IC-7610 with Dual watch for digital modes

[VK5PJ]

Hi,
the recent band openings on 50 MHz to Europe has raised the need to listen on more than one freq at the same time for digital signals. My trusty IC-7600 could not help me so I have had to promote the IC7610 I have had hiding under a towel for 12 months to primary operations on 50 MHz..

Now both the 7600 and 7610 have the ability to send audio and control over a single USB port to the PC but the 7610 has raised the bar as it is now in stereo. the main VFO is on the left channel and the sub band is on the right channel.

Queue WSJT-X, on the audio settings you can select 'Mono', 'Left' or 'Right'. There is a 'both' option there but its grey-ed out on my instance of WSJT-X.
First instance of WSJT-X is started and the audio source is set to left, so this copy gets to also control the RIG for frequency and PTT as this is the one we have to use for TX. Add a second instance of WSJT-X and set the audio source to come from the Right channel, set the rig to be NONE and PTT to be none. On the 7610 push the dual watch button and then you have two frequencies at once being decoded on your PC.

now you need to tell WSJT-X to use different RIG names when you start each copy up, see here for details on how to do this
https://physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/K1 ... 2.html#FAQ

[VK5PJ]

Not happy with two frequencies I hear you say, neither was I..

the 7610 has the ability to send a data stream of I-Q data via the USB 3 port and this can be read by third party SDR software and then you can tune the SDR to a third frequency and have that feed to a third copy of WSJT-X.

So imagine my smile, Primary on 50.313 FT8, sub receiver, 50.323 FT8 and SDR on 50.276 JT65 all from one antenna and rig. Now the SDR purists will tell you they can already do this and this is all old hat to them but to have this ability from a rig that can now be bought in the mid $3K that includes a 100W transmitter and proper knobs... I think its pretty impressive.

The needed drivers can be found here for running the external SDR https://www.icomjapan.com/support/firmw ... oad_result
and here https://www.icomjapan.com/support/firmware_driver/1956/ with a guide by Icom here https://www.icomjapan.com/support/manual/1787/

I followed the official ICOM guide and it all went well for me, do not cut corners, if they say leave rig off, then do so etc etc.

[VK5PJ]

sorry, no room to see the SDR program but it is there as a minimized process