MSK144, FT8… using an IC-9700 and WSJT-X

Publicado em , por Emmanuel

It’s Perseids time! Let’s try some Meteor Scatter contacts, but first, let’s configure the latest version of WSJT-X (2.4.0) on a Linux computer along with an ICOM IC-9700 transceiver…

The IC-9700 is connected to the computer via its USB (Universal Serial Bus, not Upper Side Band, OK?) port, using a regular USB-A/B cable (printer-like). I recommend some cable that has ferrites on each end of it, for eventual EMI reduction.

Assuming that the transceiver has its factory default settings or has been recently resetted
(MENU > SET > Others > Reset > Partial Reset), the following instructions prepare the transceiver for remote control through the computer:

  • [MENU]
    • [SET]
      • [Connectors]
          • [MOD Input]
            • USB MOD Level: 35%
            • DATA MOD: USB
          • [CI-V]
            • CI-V Baud Rate: 19200
            • CI-V USB Port: Link to [REMOTE]
            • CI-V DATA Baud Rate: 19200

On the computer, once the WSJT-X software has been succesfully installed, follow the screenshots below tha illustrate the configurations used in the Radio and Audio tabs of the Settings… configuration tool, available under the menu File.

The Serial Port and the Sound Card settings on your system may be different than the ones shown here… The  system used here runs under Debian 10 Buster.

Once the system is ready to operate and in my case, having pointed the antenna to North-Earth at an elevation of about 45 degrees, after about 24 hours of operation, the results are nice to see on the map of the website pskreporter.info, as shown below (operating in MSK144 from Locator IN51).

As a final note, once the system is completely configured as above, it works also for any digital mode available on WSJT-X…

73 de CT7AFR.