I just received a digirig and have hooked up the audio cable to my FT-891 and I’m using a small usb-c patch cable.
The first issue I had was overdriven audio, which I resolved by breaking the ATTenuation pad. But I have issues when connected to a recent M1 MacBook Pro.
For a short period of time the audio is fine, but then I start hearing stuttering and clicks which reduce the effectiveness of the software audio interpretation greatly. I have tried plugging into other USB-C ports and have the same result. I also hear a small whine when my other USB cable for the Yeasu CAT control is pugged in.
When I use the same digirig on my PC laptop with Windows 11 (and the same cables), I experience none of these issue.
You’re welcome to share the recording, but I doubt I’ll recognize the sound because this is the first report of this type of issue. Maybe useful for future reference though.
Do you have the same experience on different bands? What about different digital modes software or with no software running at all?
Hi, it is not dependant on the band or the audio output from the radio. After a time a loud, rhythmic clicking sound starts occurring and disrupting the audio stream. If I unplug/plug the digirig from the Mac it resolves for a short period of time.
It’s also not dependant on the software. If I close the software I’m using to monitor (ie. something like fldigi, but. also happens wsjtx) and open up Audacity to record/monitor the stream directly I hear the corrupted audio stream.
It seems like the audio stream itself is corrupted by something happening on the driver/audio processing level between the digirig and the Mac laptop. If I unplug the radio from the digirig, the clicking noise is also overlayed on top of the "thunk’ you get when removing the plug if that makes any sense.
Extended sessions with the same cables and digirig device on my PC laptop don’t have the same issue and work fine.
We can take it a step further and try with no cables connected on the transceiver side.
Do you happen to have any other USB audio devices you can try with that Mac? Some sound card or headset?
Following the thread here. I’m testing a Yaesu FT-891, Digirig Mobile 1.9, MacBook Pro M1.
I’d like to occasionally do FT8 “mobile portable” with the same radio, but I’m having a heck of a time getting the RF/audio gain structure right. I did enable the attenuation by cutting between the pads. But I can’t quite get it right between RF gain, ALC, and the various places to tweak audio.
Not to revive a dead thread, but I was searching around for clues to solving an issue I’m hoping is very similar. I have no other peripherals connected to my MacBook Pro M1 Pro (and I tried with another MacBook Pro Intel i7), only the DigiRig which is connected with a short DigiRig USB C to USB C cable and connected to the DATA port on my Kenwood TM-V71A, listening to audio on the B channel. After almost exactly 4 minutes, I start hearing cracking and clicking and by about 10 minutes passed the audio is so unreadable that I have to unplug the DigiRig and plug it back in which appears to be the only way to solve the issue. I’ve also tried with another USB C to USB C cable of my own with several ferrite beads on it to no avail.
I can also confirm that every Windows machine I’ve tried a DigiRig on works flawlessly once configured as I’ve been running an iGate on Windows 10 for months with no issue. It seems to only affect macOS.
Edit: I managed to get a recording on macOS of APRS traffic heard by my radio which demonstrates the issue. There is a large silence between heard packets from 0:15 up to ~2:00, but after that there is a very clear packet signal heard at 2:24, 2:42-2:47 has some clicking following the packets, 3:23-3:27 has some crackling, 3:35-3:39 has some trailing crackling that you can hear is getting progressively worse. Almost every 0:30 there is a packet after 2:00 so play around with the file and see if there is any hints in there.
What’s strange is I have been using various other audio equipment with this M1 Pro MacBook for over a year and I’ve only had issues when trying to use my DigiRig with it. I think you may be onto something though with that bug report, I’ll take a look through that thread to see if anyone mentions a clue as to a bandaid fix.
I have exactly the same issue on my new M1 Air, Sonoma.
I noticed it when after couple of minutes the WSJT-X waterfall starts to be “blurry”, signal stations starts to be wider and wider. Decoding ratio drops. Audio recording gives similar effect like presented by VE7TZB.
In general, the audio works perfectly on my Mac, including Chinese usb audio card with Realtek chip (which I was forced to use instead of DigiRig). I also performed test with two USB hubs in between Mac and Chinese card, knowing there is a hub chip in the DigiRig. The DigiRig itself works good on Windows 10 on my old PC.
So in my opinion there is something wrong between Mac and DigiRig Mobile (in general or CM108 chip itself).
And I hope there is a solution better than stop using DigiRig.
