HDSDR and Fldigi
Using Fldigi with HDSDR and Softrock RXTX Radios. Although this is specifically for Softocks the principle will be similar for different radios.
Original document modified and expanded by Wes Hartman, KC5FGK. Used with permission of Brian Lloyd, WB6RQN/J79BPL.
These instructions have been tested on Windows 7. Please note: this is my working configuration. Other hardware/software-variants for VAC and VSPE are possible.
Download the latest version (2.6 at this writing). Follow the instructions at the link above.
Follow the instructions provided with VAC. There are some differences between installing with XP, Vista, and Win7 so be sure you read the instructions, most notably in how to deal with unsigned drivers in Vista and Win7.
Installation
Download all the software pieces you need.
• The ConFiG SoftRock tool (CFGSR.exe).
• The Kenwood TS-50 rig description XML file for fldigi's RigCAT.
• VAC v4.09, release version, not the demo version.
Install the ConFiG Softrock tool.
Download the latest version (2.6 at this writing). Follow the instructions at the link above.
Install HDSDR.
Download the latest version (2.14 at this writing). Install using the defaults. Then copy the ExtIO_Si570.dll file from the CFGSR installation directory to the HDSDR installation directory.
Install VAC.
Follow the instructions provided with VAC. There are some differences between installing with XP, Vista, and Win7 so be sure you read the instructions, most notably in how to deal with unsigned drivers in Vista and Win7.
Note: you MUST use the purchased version of VAC 4.09. You MUST NOT use the demo version! Go ahead and buy it. It will work.
VAC configuration
Open the VAC control program Control Panel and configure VAC.
You get to the VAC control panel from the Windows "Start" button under "All Programs". Look for the "Virtual Audio Cable" menu item and then select Control panel.
In the upper left hand corner of the control panel for VAC you want to set it for 2 cables. I left all the other settings alone. Click the "Set" and "Restart" buttons. If you want to check, here is what I have all the VAC parameters set for:
Once you click the Restart button you should see cable 1 and cable 2 appear in the lower section of the Virtual Audio Cable Control Panel (if not sooner).
VSPmgr configuration
Now set up VSPmgr.
For now you will create a single port-pair that will be used for CAT control of fldigi by
HDSDR. Both rig control and PTT will be handled by this single port-pair.
Start the VSPmgr utility. It will show you your physical serial ports and offer to create a virtual port pair. Make sure that your virtual port pair starts above any possible physical serial port numbers. It is possible for virtual ports to conflict with physical ports if the physical ports are added later. In my case I created port pair COM7/COM8 for communications between
HDSDR and fldigi. Most of the examples use COM6/COM16 or COM7/COM17 but I
discovered that some programs, e.g. WSJT and WSPR, have problems with port numbers above 8. Therefore, creating a port-pair where both COM numbers are below 9 means that the configuration may be used later on to communicate with these other programs.
Setting up the port-pair is nothing more than selecting the desired values for End 1 and End
2, COM7 and COM8 in this case, and clicking the "Create Pair" button.
HDSDR configuration
To set up HDSDR to use VAC, start the HDSDR program and click on “Options [F7]” to choose the following options:
• Select Input > Softrock Si570 and MME (16 bit) drivers
• SDR TX Support (checked)
Click on "Soundcard [F5]" to select your connections for your Softrock installation. For the interface to fldigi, select “Line 2” as the “TX Input” and “Line 1” as the “RX Output”.
After making your selections, click OK. See the figure below for my settings:
Next click the “Bandwidth [F6]” button and select your bandwidth sampling rates. In my case,
96000 for both Input and Output. It may be possible to set the output sampling rate as low as
12000 to reduce the CPU load factor.
Set up CAT in HDSDR.
After you have set the above values, click on “Options [F7]” to choose the following options: CAT to HDSDR
• Port > 1st port in pair created with VSPmgr (i.e. COM7)
• Baudrate (bps) > 57600
• PTT activation pins > none (CAT only)
• Make sure “Mute RX audio on TX” and “activated” are checked
Click the “Start [F2]” button and you should see the spectrum and waterfall areas activate. This completes the configuration of HDSDR to use fldigi. Now we setup fldigi itself.
Install fldigi
(This document assumes that you are running fldigi on the same computer that is running
HDSDR so that means you have installed the Windows version of fldigi.) Install the RigCAT XML description file for Kenwood TS-50 transceiver.
On Windows, fldigi keeps its configuration files in the fldigi.files directory (folder) in the user's home directory, i.e. C:\Users\<username>\fldigi.files\rigs (assuming Win 7). Place the RigCAT description file for TS-50, i.e. TS-50.xml, into the rigsfolder. Note: in Windows 7, you must run FLDIGI first to see the Rigs folder.
Start fldigi to perform configuration.
You may get an error message because the audio input has not been selected. Just dismiss any error messages. Click on the "Configure" menu item to perform the configuration process for fldigi. It will offer you several options. It doesn't matter where you start but you need only configure "Sound Card" and "Rig Control" to get fldigi working with HDSDR.
Click "Sound Card" to start the configuration of fldigi to use VAC to communicate with HDSDR.
The "Fldigi configuration" window will pop up with the "Audio" tab selected. If the "Devices" sub-tab is not selected, select it.
Click the "PortAudio" selection button if it is not already selected. For "Capture:" set "Virtual Cable 1". For "Playback:" set "Virtual Cable 2".
The waterfall should come alive just as soon as you set the proper virtual cables for input and output. In my case that didn't happen. I found that I have had trouble with fldigi getting the sample rate correct when in "Auto" or "Native" mode. Ifyou see the following error message, "PortAudio error: Invalid sample rate," click on the "Settings" sub-tab and set both the Capture and Playback sample rates to 48000 to match the setting for VAC in HDSDR.
As long as you are at the "Settings" window for "Audio" you can check the following:
For the sample rate converter ("Converter") set "Medium Sinc Interpolator" if it isn't already set. Corrections should all be set to zero.
Set up RigCAT to control HDSDR and vice-versa.
Click the "Rig" tab at the top of the configuration window. Fldigi supports several ways to communicate with your rig. We are going to use RigCAT. (Hamlib works too but I am not going to cover that.)
Click on the "RigCAT" subtab to bring up the RigCAT configuration window.
Click the "Open" button next to the "Rig description file:" box. That will let you select the proper rig description file. Navigate to the rigs folder if not already there and select "TS-50.xml".
Below that are some timing settings for communication between fldigi and HDSDR. These are influenced by the speed of your computer. I use the following:
If you get error messages from fldigi about communications failure with the rig, try increasing the Write delay and/or Retries. If you notice that the response time is too long, i.e. frequency changes in HDSDR or fldigi take noticeably too longto be reflected in the other program you can try reducing the delays.
In "Device:" select the 2nd port in pair created with VSPmgr.
Click the radio button next to "CAT command for PTT" and “VSP
Enable”. Go back up to the top and click the check-box for "Use RigCAT". Now click the "Initialize" followed by the "Save" buttons.
If rig control is working you should see the VFO frequency for HDSDR appear in the frequency display of fldigi and “RigCAT – TS-50” directly above. If you tune HDSDR, the frequency display of fldigi should automatically follow. If youclick the "T/R" button near the lower right side of the fldigi screen, HDSDR and the Softrock radio should key up. These two tests confirm that RigCAT is working.
Set the "Sweet Spot" so that fldigi works properly with the click-tune function of HDSDR. Click on the "Misc" tab at the top of the configuration window. Click on the "Sweet Spot" sub-tab.
Set the CW value to the frequency of the CW note you use. Set "RTTY" and "PSK et al." both to
1500.
Click the "Save" button.
Set the operator and QTH info.
Click on the "Operator" tab at the top of the configuration window and fill in the information. When done, click the "Save" and "Close" buttons.
At this point, fldigi and HDSDR are set up and should be working together. There are quite a few other things that can be set up in fldigi to suit your operating preferences but that is beyond the scope of this document. Refer to the fldigi manual to see what all the other functions do.
Original document modified and expanded by Wes Hartman, KC5FGK. Used with permission of Brian Lloyd, WB6RQN/J79BPL.