FT8 TX issue

[jazzboypro]

Hello all,

I have installed the latest version of wsjt-x on my laptop. I use it to control my 9700 connected to a GP-3 antenna. Reception is very good and i get lots of decodes in the band activity window. I have not been able to make a QSO so far. I know wsjt can put the radio in tx mode, FT8 (on 2 meter) is the selected mode. the radio is set to USB (also tried USB-D) I've check PSK Reporter web site and it looks like my signal has never been heard.

While transmitting i monitor with my 8600 connected to a discone antenna. The 8600 does pick something up when i transmit so i assume my signal is going out. I tried transmitting at different power levels but still no answers to my CQ's and still no signal on my part seen by PSK reporter web site.

Now, as a test, i am running a second instance of wjst to control the 8600. So now i have both instances decoding FT8 at 144.174. Both radios are decoding the same messages at the same time. I was kind of expecting to see ma decoded message on the 8600 while transmitting on the 9700 but it's not the case. The sending and receiving antennas are about 25 feet appart i don't understand how my own signal is not decoded. I tried a different power levers but to no avail.

I have read the wsft user manual and watched a few videos and to the best of my knowledge everything is configured correctly. There is even a YT video on setting UP the 9700 for use with wsjt. I followed the video exactly but again i kind of have a feeling that something is wrong.

Any suggestions ?

Many thanks
73
De VA2FCS

 

[AK9R]

I assume you have the radio and computer connected with a USB cable and that you've installed the Icom drivers in the computer.

There are two places you should look:

1. In WSJT-X, verify that transmitted audio is being sent to the USB sound card created when you plug in the USB cable from the radio. That sound card will appear in the sound device listing as "USB Audio Codec".

2. In the radio, go to Menu > Set > Connectors > DATA MOD (this is the modulation source when the radio is in Data mode, i.e. USB-D). It should be set to "USB" so that it looks for audio from the internal USB sound card. According to the manual, this setting defaults to "ACC" which means it's looking for audio from the ACC jack on the back of the radio.

 

[jwt873]

Use only USB-D mode for digital work. (WSJT should switch to that automatically when you fire it up and connect to the radio)..

To check your transmitted signal, Turn your monitor on (Function button then MONI icon). Have the meter display showing on your screen.

When you transmit, you should hear the FT8 signal on your speaker. The power meter bar graph should show some output. If you have your TX power set to 100W, then you should be getting near full scale on the meter.

In the WSJT Settings screen, choose the radio tab. Look at the 'Split operation' option on the right hand side. Make sure you've chosen Rig or Fake It. This will 'tweak' the transmit frequency when you send so your FT8 signal doesn't extend outside of your Transmit passband.

Also, make sure you aren't overdriving your radio. Watch the ALC meter. You shouldn't be going past the red line along the bottom. Best way to set things up is to set the power level to 100% on your radio, then adjust the power you want using the Pwr slider on the lower right hand side of the WSJT screen. If your ALC is past the red line, then back off the slider until it isn't. Below is how my screen looks when transmitting an FT8 signal @ 100W (Note the ALC level).

 

[tweiss3]

Also, in your sound properties, make sure you uncheck exclusive mode

 

[Hit_Factor]

Sound properties can be a bugger. That's probably where the solution lies. Windows switches to the last plugged in device for sound output, it's just trying to be helpful. But, this messes up Operators everyday.

I didn't see this mentioned as yet. Be sure to sync the computers clock to one of the time servers (NTP).

 

[n5ims]

And once you get it set and working correctly, don't forget what you did to fix the issue. At times (perhaps when they push out a new sound card driver) the OS will change your settings back to default, just to be nice, and you'll need to reset them back to where they belong. This can also happen when you simply unplug the USB cable for some reason like cleaning up the rats nest of cables or simply when the cat walks behind your computer and brushes against your connections.

 

[jazzboypro]

Thanks all for the suggestions and help. It started to work about an hour after my initial post. I was reading the FT8 Operation guide (very interesting) and i think the problem has to do with where to place the red marker on the waterfall for the transmit frequency. I have to do some more tests, but finally my 8600 was decoding my transmission and it was also seen on the PSK Reporter web site. I will try again tonight with USB-D and see what happens but USB-D is not an available mode on the 8600 so i don't know if i will see my own signal.

I will make a full document with screenshots of my configurations.

 

[popnokick]

You'll be fine. USB-D is not a "mode" per se but an ICOM convention to enable the data stream coming from the computer. For any receiver to demodulate digital modes (e.g. FT8) all that is needed is software and (possibly) a sound card modem (internal or external to the receiver). Something to watch out for: Ensure your receiver bandwidth is set to at least 3 kHz or WSJT-X will miss stations calling you that are higher / lower than your current pass band. WSJT can only "see" what the receiver sends it and if the receiver is set too narrow... you'll be missing calls. I've proven this to myself and others many times by calling very strong stations repeatedly in vain on a higher / lower "quiet" space on the spectrum, only to have no reply. Then I change my TX freq (using the red "slider" in the software) to be closer on the spectrum display to the station I'm calling and BINGO... contact. That tells me the station I was calling likely had a receiver set too narrow to hear my first calls.

 

[jazzboypro]

You'll be fine. USB-D is not a "mode" per se but an ICOM convention to enable the data stream coming from the computer. For any receiver to demodulate digital modes (e.g. FT8) all that is needed is software and (possibly) a sound card modem (internal or external to the receiver). Something to watch out for: Ensure your receiver bandwidth is set to at least 3 kHz or WSJT-X will miss stations calling you that are higher / lower than your current pass band. WSJT can only "see" what the receiver sends it and if the receiver is set too narrow... you'll be missing calls. I've proven this to myself and others many times by calling very strong stations repeatedly in vain on a higher / lower "quiet" space on the spectrum, only to have no reply. Then I change my TX freq (using the red "slider" in the software) to be closer on the spectrum display to the station I'm calling and BINGO... contact. That tells me the station I was calling likely had a receiver set too narrow to hear my first calls.

Thanks for the info. The wider a can get is with FIL1 set at 3.6 KHz.

 

[jazzboypro]

Still no luck at making contact so far. I suppose my antenna is not high enough or i don't have enough power. I don't even pickup my own signal all the time.


This is my own signal using 10W as seen by the WSJT waterfall connected to my 8600. I would say that it picks up the signal 1 time out of 3 or 4. I clearly see and hear the signal on the 8600 waterfall but it appears very faint to me on the WSJT waterfall as you can see on the picture. Using less or more power does not affect what i see on the WSJT waterfall


This is the signal from K2HA that i see on the WSJT waterfall connected to my 8600. I understand that he might be using a super antenna system and maybe several hundred watts of power but i was kind of expecting that my own signal would look a bit more like this one considering that the transmitting and receiving antennas are about 20 feet apart. Reception is excellent on both 8600 and 9700. Don't know if something is wrong or if i just don't have the proper equipment to make it happen

 

[tweiss3]

Check you are in USB-D, and turn on your monitor (function - monitor) and make sure the audio is going through the sound card, and not the speakers on your computer to the microphone on the radio.

 

[n5ims]

One other thing that will affect your ability to make contacts is your computer's clock. FT8 requires all clocks to be as close to the same time as possible for decoding to be done. The easiest way to check this is to check the "DT" column on the Band Activity part of the screen. This number should be as close to 0.0 as possible. Since this column indicates the received signal's time base compared to your computer's time base it's an easy way to see if your clock is off. If most of the other stations are showing you to be away from the 0.0 standard, it's most likely that your clock is the problem. If most are close, but one or two are away, it's probably their clock that's the issue. The WSJT-X documentation has information on this and how you can have your clock set more accurately than the typical OS will keep it.

 

[popnokick]

How are you checking your RF output power and SWR? Hopefully not using the radio but rather with an external SWR / power meter. What is it showing for RF out? Does it track with the change when you change the RF output of the radio? What SWR reading are you seeing?

 

[jazzboypro]

How are you checking your RF output power and SWR? Hopefully not using the radio but rather with an external SWR / power meter. What is it showing for RF out? Does it track with the change when you change the RF output of the radio? What SWR reading are you seeing?

Unfortunately, i don't have an external swr/power meter so i can't answer your questions

 

[jazzboypro]

One other thing that will affect your ability to make contacts is your computer's clock. FT8 requires all clocks to be as close to the same time as possible for decoding to be done. The easiest way to check this is to check the "DT" column on the Band Activity part of the screen. This number should be as close to 0.0 as possible. Since this column indicates the received signal's time base compared to your computer's time base it's an easy way to see if your clock is off. If most of the other stations are showing you to be away from the 0.0 standard, it's most likely that your clock is the problem. If most are close, but one or two are away, it's probably their clock that's the issue. The WSJT-X documentation has information on this and how you can have your clock set more accurately than the typical OS will keep it.

According to time.is my clock is exact. The laptop is configured to use an internet based time server (time.windows.com)

 

[jazzboypro]

Thing i getting worse...
I decided to uninstall every ham related softwares and drivers from my laptop and rebooted then i reinstalled Icom's USB driver. Before plugin the 9700 again i disabled every playback and recording devices related to the laptop.



After pluging the USB cable in the laptop the recording and playback devices appeared



This is the configuration of the recording device. I have played with different level values but i did not solve the problem.



I then started WSJT and FT8 mode is selected. The Test CAT and Test PPT are working. The input and ouput selected are the only one in the dropdown list



This is what i see in the WSJT spectrum/waterfall




No matter what i do i always see that. The signal fades and then there is a spike and then it looks again like the screenshot. it does that at a regular interval. The time is ok on the laptop according to time.is and the laptop in configured to use an external time server. Of course there is no decoding either.

I thought there was something wrong with the radio so i unplugged the 9700 and plugin the 8600 but it does the same thing as the 9700.

This should be simple with only one recording device and one playback device available.

Any ideas?

 

[AK9R]

I will restate what I said in post #2:

" 2. In the radio, go to Menu > Set > Connectors > DATA MOD (this is the modulation source when the radio is in Data mode, i.e. USB-D). It should be set to "USB" so that it looks for audio from the internal USB sound card. According to the manual, this setting defaults to "ACC" which means it's looking for audio from the ACC jack on the back of the radio."

In order for the radio to transmit the audio that is coming from a computer connected by a USB cable, you have to make sure that the radio is looking for audio from the USB cable.

 

[jazzboypro]

I will restate what I said in post #2:

" 2. In the radio, go to Menu > Set > Connectors > DATA MOD (this is the modulation source when the radio is in Data mode, i.e. USB-D). It should be set to "USB" so that it looks for audio from the internal USB sound card. According to the manual, this setting defaults to "ACC" which means it's looking for audio from the ACC jack on the back of the radio."

In order for the radio to transmit the audio that is coming from a computer connected by a USB cable, you have to make sure that the radio is looking for audio from the USB cable.

This as been done since yesterday.

 

[tweiss3]

Have you checked the monitor to verify WSJT-X is coming through the USB to the radio?

Its a long shot, but you might have a PA issue. Does the radio communicate with local repeaters ok?

 

[popnokick]

Reading back through the thread, I can't see that you've tried replacing the USB cable. Easy to do and wouldn't be the first time I've seen a bad USB cable. Try swapping the USB cable out with another.