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Section 3 1 general considerations
On 11 m, where the family is worked on the citizens' band rather than an amateur allocation, the FT8/FT4/FT2 (and JS8) exchange follows WSJT-CB's conventions instead — grid-less, one call at a time, its own hashed pairs and free-text reports — see 3.2.8.
Every digital mode is entered the same way: open the Band/Mode popup and choose the mode from the DIGITAL row. The panadapter locks to the digital sub-band (the audio range just above the dial), and the mode's operating panel appears in the lower part of the window; a draggable divider sets how much height the panel gets.
While in a digital mode the BAND row of the Band/Mode popup doubles as a frequency picker. Bands where the mode has a standard calling frequency carry a cyan underline: clicking one jumps the dial straight to that frequency, staying in the mode, and the button highlights when the dial is already on it. Every band is available in every mode — clicking a band without an underline jumps to that band's default frequency, also staying in the mode, and you tune from there. Where a mode's convention differs by region — PSK31 and RTTY on 40 m, SSTV on 80 m and 40 m — the button uses the one for the IARU region set on the General tab (6.1).
Two more things hold across the modes. Your callsign and grid are one identity for the whole program: the General settings tab and the FT8/FT4/FT2 setup window (3.2.1) edit the same values, and they fill the keyboard modes' CQ macros, the FT8/FT4/FT2 exchange, and everything the station reports or uploads. And every digital transmission goes through the normal transmit path, so the ham-band lockout and the usual transmit safety apply in every mode.
On a radio that modulates the audio you hand it — a CAT rig on its sound card, a FLEX, an Icom on its network port — Drive is not the audio control. It reaches the radio's power register, and a data signal that is overdriving the transmitter will go on overdriving it wherever Drive sits. The control you want is TX audio, in the transmit module in place of the Mic rail (2.10), and the adjustment is: bring it down until the rig's ALC is barely moving, then set the power at the radio.
Each mode remembers its own level, saved as you set it, because FT8, RTTY,
PSK and MCW do not load a transmitter the same way. A mode you have never set
starts from the level for the carrier it goes out on — sideband for most modes,
FM for VHF packet, APRS and RIFP, where the same control is the deviation
instead. All of it lives in digi.json
(13).
FT8, FT4, FT2, JS8 and WSPR are worked on one dial frequency per band, in lockstep with everyone else on it — a receiver a few kilohertz off is not off-centre, it is deaf — and each of them keeps its own. On 20 m that is 14.074, 14.080, 14.084, 14.078 and 14.095600 respectively, so even arriving from the mode next door is a move. Picking one of them from the DIGITAL row therefore tunes the dial to that band's agreed frequency, the same way APRS, ADS-B, VDL2 and AIS already do (3.12, 3.13, 3.15, 3.16).
It moves the dial only when it has to, and only inside the band you are already on:
- already on one of that mode's own frequencies? Left alone. The DXpedition (Fox/Hound) window you deliberately tuned survives the mode change, and so does any move you make once you are in the mode.
- the band has no convention for the mode? Left alone — 60 m for FT8, or anywhere off the amateur bands. The rule puts you on the right spot in the band you are on; it does not decide which band you wanted. Press a band button first.
- recalling a memory or a band-stack entry? Left alone. Those carry a frequency of their own and it wins, so a memory stored on an off-plan FT8 net comes back on the frequency you stored it with.
Every other mode leaves the dial exactly where you put it. PSK31, RTTY, Olivia, THOR, SSTV and the rest are worked across a sub-band rather than on one spot, so a frequency you chose inside it is a frequency you meant. The button below is how those reach a convention — by asking.
Every digital mode carries a ⇵ button in its operating panel. It lists every band's agreed frequency for that mode — FT8, FT4, FT2, JS8, WSPR, PSK, RTTY, FSQ, SSTV (analog and FM), RIFP and APRS all have one — grouped by band with the band you are already in at the top, so changing band is one click rather than a band button and then a number you had to remember.
Several bands have more than one entry, and that is where the list earns its place twice over:
| Mode | Where it happens |
|---|---|
| FT8 | The DXpedition (Fox/Hound) window on every HF band, 6 m's second frequency at 50.323, 23 cm's 1296.500 for where 1296.174 is unusable, and 13 cm's two narrow-band segments (2320.174 and 2304.174) |
| RTTY | The DX calling spots (3.590, 14.083) |
| SSTV | The move-up-when-busy secondaries — a picture takes two minutes, so one frequency per band is occupied most of the time |
The button's face is the frequency you are on when the dial is already sitting on one of them, and reads ⇵ FREQ when it is not. Clicking a frequency moves the dial; where you sit inside the audio passband is a separate control and is left alone.
WEFAX has its own STATIONS button instead (3.8): its transmitters are not on any band plan, so they are listed by station rather than by band.
Saving your own. The bottom of the list has ＋ Save this MHz, which remembers the dial you are on under the mode you are in. The club net that meets on 3.585 every Tuesday is not in anybody's global table and never will be, so having found it once you should not have to find it again. Saved entries appear in the same list marked with a ★, in every band group like any other, and carry an ✕ to forget them — published conventions do not, because 14.074 is not this station's to delete.
A mode the tables have nothing at all for — Olivia, THOR, Contestia, Hellschreiber — still has the button, with nothing in it but the save row. That is the only way the first entry for such a mode could ever be made.
Your saved frequencies belong to the station, not to the screen: they live in
digi_presets.json beside the band plan (13), every
radio at the station offers the same ones, and a remote client draws the same
list the console does. They are also deliberately passive — the band buttons
and the "choosing a slotted mode tunes the radio" rule above both stay on the
published calling frequency, because those move the dial without being asked and
one station's own note is not where the band is worked. Being on a saved
frequency is enough to stop the mode rule moving you off it.
The frequencies that differ by region — PSK31 and RTTY on 40 m, SSTV on 80 m and 40 m — are not offered as a choice, because the IARU region setting (6.1) already says which one applies to you. Set that and the list is your region's.
An entry shown in amber is one your region's band plan does not put narrow data on. That is not a mistake in the list: the WSJT-X DXpedition frequencies and the FSQCall set are global conventions built around the Region 2 band plan, and a few of them land in Region 1's CW or phone segments (1.845, 3.567 and 24.911 for FT8 — of which only 3.567 and 24.911 are still amber in Region 2, where the top of each band is an all-modes segment). The DX will be there and so will everyone chasing it — but check your own band plan before you key, because sdroxide will not stop you.
The text and message panels carry a SAVE chip, next to CLEAR RX where the panel has one. It writes what the panel holds to a file, through the same save dialog the logbook and the ADIF export use, and the suggested file name carries the mode. With nothing decoded yet the chip is greyed out rather than saving an empty file. What goes in the file depends on the mode:
| Panel | What is saved |
|---|---|
| CW and the keyboard modes (RTTY, PSK, Olivia, THOR, …) | The receive text as it stands, as a .txt file |
| FSQ | One line per message: whether it was for you, sender, addressee and text. FSQ messages carry no time, so there is no time column |
| ACARS, packet, JS8 and APRS | A .csv file, one row per message or frame, with its UTC time |
| NAVTEX, VDL2 and HFDL | A tab-separated .txt file, one line per message, with its UTC time |
| WSPR and PI4 | The reception list as a .csv file, in the RECEPTIONS header |
| The CW/RTTY skimmer | Its spot list, from the Spots row of the skimmer's settings |
The FT8/FT4/FT2 decode list has its own CSV and ADIF buttons instead (3.2.2).
From the User Manual. Home.