WSJT-X

[VK5PJ]

Hello,
the features list of WSJT-X seems to be moving fast. I noticed that back in June Joe (K1JT) announced he had added WSPR mode to WSJT-X and band hopping (the band hopping was the clincher for me) so it seemed like a good time to get my feet wet with the new WSJT-X stream.

It seems to be a very mature stream considering its a beta and under development, my compliments to the team debugging the code.

Now this initial WSJT-X 1.6 version had its band hopping limited to HF bands only (grumble grumble) BUT a newer version (still very much beta status) has full HF and VHF frequency hopping enabled, I am in love with this version

As I have no compilers at home to put all the raw code together, I rely on others with that skill and recently ran across a web site that has a ZIP file of all the latest compiles in one bundle. It is called the WSJT Suite and you can find it at this URL

http://jt65-dx.com/download/wsjt-x.html

If you feel the need to be at the front edge of the beast called WSJT then this is probably as close as one would want to get, the web site has a wonderful list of various releases of all thing from K1JT and the team of developers and testers.

I elected to download the "WSJT Suite" (bottom 3rd of the list) as I was after an update to the classic WSJT package for use on Meteor scatter and did not realise it included ALL of the packages. It installs up to date copies of all the packages: WSJT, WSPR, MAP65 & WSJT-X. The new WSJT-X also has the normal JT65 modes but does add ECHO & JT4

if you just want WSJT-X then select from the top section of the listing.

Part 2:

A side affect of the new version of the WSJT-X compared to the old stand alone WSPR program is that it is now harder to have separated and customised version on your hard disk as they all save their settings into your user profile directory.

K1JT and the team have thought of this it would seem as you can start the program with an extra command line parameter to have it store a completely separate profile. In my case I have two copies, one for the HF rig and one setup for my IC910 and they both are individually customised with COM ports for PTT and CAT control

To start a second copy of WSJT-X with an independent setup, add the "-r NAME" to the end of the program section of the copied shortcut.

in my case my shortcut looks like this:

Code: Select all

C:\WSJT-Suite\WSJTX-1.6.0\bin\wsjtx.exe -r 910

for the HF rig it is like this:

Code: Select all

C:\WSJT-Suite\WSJTX-1.6.0\bin\wsjtx.exe

Have fun and as I find more I will update / clarify this post.
Regards,

[VK2ZIW]

I'm still using WSJT 10.0 r5639 , 24x7 on my low power Linux box, an AMD ASRock QC5000-ITX
running at about 20W, saving me $200 per year in electricity.
Need FSK441 for 6m skeds, so WSJT-X is a no-go.
My IC-910H has all three bands, 2m, 70cm and 23cm, Hamlib got very confused, so I go DTR for PTT.
Now we have sorted the PIL library problems and the memory leaks, all is good.

80 (more anodes than a 73)

Name me a common radio valve with three anodes.

Alan VK2ZIW

[VK3ZTE]

As I recall, the 1D8 comprises a diode, a triode and a pentode (or maybe for this last one, a tetrode?). That sounds like 3 anodes?

[VK2ZIW]

WSJT-X Experimental now has new modes.

Install on Linux:
Get package "subversion" and Qt5 dev system etc..
prompt$ svn co svn://svn.code.sf.net/p/wsjt/wsjt/branches/wsjtx_exp
prompt$ cd wsjtx_exp ; mkdir build; cd build; cmake ../
edit CMakeCache.txt change INSTALL ; make install

Do we have testers? I'm often on, in the morning MS sessions, 7AM to 9AM.

Alan VK2ZIW

[VK4MIL]

Hello,
the features list of WSJT-X seems to be moving fast. I noticed that back in June Joe (K1JT) announced he had added WSPR mode to WSJT-X and band hopping (the band hopping was the clincher for me) so it seemed like a good time to get my feet wet with the new WSJT-X stream.

It seems to be a very mature stream considering its a beta and under development, my compliments to the team debugging the code.

Now this initial WSJT-X 1.6 version had its band hopping limited to HF bands only (grumble grumble) BUT a newer version (still very much beta status) has full HF and VHF frequency hopping enabled, I am in love with this version

As I have no compilers at home to put all the raw code together, I rely on others with that skill and recently ran across a web site that has a ZIP file of all the latest compiles in one bundle. It is called the WSJT Suite and you can find it at this URL

http://jt65-dx.com/download/wsjt-x.html

If you feel the need to be at the front edge of the beast called WSJT then this is probably as close as one would want to get, the web site has a wonderful list of various releases of all thing from K1JT and the team of developers and testers.

I elected to download the "WSJT Suite" (bottom 3rd of the list) as I was after an update to the classic WSJT package for use on Meteor scatter and did not realise it included ALL of the packages. It installs up to date copies of all the packages: WSJT, WSPR, MAP65 & WSJT-X. The new WSJT-X also has the normal JT65 modes but does add ECHO & JT4

if you just want WSJT-X then select from the top section of the listing.

Part 2:

A side affect of the new version of the WSJT-X compared to the old stand alone WSPR program is that it is now harder to have separated and customised version on your hard disk as they all save their settings into your user profile directory.

K1JT and the team have thought of this it would seem as you can start the program with an extra command line parameter to have it store a completely separate profile. In my case I have two copies, one for the HF rig and one setup for my IC910 and they both are individually customised with COM ports for PTT and CAT control

To start a second copy of WSJT-X with an independent setup, add the "-r NAME" to the end of the program section of the copied shortcut.

in my case my shortcut looks like this:

Code: Select all

C:\WSJT-Suite\WSJTX-1.6.0\bin\wsjtx.exe -r 910

for the HF rig it is like this:

Code: Select all

C:\WSJT-Suite\WSJTX-1.6.0\bin\wsjtx.exe

Have fun and as I find more I will update / clarify this post.
Regards,

Many thanks PJ for sharing this

[VK5PJ]

Hello Alan,

WSJT-X Experimental now has new modes.

Install on Linux:
Get package "subversion" and Qt5 dev system etc..
prompt$ svn co svn://svn.code.sf.net/p/wsjt/wsjt/branches/wsjtx_exp
prompt$ cd wsjtx_exp ; mkdir build; cd build; cmake ../
edit CMakeCache.txt change INSTALL ; make install

Do we have testers? I'm often on, in the morning MS sessions, 7AM to 9AM.

Alan VK2ZIW

Fresh copy of the windows version installed, ready to go.
Peter, vk5pj

[VK4UH]

Im ready to go with the new modes too
Kevin VK4UH

[VK5PJ]

For those of you who were chasing development releases, they seem to have disappeared from the link I published earlier in this thread, instead now we have RC version (Release Candidate) packages.

WSJT-X 1.60-Rc1 seems to be a good option for those chasing a usable WSJT-X All the expected features seem to be in there and work well.

One trick I missed was the setting of the Blue divider between JT65 and JT9 and wondering why I could not decode them both at once (it is in the waterfall display called "JT65 xxxx JT9" where xxxx is a base band frequency) so do not get caught by this trick as on VHF many people do not stick by the established rules.

Regards,

[VK5PJ]

It xmas 2015 and have a bit of spare time, thought I would update my install of WSJT-X but all the sites I have used previously have pulled all but the official releases of any WSJT variant.
Tripped over a news release about it, K1JT and the dev team have asked that people not distribute dev builds.

Nobel Laureate Joe Taylor, K1JT, the developer of the popular WSJT “weak-signal communication” software suite is advising users to avoid what he called “unauthorized” versions of his software. He said problems could result by using these builds on the air, and any results that might be shared with the broader user community would be unhelpful.

“Third-party individuals — ie, others not part of the WSJT development team — have been compiling WSJT-X from the open-source code and making unauthorized ‘releases’ of their builds,” Taylor said September 8 in a discussion of WSJT-X “fast modes” on his website. “I do not recommend use of these builds on the air. If you operate with one of these unauthorized ‘rXXXX’ code revisions in our experimental code branch, you have no idea what you've got.”

Taylor said that such programs “quite possibly” have been built from an intermediate, temporary “save” of various files that were not intended to produce a usable program. Subsequent observations regarding what does or does not work, he said, then become “worse than useless. They waste your time and ours.”

Okay so now I am stuck using a fast aging DEV build, grumble grumble... Okay, so I will build my own (brave thoughts for me as I am NOT a coder [other than scripts])

After much searching, there turns out to be a DEV KIT for building any of the WSJT suite, you can find it here:

• http://sourceforge.net/projects/jtsdk/

Go to the FILES tab and select "Win32" as the type you want (assuming your not using Linux) then select "2.0.0" as the kit version.

download each of these files:

• README.md
  JTSDK-2.0.0-win32.exe - 2015-04-12 - 682.0 MB
  JTSDK-2.0.0-u1-win32.exe - 2015-04-30 - 12.1 MB
  JTSDK-2.0.0-u2-win32.exe - 2015-07-31 - 634.5 MB
  JTSDK-2.0.0-u3-win32.exe - 2015-11-08 - 16.5 MB
  JTSDK-2.0.0-u4-win32.exe - 2015-12-24 - 304.8 kB

The very first thing you should do is read through the README.md as it will give you lots of hints how to get a package built and the steps you need to follow. I can not over emphasise how important it is you take time out to read this document.

Now to be honest I can not recall if I installed ALL of these packages, from memory I installed the base package, then when the build reported an error I had to install update 4 to get a successful build of WSJT-X 1.70

The install process takes a while and auto downloads more content so do not try this on a slow or close to budget connection.

So now the shack PC has WSJT-X 1.70 available for use or I can revert back to 1.60 RC2 if needed.

If I can do it, then it is within the reach of many many others to build their own from the development source code, the instructions in the README are quite clear on the steps you need to do.

Remember you use it at your own risk BUT the new modes are fun to try. (V 1.70 is about a 31 MB ZIP file if anyone wants it)

Regards,

[VK5PJ]

In WSJT-X if a crash occurs OR you try to start two copies of the program with non unique RADIO Identities (covered in the WSJT-X documents), then the program can stop you starting it up and report there is a LOCK file detected, do you want to remove it? If the automatic LOCK file removal fails, then you need to dig deeper.

Now if it was a software crash, the LOCK file can be found in this general location:

• C:\Users\YourLogonName\AppData\Local\Temp\NameOfWSJTProfile

YourLogonName there is a LOGON name used on every Windows PC, you may not remember what you have used but a quick look in the C:\Users folder will show you a list of the users on your PC (probably not many)

NameOfWSJTProfile is the name you set for a WSJT-X profile, by default this will be: WSJT-X

so in this case on MY PC I would look in: C:\Users\vk5pj\AppData\Local\Temp\WSJT-X and in there you would find a file called: ".lock" along with a file called: "wsjt_status.txt"

Delete these files and WSJT-X should start up normally.

Now as I am a bit of a nerd, I have my VIEW of files set to show all files and not hide file extensions, many of you may have left your preferences set to standard which WILL hide system folders and some files, you should do some searching for a HOW-TO on setting your PC to allow you to view more of your files (not covered here)

good luck.

Regards,

[VK2XTC]

I'm running WSJT-X v1.6.0-rc2 (on a Mac) and would like to know how to change the scaling of the waterfall.

As this version changes modes it does not change the waterfall scale, so when using WSPR you still view the 0 - 3000 kHz waterfall bandwidth, when you only need a small component of that. The older versions of WSPR had a different waterfall sale and "looked deeper" into the signal. You could see signals in the noise below decode levels, now you cannot.

Additionally, as you shrink the waterfall width it auto scales the bandwidth granularity , but now it does it at 2500 Hz , perviously it was at 3000 Hz, which is a pain as it lops off the JT9 section of the waterfall.


Suggestions anyone ?


Also, where can I listen into JT4 signals ?



Brian

VK2XTC

[VK3FZ]

thanks peter
easy even for a newbe job done

tnx

[VK5PJ]

Hello Brian

I'm running WSJT-X v1.6.0-rc2 (on a Mac) and would like to know how to change the scaling of the waterfall.
As this version changes modes it does not change the waterfall scale, so when using WSPR you still view the 0 - 3000 kHz waterfall Brian
VK2XTC

On the Waterfall display there are TWO parameters that I set for each mode, one is the "Bins/Pixel" and the other is the "Start" Frequency
If you set the value for Bin/Pixel back to be ONE then you can get a more detailed view of the signal being shown on the waterfall, for WSPR I set the "Start" frequency to be 1100 Hz.

When I go to JT65 or JT9 this then all needs to be changed to suite that mode on the waterfall so it is not as easy to swap modes when you have changed the waterfall defaults. I have a couple of Cheats I use, in that I have a few start-up shortcuts that force WSJT-X to remember what was in use before when I start it from different desktop shortcuts.
Not sure if they would work for a MAC user so will not jump in describing them in to much detail.

• shortcut parameters: "C:\ham_radio\wsjtx\bin\wsjtx.exe -r 910" is one I use for a customised version for use with my IC-910

As far as JT4 goes, I can not be much help, not heard any here.

Peter.

[VK6OX]

Hi Peter,

Season's Greetings! I too run WSJT-X (the rc-1 release) and while I enjoy the ability to switch quickly between modes, I much prefer the "old" WSPR horizontal waterfall.
It allows me to see weak transmissions that I didn't decode earlier (I'm not ALWAYS in the shack!! ) and gives me an inkling of possible openings of the 2-way kind.
I also don't like the "0932 ---------------------- Receiving WSPR-2 ----------------------- 6m" announcements when there is no decode/signal.

OK, so I'm a grumpy old fart! Bah, Humbug!!

[VK5PJ]

Hello Andy

Hi Peter,
Season's Greetings! I too run WSJT-X (the rc-1 release) and while I enjoy the ability to switch quickly between modes, I much prefer the "old" WSPR horizontal waterfall.
It allows me to see weak transmissions that I didn't decode earlier (I'm not ALWAYS in the shack!! ) and gives me an inkling of possible openings of the 2-way kind.
I also don't like the "0932 ---------------------- Receiving WSPR-2 ----------------------- 6m" announcements when there is no decode/signal.
OK, so I'm a grumpy old fart! Bah, Humbug!!

Yes there are a few losses in the change, it always seems to be the way. I too did like the historical view of past decodes windows, I thought that was a major "feature" but alas it seems the DEV team killed that off in their efforts to streamline all modes into one software baseline. Do not get me started about the "announcements" in the decode window, this is one of the reasons why I struggled through building a version here on my PC to see if I can weed that out.

My WSPR 2.11 stopped working under Windows 10, in that it started to crash regularly so I had to make the jump to a "brave new world" to have something that was stable.

After a few false starts, have found my feet with WSJT-X and have a collection of desktop ICON's that start it up in different ways to fit in with all my rigs and most modes. Maybe I should do a post about how to create all these differing 'profiles'.

season greetings from peter.

[VK5BC]

Hi peter

Thanks for the info, after some chasing around I found the files & deleted them but the problem still exists. It receives & decodes fine, makes one transmission and on the next transmission closes down, I then deleted the files and started it again same thing happens, have also tried changing the rig in the settings, problem still exists.

Strangely the program works fine with JT65.

I have also deleted the program & reinstalled, same problem.

Will keep looking for the problem & solution.

cheers Brian
VK5BC

[VK5PJ]

Hi Brian

Hi peter
I have also deleted the program & reinstalled, same problem.
Will keep looking for the problem & solution.
cheers Brian
VK5BC

When you remove WSJT-X it does NOT delete the setting directory on your PC, so try shutting WSJT-X down and clear out the settings directory to do a config from standard.

You need to cleanout at this location (username will be different) : C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\WSJT-X

That would be my first port of call to get a fresh start as that removes all the stored settings for WSJT-X

Regards, Peter.

[VK5BC]

Hi Peter

Cleared out settings as you suggested and reloaded program, all working fine now

One other thing I notice with this v1.6.0 is that the distance it shows in the last column of the decode screen is different than the distance between stations in WSPRNet. It looks like the distance that it calculate is probably based on the 4 digit grid square. Not a big issue but become very apparent when you decode stations close by, like Adelaide stations to Corny Point which should 150-160kms will show as 180-190kms.

Thanks again for your assistance.

73's Brian
VK5BC

[VK2KRR]

I'd have to agree with Andy VK6OX, the WSPR waterfall on WSJT-X WSPR is not as good. I'm used to WSPR-X (vertical) waterfall set up and believe it to be a much better waterfall able to see much weaker sigs. The WSJT-X WSPR waterfall seems to be smeared and not as detailed and doesnt seem to show things as clearly as the WSPR-X waterfall does.

So although WSJT-X does sound like a good idea, to have all the software on one package, the WSPR waterfall let it down. So I have gone back to WSPR-X again because of this, but should be able to switch to WSJT-X should I need JT65 etc at any stage.

[VK2XTC]

Peter (VK5PJ),

Thanks for the suggestions for changing the waterfall setup. It gives a much better view zoomed in , but yes, it's a hassle when you change modes.

I previously ran WSJT-X and WSPR at the same time, listening to the same interface (SignaLink) , and then jumped between modes.
This new version , with it all together, is better as it gives a single CAT interface for frequency control, (didn't work before with 2 programs running) but you loose the extra functionality / visibility.
I can see configuration per mode coming in future releases as it seems we all are experiencing the same problem.
Having the waterfall automatically configure itself to start at 2500, finish at 3000 and bins/pixel set to 1, when you select JT9 would be great!

I expect the MAC build to be different from the Windows Build, but one option for the waterfall history issue is to have the window depth to max.
In this build it gives me (max window) about 15 minutes of waterfall on the screen (Depth) with a 3000 Hz width set to Bins/Pixel = 2. (Width)

Maybe PC build is different.



Brian