fldigi setup question

fldigi setup question

[Haines Brown]

I'm a newbie with a very simple question, and so hope folks will be
tolerant.

I'm running an Elecraft K3 through a SignaLink USB to fldigi
interface, and aim to operate PSK31 on 20 meters.

My transmitter is tuned to 14.070.15. In fldigi, I selected Op-Mode
BPSK31. In band list I select 14070.000 USB BPSK-31. I set the Xcvr Freq
to 14070.150.

However, the waterfall ranges between about 14070.184 to 14073.014. This
is outside the PKS31 20 meter band. All I see is vertical lines
(carriers?) 100 Hz apart, but no signals. How do I move the waterfall to
the proper frequency range?

Haines Brown KB1GRM

Re: fldigi setup question

[Haines Brown]

There was no response to the question of my original post. I assume that
this was because it was too open ended. So I'll be more specific.

I'm running debian Wheezy with a SignaLink USB sound card and fldigi
software. The transmitter is a K3 tuned to 14.070, TX DATA mode USB. My
computer uses PulseAudio as default. Alsamixer also sees the presence of
SignaLink's USB Audio CODEC, which is un-muted and at 84%.

The SignaLink USB instructions tell me to make sure the software's
transmit and receive audio card is set to USB Audio CODEC. I go to
fldigi, Configure, Soundcard. Although PulseAudio is present on the
computer, not wishing to use PulseAudio for fldigi, I have selected
PortAudio. I assume I can do this. Am I wrong?

PortAudio does not offer an option to choose the Transmit and Receive
audio card, but instead the Capture and Playback card. I set PortAudio
Capture to the SignaLink's USB Audio CODEC card. But the fldigi
PortAudio Playback does have that option. Its options are Xonar DX (my
computer's sound card) HDA NNvidia (motherboard audio chip), iec958,
spdif (a cable?), pulse (PulseAudio?) and default (my computer's Xonar
sound card?). USB Audio CODEC is not a choice. Should it be? Should I
instead use iec958?

Pavucontrol sees "ALSA Plugin [fldigi]" for ALSA Capture under Recording
and sees PCM2904 Audio Codec Analog Stereo among Output
Devices. Question: shouldn't what pavucontol sees and the values it sets
be irrelevant?

And the fldigi waterfall is strange. Fldigi is set to PSK31 at
14070.000. The waterfall sees noise only in a band at its center
(14071.240 to 14071.716) and at its extreme left edge (14070.041). While
the middle region has nothing that looks like signals (unless it itself
is a broadband signal), the left edge looks as though it is close to the
IM distortion of a signal just out of range. Although the central region
has no visible PSK31 signals and I hear no PSK31 warble, it and the
extreme left produce garbage text ("e S tite ate oee o e too="), whether
I set the demodulation for frequency or phase shift. The only effect
changing the demodulation is that with RTTY, the garbage is upper case.

Please help.

Haines Brown KB1GRM

Re: fldigi setup question

[Apostolos Kefalas]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2822 bytes --]

On Τετ, 2016-06-22 at 21:15 -0400, Haines Brown wrote: 
> There was no response to the question of my original post. I assume that
> this was because it was too open ended. So I'll be more specific.
> 
> I'm running debian Wheezy with a SignaLink USB sound card and fldigi
> software. The transmitter is a K3 tuned to 14.070, TX DATA mode USB. My
> computer uses PulseAudio as default. Alsamixer also sees the presence of
> SignaLink's USB Audio CODEC, which is un-muted and at 84%.
> 
> The SignaLink USB instructions tell me to make sure the software's
> transmit and receive audio card is set to USB Audio CODEC. I go to
> fldigi, Configure, Soundcard. Although PulseAudio is present on the
> computer, not wishing to use PulseAudio for fldigi, I have selected
> PortAudio. I assume I can do this. Am I wrong?

No you are not wrong... though I can not understand why you want to do
that. Portaudio will use ALSA which will redirect you through
Pulseaudio!!!


> 
> PortAudio does not offer an option to choose the Transmit and Receive
> audio card, but instead the Capture and Playback card. I set PortAudio
> Capture to the SignaLink's USB Audio CODEC card. But the fldigi
> PortAudio Playback does have that option. Its options are Xonar DX (my
> computer's sound card) HDA NNvidia (motherboard audio chip), iec958,
> spdif (a cable?), pulse (PulseAudio?) and default (my computer's Xonar
> sound card?). USB Audio CODEC is not a choice. Should it be? Should I
> instead use iec958?

Make sure you have installed libportaudio packages.

> 
> Pavucontrol sees "ALSA Plugin [fldigi]" for ALSA Capture under Recording
> and sees PCM2904 Audio Codec Analog Stereo among Output
> Devices. Question: shouldn't what pavucontol sees and the values it sets
> be irrelevant?

See above!!!

> 
> And the fldigi waterfall is strange. Fldigi is set to PSK31 at
> 14070.000. The waterfall sees noise only in a band at its center
> (14071.240 to 14071.716) and at its extreme left edge (14070.041). While
> the middle region has nothing that looks like signals (unless it itself
> is a broadband signal), the left edge looks as though it is close to the
> IM distortion of a signal just out of range. Although the central region
> has no visible PSK31 signals and I hear no PSK31 warble, it and the
> extreme left produce garbage text ("e S tite ate oee o e too="), whether
> I set the demodulation for frequency or phase shift. The only effect
> changing the demodulation is that with RTTY, the garbage is upper case.
> 
> Please help.
> 
> Haines Brown KB1GRM
> 
> --
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-hams" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html


[-- Attachment #2: This is a digitally signed message part --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 819 bytes --]

Re: fldigi setup question

[Haines Brown]

On Thu, Jun 23, 2016 at 12:28:24PM +0300, Apostolos Kefalas wrote:
> On Τετ, 2016-06-22 at 21:15 -0400, Haines Brown wrote: 

> > The SignaLink USB instructions tell me to make sure the software's
> > transmit and receive audio card is set to USB Audio CODEC. I go to
> > fldigi, Configure, Soundcard. Although PulseAudio is present on the
> > computer, not wishing to use PulseAudio for fldigi, I have selected
> > PortAudio. I assume I can do this. Am I wrong?
> 
> No you are not wrong... though I can not understand why you want to do
> that. Portaudio will use ALSA which will redirect you through
> Pulseaudio!!!

I'm in process of transitioning from Wheezy to Jessie, from 32bit to
64bit, and part of that will be to replace Pulseaudio with apulse. 

> Make sure you have installed libportaudio packages.

I had  libportaudio2 installed.

Your point that with PulseAdio installed ALSA ends up using it convinced
me that it would be easier to use puseaudio for the time being. So I
told fldigi to use PulseAudio. But that leaves me with questions about
how to configure pulseaudio. Reading and online searching do not even
mention these things and apparently assumes the person knows that to do.

Pavucontrol shows I have three output devices: HDA NVidia Digital
Stereo, Xonar DX, and the SignaLink USB sound card identified as PCM2904
Audio Codec Analog Stereo. This apparently is the Burr-Brown Stereo USB
CODEC used by SignaLink. 

In pavucontrol Configuration tab. for PCM2904 Audio Codec there is a
menu of Analog profiles affecting whether mono, stereo, duplex, input,
output, etc. I've no idea at all which to choose. I find strong signals
with stereo + mono out or duplex, and so set it to duplex.

In pavucontrol input devices there is PCM2904 Audio Codec Analog Stereo,
which is set as fall back and channel is locked. This shows some
signal. An there is also the device Monitor PCM2904 Audio Codec Analog
Stereo. I've no idea what this is. This does not show a signal.

In pavucontrol output devices there is PCM2904 audio codec analog
stereo. It is not set to default, but its channel is locked with another
channel.

In pavucontrol, Recording, there are four instances of ALSA plug-in
[fldigi] which are locked, show a little signal and are set to capture
from PCM2904 Audio Codec rather than from Monitor of PCM904. Again, no
idea what "monitor" refers to. Then there is also a Fldigi capture
from. I set this also to PCM12904 rater than monitor. It also has
a little signal. 

I've been assuming that Playback tab in pavucontrol refers to
transmission and Recording refers to reception. Is this so?

My waterfall is still like before. It is black except for a 353 Hz-wide
band of noise at 14.071.503. What looks more like a signal at the very
left edge of the waterfall (14.070.016) produces garbage output.

Haines Brown KB1GRM

--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-hams" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html