, and Preamp settings all combine to set/produce the audio level seen at the Fldigi input.

Also, the appearance of the Fldigi Waterfall has no effect on Fldigi's decoding ability. It's just pretty/shiny/eye candy, entertainment, and can be adjusted however you like it to look.

Also, In the lower, far right portion of the window there is a signal level squelch control, which can be enabled/disabled, when it's enabled, if your not getting any decodes it might be set so that its squelching out to much. Keep the squelch slider low enough to just barely squelch out the noise floor. 

I often leave the the Preamp off, DAX level set to 50, and adjust the level with the AGC-T controls, quite often, Med/50 works just fine. 


73, Jay - NO5J
 

km9r.mike

The input level indicator on his screen shot is green and the squelch level is at zero. Additional evidence that his settings are correct. Again it appears he is simply trying to decode jt65 (which fldigi does not do ) with DonimoEx 4.

Jay Nation

Thats what I saw in his screenshot too. He seems to be setup close enough, so that his audio level isn't part of the problem. and yes Fldigi will never decode that JT9 signal selected on his waterfall. Maybe he bumped the VFO
slightly when he took the screenshot. DominoEx is the wrong mode. If he tuned down to 14.070000 and selected PSK31 for the mode I bet his current audio level would work FB.

73, Jay - NO5J 

km9r.mike

I think so too. Looks as if things should work great for him.

While fldigi is the topic perhaps you can help me with a conundrum. After running wjst-x, I close the program and then open fldigi to operate rtty. Fldigi cat is working  and will command flex to rtty mode and then I double check to ensure op mode is rtty 45, however, decode is nonsense. I then close fldigi and open mmtty and decode is good on mmtty. Close mmtty and reopen fldigi now rtty decode on fldigi is ok. Bottom line rtty decode on fldigi is good but normally I have to run mmtty first to get it to work properly. Makes zero sense to me.


I do have both the mmtty engine and the fldigi engine linked in n1mm+. Perhaps this is the issue even though n1mm+ was not opened ?

Jay Nation

Um, my first thought is, how have you got "reverse" selected in Fldigi, check for decodes with it both enabled and disabled. I've seen the same behavior too. I'm also trying to figure out why it does that. Have you tried the 2Tone decoder? Sometimes I can get 2Tone  to work  while I'm struggling with MMTTY and Fldigi.

Sometimes, There is no do, there is only try!
Often, it makes no difference! YMMV! 

73, Jay - NO5J

km9r.mike

I tried 2tone once but did not have much luck. At the time I liked the tuning function of it's display but the current flex rtty mode display is more than sufficient for quick tuning.

I have not really dug into the issue much. I may try running fldigi as an admin and see if I can get it to decode rtty from the getgo. It is not a major issue just an inconvenience for now. BTW if I open n1mm+ and run fldigi as the rtty engine, it will decode rtty properly from the start. Like I said just an inconvenience.

butch alline

Interim sitrep:
got fldigi working, copies CW, PSK31, RTTY.
Still mystified by green signal level - seems that it is not affected by DAX audio level and bounces with QSB.  Also fildigi filters 1x1 through 2x4 do not seem to be reflected in SSDR.
But...making progress...slooowly.
Still looking for a nearby Flexer to compare notes.

Jay Nation

Butch 

The green signal level isn't displaying an audio level, it's more of an indicator of how well the signal you've selected is decoding. It behaves mostly as an indicator of where the squelch is set. Signals below the slider setting get ignored. That's probably an inaccurate description, however that's how "I" see it behaving.  

73, Jay - NO5J 

Jay Nation

Butch 

Let me think about the filter issue a while, It's usually not an issue for me because I usually just set a 3k filter for fldigi digital, and and a 4k filter width when running WSJTX. I never use the fldigi filter controls, it's easier to just let SSDR select the filter from memory based on the frequency I'm tuned to, if 3k is too wide I select narrower in SSDR temporarily. FRStack might be doing it, I'm not really sure. The filter usually changes correctly whenever I tune to either the PSK or JT sections in the bandplan. I'm running startup scripts that opens SSDR,DDUtil,DXlabs,DAX and SSDR CAT then either FLdigi or JTAlertX, the script also autocloses each program when SSDR is closed.I'll try to see if running without FRStack running has any effect on how the filters autoselect. 

Hey Flexradio!, is there any possibility of SSDR ever being capable of being run with a --ProfileName commandline option? Please!

73, Jay - NO5J

DrTeeth

Hi Butch,

Sorry to jump into the thread so late. I just have a few observations. First, it is best to set the squelch to zero and keep it there, especially for weak signal modes. By using the squelch, you could be missing some weak signals.

Second, regarding the input level. I adjust DAX so that the signal in the DAX meter is flickering at just under the 0. I make any other adjustments in FLDigi if necessary.

The author of FLDigi has said that it is not a good thing to reduce the bandwidth on the rig as it adversely affects the DSP. I keep it at the max for the FLDigi display, viz 4.5KHz.

Hope to catch you in the log.

Jay Nation

Butch 
What Guy just posted is all correct. Best to start out correct, before bending things to suit your own personal angles.
73, Jay - NO5J

butch alline

Up and running on fldigi.  Thanks for the inputs.
Things I found useful:
1. re-read the manual (duh)
2. set up a second rig with fldigi so that I can Tx & Rx to myself.