Audio and Keyers

Audio and Keyers

CW keyer

A CW keyer with macros on F-keys (F1–F9; empty slots are hidden). The keyer engine is selectable (Settings → CW Keyer):

• WinKeyer — K1EL WK1/2/3 over a COM port. The log names the generation detected, and a byte-level trace can be enabled for bug reports.
• Serial port (DTR=CW / RTS=PTT) — OpsLog keys CW by toggling a serial control line itself, the hardware method N1MM/WSJT-X use with a Yaesu SCU-17 or a generic keying interface. No WinKeyer needed. Choose the COM port, which line carries CW, and Invert keying for interfaces that key backwards. This is also the engine for an FTDX10 (whose CAT refuses KY), on the rig's second COM port.
• Icom — the radio's own keyer over CI-V (command 0x17), no extra hardware, on the CAT port already set in Settings → CAT. Works over the remote link too. (Set break-in to SEMI/FULL or the rig keys the sidetone but stays in RX.)
• FlexRadio (CWX) — keys CW straight over the SmartSDR connection, with type-ahead and mid-send backspace. Put a slice in CW, and break-in must be on or nothing is transmitted.
• Yaesu (rig keyer) — the radio's internal keyer over CAT (KY), for the FTDX101 / FT-991A / FT-710 family. See Yaesu.
• Kenwood / Elecraft — the KY command over the CAT link. This is the one for a K3/K4, whose single USB port is the CAT port.
• TCI — the radio's own macro keyer over the link already open. The radio can stop a message but cannot un-type one, so there is no type-ahead correction on this engine.

Every rig-keyer engine reuses the CAT connection, so there is nothing else to wire up — but the CAT backend has to match: Icom CW needs the Icom backend, CWX needs FlexRadio, and so on. OpsLog says so if they disagree.

On the rig keyers, only the speed is set from OpsLog (the radio's own KEY SPEED). Weight, ratio, sidetone and paddle mode are the radio's settings.

Keyer trace writes every byte exchanged with a WinKeyer to the diagnostic log. The WK1 / WK2 / WK3 command sets differ, and the trace is what shows which command your firmware read differently. Turn it on, reproduce the problem, send the log — it switches itself off at the next start.

ESC stops CW on whichever engine is active; typing a callsign aborts a running macro. <LOGQSO> inside a macro logs the contact at that exact point. Auto-call repeats a CQ with the gap you set measured after the message.

ESM — Enter Sends Message

N1MM-style, for CW (Settings → CW Keyer). With the keyer on, Enter fires a macro by QSO stage instead of logging: empty callsign → F1 (CQ); callsign entered → F2 (report), focus jumps to RST; Enter in RST → F3 (TU), which logs if the macro contains <LOGQSO>.

Digital Voice Keyer (DVK)

Record F1–F6 voice messages and transmit them. Set the audio devices, PTT method and gains in Settings → Audio.

• PTT method: CAT (whichever backend is active — every one supports PTT), RTS, DTR, or none (VOX).
• PTT for data (Kenwood only) sends TX1 (ACC2/USB) instead of TX (the front microphone) — the TS-590 family's second transmit command. Without it the radio transmits while listening to a microphone nobody is speaking into. No other backend makes the distinction.
• Auto CQ repeats a CQ-labelled message on a timer until you stop it.
• The DVK refuses to transmit on non-phone modes — no speech on FT8.
• A message level control (Settings → Audio) drives the rig at the right level even from a quietly recorded microphone. If the rig transmits almost nothing, check its rear-input setting (on an FTDX10: SSB MOD SOURCE = REAR).

QSO audio recording

Continuous rolling capture. On Log QSO the contact is saved to a per-QSO WAV/MP3 (CALL_YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS), with pre-roll. With automatic recording off, a red dot beside the callsign records the contact by hand.

A recording can be replayed on the air to the station being worked, like a voice-keyer message — with its own level, separate from the voice keyer (a receiver line-out needs far less gain than a microphone). The play button becomes a stop button while it transmits. Hidden on CW.

CW decoder (RX audio → text)

Tools → CW decoder (or the ear button) decodes received CW while the mode is CW: adaptive envelope with noise squelch, per-character dit/dah classification, follows 12–40 WPM and sloppy fists, rides QSB. Shows WPM / pitch / level, locks onto the FlexRadio CW pitch automatically, and clicking a decoded word fills the callsign. Clean-to-moderate signals decode solidly; weak-signal pileups remain CW Skimmer territory.

RX audio monitor

Settings → Audio → Listen to radio pipes the rig's received audio through your speakers — the level applies live as you drag it. Talk to radio keys PTT and pipes your mic to the rig's audio input.

Which device to name depends on how the radio is connected:

• USB rig — its "USB Audio CODEC" input and output.
• Icom over Ethernet, or a SunSDR over TCI — choose Radio (network audio). There is no sound card in the path at all: the audio travels on the radio's own link, in both directions, and the same two buttons drive it. See Remote Icom over the Internet for the full setup, including what WSJT-X needs.

Listen and Talk are both about this PC: "From radio" → "Listening" so you hear the rig through this computer, and your own microphone → "To radio". Nothing is transmitted by the first, and neither one involves a remote link. Talk is also the way to test the sound card on its own: if the rig shows ALC and power while you talk, the codec and the rig's menus are fine.

With a TCI radio, listening here is not available: the TCI stream feeds the QSO recorder, not the monitor. Listen on the radio itself.

On a remote link the same two device pairs mean different things at the two ends — on the PC that holds the radio the link uses From radio / To radio, the rig's own sound card; at the operating position, which has no radio, it uses Listening and Recording mic like any other program there. See Remote Station.

Digital modes when the radio has no sound card here

If the radio is reached over the network — an Icom over Ethernet, a SunSDR over TCI, or a remote station — there is no Windows sound device for a digital program to write to. WSJT-X and its relatives need one, so a virtual audio cable goes in between:

1. Install a virtual audio cable.
2. Set WSJT-X's output to that cable.
3. In Settings → Audio, choose the same cable's recording side as the digital input. OpsLog streams it to the radio while WSJT-X holds PTT through the shared CAT link (CAT Control).
4. For receive, point WSJT-X's input at a second cable and set Listening to it.

Rotor presets and the compact widget

Not audio, but it lives beside the keyers on screen: the rotor widget's presets are shown next to the dial. Their azimuths start out computed from your own square, so they point at those regions from here — change either field, or clear a name to drop the button.

Compact shows only the dial and the short/long-path azimuths; the quick-turn buttons, the azimuth box and Stop are hidden, and you turn the antenna from the bearing pill in the entry strip instead.

Two independent rotors of any type can be configured — an ARCO and a Rotator Genius side by side, say. A Rotor 1/2 toggle on the compass picks which one OpsLog turns and shows. Set each to Motorized only if it carries the Ultrabeam/SteppIR, so the boom and pattern paths appear for that one alone. See Maps and Antennas.