Integrate Flex-6500 with fldigi on iMac

Andrew Rose

Currently running my Flex-6500 with Maestro.  For digital modes have installed fldigi on a "Microsoft PC Laptop" and this seems to work quite well.  Recently installed "fldigi for Mac" and this now running, albeit blind, on the iMac 27 inch under "macOS Sierra" but cant see how to integrate it with my flex-6500 running with Maestro?

Is anyone out there up to date on this particular interface and can help?

George KF2T

Easier, and more pleasant than you may expect. Are you using DogParkSDR as your Flex client? There is a tutorial on the dogpark site. You will need a DAX replacement, like Loopback or Sound Siphon, to move audio to and from the rig and applications. Transmitter keying via VOX is probably best using FLDIGI. Good luck and enjoy!

K3DCW

Yup, easy to put together as George mentioned, but it does require several pieces. 

dogparkSDR

MacLoggerDX (optional, but does make PTT easier)

Loopback or Sound Siphon (I prefer loopback, but YMMV)

Fldigi

Once Loopback/Sound Siphon is installed, dpSDR & Fldigi can feed/receive audio via that virtual audio cable. VOX is the best way for that. 

If you use MLDX, it can connect to the Flex as well and you can use that for PTT through the use of an AppleScript program to take the PTT request/release from Fldigi and trigger that using MLDX.  

There are scripts to take your logs from Fldigi and feed it into MLDX; either on demand or automatically after every QSO is saved.  

My setup is dpSDR and MLDX running, with Fldigi triggering a modified script (from DJ7AQ...modified to check and reload every 0.1 seconds rather than every 1 second for more responsive PTT) for PTT. Logs are auto logged from Fldigi to MLDX using the AutoLog script running all of the time on my Mac.  

The extras folder in the MacLoggerDX download has all kinds of scripts and instructions included. 

As George said, "easy and more pleasant". 

Andrew Rose

Many thanks for this most useful information.

It looks as if the only way to interface fldigi on an iMac is via ‘dogprkSDR’’.  This is a shame as I really wanted to be able to use the ‘Maestro’ which I prefer to ‘dogparkSDR’, never mind.

Thanks again as ever for your help.

Andrew  G4AUE