How do I set up RTTY on my Mac and 6600M?

rmanzer

I am trying to get SSDR's RTTY to work on my Mac and 6600M. Everything works fine for FT8, using WSJT-X and I expected RTTY to also work.

MacOS 12.6.3, SSDR 2.9.08, Loopback 2.3.2.

I selected DAX channel 1 with slice A, the only slice running. I can see and hear the RTTY signal from WX stations. I see audio on the meters in the SSDR DAX window. The Loopback source and output channel meters show audio going through. I do have RX selected in the RTTY tool. Although it is grayed out, I see '1' in the DAX control in the upper right of the tool window. I tried using channel 2, which worked with WSJT-X, but it didn't help on RTTY. There is no text whatsoever being displayed in the RTTY tool.

I have to admit, I am confused about how Loopback routes audio to where it needs to be, but I somehow made it work for WSJT-X. Has anyone else, with a similar setup, made the SmartSDR RTTY tool work on Mac? Should the configuration for RTTY be different than for WSJT-X?

K3SF

Hi rmanzer

yes XDAX and XCAT work with current ssdr and current macos

I use it with my flex 6600m on macbookair (m1) and on mac mini (m1) and mac mini (intel) all running macos 14.2

i use wsjtx fort FT8 and fldigi for rtty

all my logging is done with macloggerdx...

stillhave to select a DAX channlein macssdr so xdax know where to get dax data

also will need loopback to route audio to /from XDAX with wsjtx and fldigi

Paul K3SF

hope this provides some insight

Paul K3SF

K3SF

Here us my setup fro FLDIGI with my 6600M

here i have multi version of fldigi...i as i test news ones along the way eventually i remove old one

hope this gets you started using fldigi...

i have an apple script that log fldigi qsos from contesting into maclogger dx

but that will be another time

Paul K3SF

rmanzer

Following up, I kept wondering what the difference was between audio streaming to another app (WSJT-X) and a RTTY tool within SSDR. I eventually remembered having to configure CAT and DAX on my Windows VM for WSJT-X on my Mac. Once I enabled a second channel on the VM, and selected channel 2 on the slice back on the Mac, I started receiving text in the RTTY tool. Another question in the community suggested switching to channel 2, but I only selected an obviously not yet configured channel erlier. It looks like the RTTY tool is working now.

rmanzer

Correction for other frustrated Flex/Mac users trying to make RTTY work: While I am now able to decode using the RTTY tool in SmartSDR for Mac, I can only transmit once. I have to close and reopen the tool to transmit a second time. Additionally, people receiving my transmissions report that they are broken up. I have been looking at external software options, but none of the ones I found seem to be current and most discussions on the forums are out of date. I spent a day trying unsuccessfully to get FLDIGI to work with SmartSDR CAT and DAX. Some of the forum discussions talk about using a more flexible xDAX and xCAT, but the software doesn't seem to have been updated lately and I wonder if it is compatible with the more up to date SSDR, MacOS, and FlexRadio.

rmanzer

Thank you, Paul! I was about ready to give up and appreciate hearing about your experience with XCAT, XDAX, and RTTY. Knowing that I won't be putting something together that just won't work gives me confidence there's a path for me. I'll give XCAT and XDAX with FLDIGI a try, and report back.

Thanks again,

Rick

rmanzer

This looks like great stuff, Paul. I think I lucked out, and the right ham ran across my post. As soon as I get back home from my trip, I’ll start putting it all together.

Thanks,

Rick

rmanzer

Paul, thanks to your posts, I am now able to make FLDIGI work. Note I didn't say I could use it. I've got some work to do to keep from being just QRM on the bands. I am also still able to use WSJT-X.

I got kind of a slow start. Initially, I followed your configuration, except that in Loopback, I thought I could just add FLDIGI as a Source to the Tx and Rx Devices I had set up for WSJT-X. For some reason that didn't work, but once I created dedicated Devices and Sources, like you have, it worked great.

I've been playing around with CW and RTTY signals and can decode both. I believe I sent out a quick CQ on RTTY that looked like it worked. I wasn't confident enough to try to work the WRT yesterday - I still need to figure out how to use the macros.

I noticed the FLDIGI Configure menu has an item for MacloggerDX, but I'm not far enough along to have tried anything with that. And, you mentioned that you used an apple script for contest logging. I used to do some Unix shell and Perl scripting, so I may be able to muddle my way through that.

Anyway, thank you so much for responding to my post, Paul. You've given me a great start into FLDIGI and RTTY.

Thanks,

Rick, NM4J