In my honeymoon phase still in ham radio (licensed tech in Nov 2022 and general in Feb 2023) and just barely getting into digital modes. I have a tentec argosy and am borrowing a yaesu ft-100d from my local club to try and learn digital modes, specifically ft8 and js8call (and probably winlink at some point).
I got a digirig as the recommended hardware to get into digital as well as the ft-8xx cables from digirig. I assumed it was plug and play so I plugged it all in and turned it on. I was initially getting signal into the wsjtx software and the CAT seemed to be working but I couldn’t get out of the settings screen in wsjtx (getting a rig control error in wsjtx). I looked in device manager in my laptop and noticed the driver hadn’t been installed yet so I followed the digirig instruction to install the driver and get rid of the yellow triangle (which worked).
I followed the in depth audio control setup instructions from digirig but now my PC can’t hear anything from the radio and I still can’t get out of the settings screen because I get “rig failure” errors (see attached pic, IMG-6648). I did just read that middleware might be helpful, but I wanted to ask the question before I go too much further down a rabbit hole and decide to start over.
What do I need to do to get the PC (surface pro 2), digirig, ft-8xx cables, and ft-100d talking to each other?
Ps, I initially thought it might have been a cable issue because it WAS hearing before the driver install AND it looked like the CAT might have been working as I could see the frequency and was seeing messages in the band activity screen of wsjtx (IMG-6646…except the frequency part…but it WAS there because I remember turning the dial on the ft-100d to the frequency showing in the software thinking it might help…it was 14.074 and it didn’t help). Makes me think there is a setting or something on the ft-100d or in wsjtx. Any help is apprecaited… I would pull my hair out if I had any left…
Data In and Data Out are likely referring to the audio signal, not digital data for serial port.
I also found this document stating that the CAT functionality has to be enabled inside the radio.
Before you address the CAT related issues, I would suggest setting “rig” to “none” in WSJT-X so you are not bombarded by the errors and can confirm that everything else is working. PTT will have to be set to RTS as outlined in getting started guide.
Digirig Mobile with the Logic Levels Cat Config.
Yaesu FT-8xx Cables for Digirig Mobile (I bought the separated cables cause they were readily available).
In truth, the hardware was the easiest part of the whole thing. Settings in the radio and settings in WSJT-X were the long pole in the tent.
I know it’s an old post, but I am now facing problems with my FT-100 in WSJT-X. The strange thing is it worked wel for a while, and all of a sudden nothing is sent out in FT-8.
Decoding and CAT, PTT works fine in WSJT-X - just 0 power goes out. My radio is ok because I can work in CW and SSB without issues. I have checked my cables as well between the radio and Digirig - they are not broken and there is no short circuit in them.
Would you mind to share your settings in WSJT-X and in the radio, I just don’t see what am I overlooking here.
Janos,
You can confirm that the output audio is available on Digirig’s connector when you initiate the digital transmission by plugging regular headphones in the audio socket:
Today I have tested my Digirig - I get audio on the 3,5mm connector with a headphone when I press TUNE in WSJT-X. I have tested the jack-to-db8 cable for shorts/broken lines, it looks completely healthy.
The last suspect would be my transceiver. As I mentioned it works normally in SSB/CW, I just don’t get any power out in FT-8 in USB mode. In the menu, I have the following settings:
AFSK Mode → RTTY-U
AFSK Level → 9
I am not in split mode.
Please advise if you have more tips. I hope there is no hardware problem in my radio which would cause this issue.
The radio needs to know that the TX audio is coming from accessory port and not the mic. Sometimes it’s a setting sometimes it’s based on the fact that PTT is triggered through the accessory port. Do you have PTT set to RTS? This uses hardware PTT line in audio cable and works with or without CAT control.
In WSJT-X I have PTT set to CAT, the transmit audio source set to “rear/data”.
I have a special situation here: Rig is “Ham Radio Deluxe” in my case - so the connection is coming through HRD. I will try to connect to the COM port without HRD and PTT set to RTS - let’s see what happens!
As I recall I can do this also from within HRD, I just need to find where is that setting ;-),
Some progress here: I just discovered that all works fine when I use my old laptop!
So I need to find out where is the difference. The most remarkable difference in WSJT-X is that I have set Mode to data/pkt on my old laptop - it works fine. BUT I can not get decode working with the same settings on the new PC.
Edit: weird, when I initiate a CQ in data/pkt mode I get power output - but still not decoding incoming messages. Go figure…
If you can think of a hint please give me a reply.
Just to tell that the problem is solved. The reason of not decoding was that the upper frequency range of the waterfall in WSJT-X was too low. I forgot that it is not just a visual aid, it is actually a filter! Now I will never forget it again :-).
