Wsjtx

My Week in Radio

Contesting

I finished the FT Challenge. There was no special exchange this year. We could use other defined subbands in addition to the regular frequencies to alleviate crowding. We could work anyone, even if they’re not participating explicitly.

I operated QRP, so it was nice to find the quieter subbands and more FT4 activity. You earned multipliers for each 3000km, so I don’t really know on my score yet.

I found wsjtx-improved on the Debian Linux repository, so used that. I saw the color improvements, the better location labels with states, and it had filters.

AllStar

I learning some obvious things about AllStar: it can’t hear my DTMF if it’s currently transmitting, since it’s simplex, so it’s hard to control on a busy net.

Yagi in the Wind

Finally, I watched my home-built yagi flapping around on that windy day. I guess I can stop worrying about it, since it held up fine.

I found the brand new wsjtx-improved available on my Debian unstable system. It’s the next beta plus some UI enhancements including filters, color, etc, better location labels.

CY9C St Paul Island Expedition

Someone spotted CY9C’s Saint Paul Island Expedition on the 21 mailinglist: 18095kHz, SuperFox FT8 mode. I tuned my WSJTX to the frequency, enabled SuperHound, and it crashed upon trying to decode.

  Running: /usr/bin/jt9 -s WSJT-X -w 1 -m 3 -e /usr/bin -a /home/john/.local/share/WSJT-X -t /tmp/WSJT-X
  sh: 1: /usr/bin/sfrx: not found
  Fortran runtime error: EXECUTE_COMMAND_LINE: Invalid command line

  Error termination. Backtrace:
  #0  0x7f02d8e21b9a in ???
  #1  0x7f02d8e22699 in ???
  #2  0x7f02d8e22afc in ???
  #3  0x7f02d90b8eeb in ???
  #4  0x7f02d90b9099 in ???
  #5  0x559f9788ca06 in ???
  #6  0x559f97885f15 in ???
  #7  0x559f97885467 in ???
  #8  0x559f978838a2 in ???
  #9  0x7f02d883edb9 in __libc_start_call_main
    at ../sysdeps/nptl/libc_start_call_main.h:58
  #10  0x7f02d883ee74 in __libc_start_main_impl
    at ../csu/libc-start.c:360
  #11  0x559f97883900 in ???
  #12  0xffffffffffffffff in ???

I filed a bug for the missing binary. In the meantime, I downloaded and installed the wsjtx deb file from sourceforge to make the DX QSO. I saw them again on 14.094MHz, but they don’t hear me.

I checked in on the bug, and the maintainer explained that those binaries are not open source, so not included with the Debian package. To fix it longer-term, I kept the new binaries, and went back to the package that Debian provided.

I originally had wsjt-x and js8call talking directly to X6100 to do CAT, but fldigi wants flrig, so I set it up. Now i have flrig running all the time, and have wsjt-x talk to that. Maybe it’ll be more reliable with fewer hiccups and disconnects.