Couple Slicemaster issues/questions

Patrick Lenn W7APM

Very new to flex user and an avid DX chaser so I went straight to slicemaster. Does slicemaster use one log when opening multiple slicesin WSJTX? In the past when running multiple instances of WSJTX I would have to manually copy the WSJTX logs every couple days to keep the "worked" stations in sync. How does Slicemaster deal with this?

Also a couple notes on SM...

1. Anyone have a work around to not have to go in each time and manually set Fake It?

2. Something is happening randomly where if I'm not actively using WSJTX in Slice A (walk away for a couple hours and leave it decoding, or even switch to slice B and work CW) it will lose the TX audio coming out. I can TX, but no power is output. I can switch bands and then go back to the original band and when Slicemaster reboots all is fine again. Anyone ran into this?

Mike-VA3MW

SliceMaster creates multiple LOGS when opening multiple copies of WSJTx.

Open the LOG source file from within WSJTx to finds its physical location.

FAKE IT should be set to off. It is not required on a FlexRadio since the TX Bandwidth is 'flat' unlike other radios.

This is a DAX / WSJT communications failure. It can be related to computer DPCs and the quickly solution is to restart both WSJTx and DAX. Others see this problem often and some never see the problem. We are aware of it, but isolation of the root cause is problematic.

I can go weeks and never see the problem.

John KB4DU

Fake it moves the actual transmit frequency to the center of the specified band pass to maximize transmit power. This helps with an analog transmit error that has a somewhat bell shaped pass and. The flex has a flat pass and with equal transmit power from one end to the other, so fake Otis not needed, but doesn’t hurt anything, except maybe some complexity.

Patrick Lenn W7APM

Ok, good to know on the logs. I'll make sure and use Slice A as my primary log and copy the rest over. Boy I'd love to have that scripted and ran automatically one day.

If Fake It doesn't need to be on then I wonder if there's some way to let the WSJTX guys know that they can eliminate the Fake It pop up when connected to a Flex. Or, does it hurt in any way to run Fake it with a Flex? Maybe it's easier to just have it on default in Slicemaster if it won't hurt anything.

I'm glad other's have experienced it. Let me know if I can help in any way with the problem solving. Mine has been fairly consistent.

Mike-VA3MW

Why not have WSJT write directly to your logbook?

In my case, my log entries are sent to my HRD Logbook.

Patrick Lenn W7APM

Mike… all of my logs are sent to Log4OM for uploads and awards tracking. It’s more a matter of keeping the station coloring for “worked” “new grid” etc all in sync. If I work an EP on 15m on slice A one day and happen to have 15m open in slice B the next day that same EP will show up as a new DXCC because of the separate WSJTX logs.

To be clear. This is not a flex or Slicemaster issue. I just wanted to confirm that slicemaster hadn’t found a “fix” for this. It’s just a nuance of how WSJTX does it’s internal unofficial logging. Maybe I could use JT alert (never tried it) and run it on each slice and then abandon all the station highlighting in WSJTX.

Patrick Lenn W7APM

Thank you John. That explains it perfectly. I’m not sure which program change would be more likely. WSJTX or Slicemaster.

Patrick Lenn W7APM

Thought I'd give an update on what I thought was a Slicemaster issue. It's not. What seems to be happening is it's almost like the DAX streams are going to sleep. I can replicate it fairly consistently now. You can simply go into WSJTX and while the correct DAX settings are still in the Audio tab merely reselecting the same ones will cause them to start working again.

I have actually had this same thing happen on my FTDX-3000 a handful of times, but not nearly as often. I can replicate this easily merely by letting my PC sit untouched for 30min or so with a slice open (no Slicemaster involvement) and WSJTX running. I sure would love to get this issue resolved. There's nothing worse than sitting there working on other projects and seeing that rare DX get decoded only to find out you can't TX immediately.