The JTCAT popout's control bar has been reorganized so every button says what it does — automatic operation is now Hunt and Run, and the pile of cryptic toggles moved into a labeled ⚙ Options menu. Plus real CW paddle keying from ECHOCAT now works on the IC-7300 (including on Linux) and the FTDX10.
🧹 JTCAT menu cleanup — Hunt, Run, and a proper Options menu
The FT8 popout's bottom bar grew one button at a time until it was a wall of two-word toggles you had to hover to understand. It's been rebuilt around how you actually operate:
- "Auto" is now Hunt. The auto-answer select reads Hunt: Off / POTA / SOTA / All CQs — hunt mode answers other stations' CQs and works them. Same behavior, clearer name.
- "Auto CQ" is now Run (ULTRACAT). Run mode calls CQ itself and works each answerer. Hunt and Run sit together in a marked AUTO group, and they stay mutually exclusive — starting Run turns Hunt off.
- A ⚙ Options menu replaces the toggle pile. Answer Callers, Skip Grid, Hold TX Frequency, the give-up retry limit, Field Day, and Hound now live in a popover as full-sentence options with helper text explaining what each one does — no more tooltip hunting. Your saved settings carry over unchanged.
- Active modes show as chips. Field Day and Hound light up as small chips in the bar only while they're on — click the chip to turn the mode off. No permanent buttons eating bar space for modes you use twice a year.
- TX button shows its state. The old "Enable TX" button is now TX On (green) / TX Off — the label and color always agree with what the radio will do.
- Hunt: Field Day appears in season. During ARRL Field Day week (and the 7 days before it), the Hunt menu grows a Field Day option that answers CQ FD callers with your class + section exchange.
- Fix: hunting during Field Day now runs the FD exchange correctly. Auto-answered FD QSOs used to open with your grid and run the standard sequence; they now send class + section and follow the Field Day ladder, matching the double-click answer path.
📻 Remote CW keying — IC-7300 fixed (especially on Linux), FTDX10 supported
Keying CW from the ECHOCAT phone paddle got a real overhaul for serial rigs:
- IC-7300 / IC-7300 MK II paddle keying works with the radio's standard config. POTACAT now keys RTS by default — matching the documented USB Keying (CW) = RTS setup used by fldigi, HRD, and N1MM — instead of pulsing DTR at a radio that wasn't listening to it.
- No more stuck transmitter on Linux. A serial-library quirk left whichever control line POTACAT didn't name latched high — on an RTS-keyed radio that meant a continuous key-down the moment you touched the paddle. Both lines are now driven explicitly on every element: the keying line follows your paddle, the other is forced low. This fix applies on every OS.
- New per-rig "CW keying line" setting (Settings → Rig): Auto / DTR / RTS. Set it to match your radio's USB Keying (CW) menu instead of reconfiguring the radio to match POTACAT.
- FTDX10 (and FT-710/FT-991) fist keying via the rig's second COM port. Yaesu CAT can't key CW per-element, but these rigs expose a second USB COM port with a real keying line. Set the radio's PC KEYING = DTR or RTS, point Settings → Rig → CW Key Port at the second (Standard) COM port, match the CW keying line setting, and the ECHOCAT paddle keys real CW with rig sidetone. POTACAT also no longer dead-keys PTT on the CAT port on top of the key port's keying, which used to hold the rig in SEND.
- New Linux setup guide —
docs/linux-cw-keying.mdcovers the radio menus, the new setting, serial-port permissions, and the udev/ModemManager rules that stop Linux from grabbing (or keying!) your radio's USB port at boot.
CW text and macros were never affected — they go through the rig's internal keyer and keep working as before.