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very poor decoding of wsjt-x from my remote PC and radio

I have been running a remote 6400 for the past 6 years with great results. I usualy use a maestro or Mac/PC to access my remote station. For the WSJT modes I like the smart SDR for MAC OS which is very limited but works very well. there is no contest or F/H modes available. For this type of use, I run WSJT, slice master, and smart SDR for windows at the remote PC at my remote station 150 mi away from home QTH. for the past 10 months the decoding of FT8, FT4 signals has become very poor with decodes maybe every 15-20 receive cycles. The Tx appears to work fine. For the MS modes, the decodes have become NONE. My internet service is 120 down, 42 up, at my remote site it is 84 down, 8 up with 14ms latency. With wsjt running at the remote PC, when I fro example push the tune button, it takes between 4-7 seconds befor I see any RF our of the Tx. This delay has to be my problem. With only smart SDR running at the remote PC, if I hit the tune button, I will see RF output in a fraction of a second. I have tried to configure a version of WSJT-x without using slice master, and the results are identical. The same is also true for JTDX.

Any idea of what my problem may be, it has only recently started. I have no control of the internet service at my remote site, but everything else works perfect. I am primarily a CW operator, and either the Maestro or my Winkeyer interface to smart SDR works fine.

Howard AE3T

Comments

  • David Decoons, wo2x
    David Decoons, wo2x Member, Super Elmer Moderator

    what are the PC specs at the remote site?

    Dave wo2x

  • howardsh3t
    howardsh3t Member ✭✭

    Dave,

    A Dell 1.1G Celeron, 4G ram, 512M graphics, 119G SSD

  • David Decoons, wo2x
    David Decoons, wo2x Member, Super Elmer Moderator

    that is the problem. WSJT-X requires the CPU to have more threads available to do the decoding. Also with 4 GB RAM, it is using the hard drive swap file to move data out of memory back and forth. The PC is not good enough for FT8. check task manager when running FT8 and you will see 100% CPU usage when WSJT-X is trying to decode.

    Time for an upgrade, or if you have a better PC at your operating location, just run SmartLink on CAT and DAX and run WSJT-X on vour PC at operating location. I do it with my Hawaii remote.

    I’d recommend a PC with at least 10th gen i5 Intel CPU, 16 GB RAM and sold state drive at minimum.

    I just built a new PC with a CPU with 32 threads, 32 GB DDR5 RAM, and Samsung 9100 gen 5 nVME drive. I was deciding up to 56 stations in a single 15 second cycle.

  • David Decoons, wo2x
    David Decoons, wo2x Member, Super Elmer Moderator

    And you have to factor in you are also VPN into that PC running the Celeron and 4 GB RAM, you will want 32 GB RAM instead of 16 on newer PC if you plan to VPN in.

  • howardsh3t
    howardsh3t Member ✭✭

    Dave,

    Thanks for your review, this is what I thought was my problem. I will now look into a new PC for the remote site.

  • David Decoons, wo2x
    David Decoons, wo2x Member, Super Elmer Moderator

    I would just use a good PC at the operating site so you have WSJT-X and logging all in one. DAX and CAT work through both SmartLink and VPN.

    Caution though - When on the LAN or via VPN, DAX and CAT are not compressing the data and will use a lot of bandwidth compared to SmartLink. If you have slow upload speed (Cellular Internet) or a limited amount of data per month, then you should definitely use SmartLink.

    Keep a PC at radio site to be able to do software upgrades remotely and for diagnostics.

    73 Dave wo2x

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