Flex 6400 works great with new JS8 mode!

Roger_W6VZV

Bill -VA3WTB

Roger_W6VZV

Roger_W6VZV

Ted VE3TRQ

You should do yourself a favour and try some of the other sensitive modes available in FLDigi. Yes, I will admit that JS8Call has sensitivity on the order of -20 dB SNR, and allows for a conversation in difficult conditions, but usually a mode good for -15 dB SNR is also fine. FLDigi has a number of these that are more flexible than JS8Call. Maybe save that mode for those cases where nothing else will work, and try Olivia, Contestia, DominoEX, MFSK, etc, etc. And PSK still works when conditions are good. You will find that these other modes sometimes allow for a more satisfactory (faster when conditions allow) QSO experience. And then we are not all jumping on the same bandwagon, no matter how good the music sounds :-) My 2 cents - Ted VE3TRQ

Roger_W6VZV

You are not wrong, Ted, and I am an avid HRD/DM780 user and I have used **** mode, Olivia, Contestia, Thor, MT63 and other modes in the past, and I work PSK regularly.  Here at the bottom of the sunspot cycle I rarely hear any of the foregoing modes excepting PSK31 -- seems like all the fellows have gone to FT8.  Used to work a lot of Olivia but nowadays the activity just isn't there.  JS8 is slow, as are some of the just-mentioned modes, but the S/N is pretty impressive and there is sometimes quite a bit of JS8 activity.  Last evening on 40M it was bustling around 7.078.  Had some nice QSOs and just wanted to share this with the community.
de Roger W6VZV

Ted VE3TRQ

I do have to agree, Roger - if you can't beat 'em, join 'em! With the "fixed" frequencies built in to the JS8Call app, there is never any difficulty in finding the crowd :-)

roger na4rr

Ted VE3TRQ

Just install JS8Call and select the band you want to operate on - the app picks the frequency for you :-)

Roger_W6VZV

Ted VE3TRQ

I didn't mention my favorite mode, Roger - FSQ. This one has watering holes at 3.594, 7.104, 10.144, 14.104. These are all "dial" frequencies for USB / DIGU operation. The centre is 1500 Hz up. 7.104 is most active here in the central and east coast areas, pretty well from Arizona to Texas and Wisconsin, and as far east as Maine. Works down to -15 dB SNR or better! Available on all platforms in FLDigi, and on Windows only as FSQCall (zl1bpu's original version). Speed is from 1.5 baud to 6 baud (which is much faster than I can type :-)

JS8Call was modelled on this mode. Just Google (DuckDuckGO?) "FSQ mode".

mikeatthebeach .

Can you post pictures of the CAT Setup, my FT8 works with CAT with the Flex6600m but not with JS8CALL Any help appreciated 73 Mike

Ted VE3TRQ

I'm a Mac user, so probably not directly Windows-related, but the config options in JS8Call seem to be pretty much cross-platform, and the same as for wsjt-x.

I use "FlexRadio 6xxx" for Rig, and "127.0.0.1:5200" for CAT  control (thru xCat, CAT in your case). CAT needs to be set up for this. xDax / DAX are set up exactly as for wsjt-x also.



DAX setup (xDax, actually, but same principle for DAX)


VE3TRQ  Ted

Bill -VA3WTB

I was was told the other day I think I know everything,,well I don't. Lol

What I'm trying to understand, I see we can use Linux JS8. But how can we connect and use that with our radios. I would need to connect from my Linux computer as my Win computer has SSDR on it

mikeatthebeach .

Ted Thanks for your help on your JS8CALL Settings For the Flex6xxx series radio’s This forum is great for help Thanks 73 Mike

roger na4rr

Well I somewhat have it working.  Can not get it to key with CAT.  I checked VOX and it xmits.  I called cq and got answers. Figuring out exactly who I was talking to was interesting.  The text in the activity window goes away too soon.

  Its very difficult to teach this old dog new tricks.   I did very well when I was 8 years old and me and by friend stretched a string and tin cans between our tree houses.  Can you even find a quality tin can any more?  When we were finished our DX conversation we used the can to play "kick the can"  Anyone remember that?
73
Roger

Ted VE3TRQ

Unless and until someone writes the equivalent of xDax and xCat for Linux, the answer, Bill, is you can’t run everything natively on Linux. Works great on a Mac :-) By the way, I mis-labeled the last image above as “xDax” when it should have been “xCat”.

Ted VE3TRQ

Well wadayaknow! Roger, looked at my heard list on JS8Call on 40m from about an hour ago, and saw what I thought was a familiar call sign - yours! You were about -17 dB, but we could have had a QSO if I’d been at my screen. Gotta say, JS8/FT8 really does get it done. Ted VE3TRQ

Bill -VA3WTB

Ted, ok, I was wondering if maybe I missed something. I noticeed that you can download for Linux and was wondering why,,,thanks.

Ted VE3TRQ

I do run my K3 and JS8Call natively on Linux - with a SignaLink :-)

mikeatthebeach .

Roger Saw you on JS8 this evening on 40meters For CAT I had to set Network Server to localhost:60000 Same network as with FT8 to get CAT to work Properly Would not work with the 127.x.x.x setting 73 Mike

Ted VE3TRQ

That’s odd - on any self-respecting tcp/ip network, “localhost” == “127.0.0.1”.

Roger_W6VZV

Well let’s try to qso soon! Glad you could hear my modest setup! de Roger W6VZV

Patrick

Just found out about this mode. Got it set up yesterday and have made a few contacts. It is slow but dead on reliable. Ability to type ahead helps with slowness. Hope more use it, it would be great also for emergency situations And I guess it can be integrated with APRS? Which could integrate HF and VHF/UHF repeaters. I Intend to work with it to learn more how it works.

Ted VE3TRQ

One of the things I’d really like to see added (and I believe it is already in the works) is the ability to change, or add to, the text once JS8Call starts sending. Sometimes I just want to add a bit, or edit something. Fldigi allows that (I use Olivia a lot, too). Other than when trying to track multiple QSOs, I like it a lot - it just gets through in this time of zero sunspots!

Ted VE3TRQ

Propagation might be lousy, but JS8 gets through!

Had a lovely cross-continent 4-way QSO on 40m, with JS8, using JS8Call - about 02:30 Z, none of us using more than 25w. My TX antenna is in the attic, RX is a 60 ft loop of insulated wire under the sod, connected with a Beverage transformer. Talk about compromise! One was in NB, on the Bay of Fundy, one was in Arizona, one was on Vancouver Island, and me in Ontario. 100% copy for all, for the entire QSO, maybe 1/2 hour long. Sunspots are nice, but you can still communicate when there aren’t any :-)

Ted VE3TRQ

Dan KB6NU

I'm trying to set up my 6400 to work JS8CALL. It's receiving just fine, but I can't seem to get it to transmit. I have the audio input set to DAX Audio RX 1 and the audio output to DAX Audio TX. Are those the correct settings?

Thom K7FZO

I just installed xCAT, xDAX and JS8call. I went through the basic config but on xCAT it won't allow anything to be entered in the Station Field.Also, the status never changes from "slice not present".
On JS8call when I follow the suggestions written above and click OK I always get this message: Hamlib error: Communication timed out while opening connection to rig
I've changed ports, deleted the app, reinstalled in, etc.
I'm running a Flex-6500 to a Macbook via ethernet.
I'm obviously missing something, anyone have an idea what that might be?
Thanks!!
Thom