Thetis v2.8.11 - UPDATES and current issues

[DH1KLM]

I can confirm EQ not working on RX2.
RX2 squelch slider is working for me, but AF indicator underneath the slider shows nothing.

[ramdor]

UPDATE 21a is in top most post

Cheers, RIchie.

[ramdor]

A quick vid on how to use the gradient control : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLVZuK1zDkQ

Richie.

[oe3ide]

Hi Richie,

great job! All runs fine so far
One question re skin: what would be the btn-name for the 2-tone? It is missing in the skins (showing only the grey-background).

73 de Ernst
OE3IDE

[ramdor]

Hi Richie,

great job! All runs fine so far
One question re skin: what would be the btn-name for the 2-tone? It is missing in the skins (showing only the grey-background).

73 de Ernst
OE3IDE

chk2TONE

Richie.

[Tony EI7BMB]

Thanks Richie , installed no problem

[Yevgeni]

Hi
Gradient control will be better at -150 dBm 0 dBm. -200 +200 is a lot.

[ramdor]

Hi
Gradient control will be better at -150 dBm 0 dBm. -200 +200 is a lot.

Yes I know. However the reasons are covered in this video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLVZuK1zDkQ

It is still a work in progress user control. Also, I notice in your screen shot the 'hidden' button is not hidden. I will investigate why this might be happening. It is related to the recent change to fixing the focus lost problem with rx2 in collapsed mode.

Richie.

[W9BHI]

Richie,
I don't have any install files for the 2.8.11 install.
All have is the MSI executable install.
What to do now?
Don W9BHI

[ramdor]

Richie,
I don't have any install files for the 2.8.11 install.
All have is the MSI executable install.
What to do now?
Don W9BHI

Don, below is a link to an old vid which shows how to install Thetis from TAPR (albeit an old version) and then how to apply the contents of the patch zip.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNElrIzqR0Y

If you don't feel happy doing any of that, or know where Thetis install folder is or any such stuff, it is probably best for you to wait until a full setup comes out from Doug at some point.

Cheers, RIchie.

[NJ2US]

21A x64 installed here, no issues, thanks Richie!

NJ2US

[Yevgeni]

Hi

[Tony EI7BMB]

Just noticed one of the buffer latency values had changed from 10 to 120. Guess it happened when the database upgraded . Re entered the correct value and everything seems fine.

Edit: Notice the s meter seems to read much more realistically now with the pre amp off on 6m

[w2gs]

Hi Richie,
Minor issue. The CW mode box is white on my GUI and the text is gray. Unless you mouse over the box the text is not readable.
73, George
W2GS

CW mode.PNG

[ramdor]

Hi

Yevgeni - yep, this has been fixed. I noticed it your image related to the dBm range. It only shows as you say if you start up with minimum size window.

Tony - yep all 4 buffer latencies are pulled from the TX profile (and stored there). Previously this was only happening for Ring Buffer IN. The database is initialised with -120 values. I may add the code to the merge so that existing values are applied to all TX profiles, but so much code for so little gain really.

George - Very odd. Which skin are you using? Also, which mode box? Andromeda? Or a button somewhere?

Cheers, Richie.

[I2NOY]

I confirm the cosmetic bug of yellow rectangle indicated by Yevgeni when Thetis window is manually resized at its minimum dimension, at next startup.
I confirm the 2TON button with square angles and different colors than other buttons. Vanilla IK3VIG special skin on my 7000DLE MKII.

Thetis 64 bit with patch 21a.

Going on testing.

[ramdor]

I confirm the cosmetic bug of yellow rectangle indicated by Yevgeni when Thetis window is manually resized at its minimum dimension, at next startup.
I confirm the 2TON button with square angles and different colors than other buttons. Vanilla IK3VIG special skin on my 7000DLE MKII.

Thetis 64 bit with patch 21a.

Going on testing.

The yellow HIDDEN button issue is fixed.

The 2TON button : you need to make a new button graphic by copying an existing and renaming it. The buttons for IK3VIG skin will be in...

C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\OpenHPSDR\Skins\IK3VIG Special\Console

Make a copy of chkTUN-0.png and chkTUN-1.png. Rename the copies as chk2TONE-0.png and chk2TONE-1.png

Richie.

[Tony EI7BMB]

That explains it thanks Richie . As you say so little gain for the work involved for something that is easily fixed by the end user.

Tony - yep all 4 buffer latencies are pulled from the TX profile (and stored there). Previously this was only happening for Ring Buffer IN. The database is initialised with -120 values. I may add the code to the merge so that existing values are applied to all TX profiles, but so much code for so little gain really.

Cheers, Richie.

[dl5tt]

Hi Richie,

I am very happy to see your activities in Thetis.
I've seen following problems in Thetis, using an ANAN 7000 DLE MKII with protocoll 1 (after having a lot of problems with protocol 2 due to squence errors and information losses between ORION and I5 NUC).

The following issues are existent with protocol 1.

a) Diversity
When I am using "diversity" the second VFO sometimes stays in an "old" band and it doesn't work. But it is necessary, that it is in the same band. Perhaps you can fix this problem, by an automatic synchronisation of both VFOs.

b) Diversity
If I type some numbers in the "GAIN field" when "GAIN" is LOCKED, Thetis will crash/abort after typing ENTER. I changed it in my version in that manner, that typing any figures in the gain field, the locking will be UNCHECKED / unlocked, to avoid the trip of Thetis.

c) Diversity
The values for gain are ranging from 0 to 5 but the schematic has only a range to 1. May be a logarithmic scale is possible and may be the value for gain could be extended to 10.

d) Diversity
It would be useful, if the gain and phase will be stored for every band seperately. (This issue is not important)

e) Using WSJT
After using WSJT sometimes the VFOsteps are only the 10th of the selected value. I.e.: Value 10Hz, the step of the mouse wheal is only 1Hz. I didn't find the system, when this failure occurs. May be that this is not a problem of using WSJT.

f) Attenuator
The attenuator steps 10, 20 and 30 dB are leading to different (for me not logical) GAIN values on the spectrum screen and I am not sure, if the attenuation is correct on all bands. I found in the source code, that some times an amplifier is switched of, but I am not sure, of this is correct on all bands and with the ORION-board.

g) 0-Beat
I am not sure, but in CLICK-TUNE-MODE the 0-Beat function does not work (on my rig). May be, that it is not possible in this mode, but it might be useful.

h) Band stacks
Sometimes I get the message, "to many band stacks" and Thetis will not start. Then I remove these entries in the database file and Thetis will start. I didn't found the reason, because I found no limit, but it seems to me, that the sum of all band stacks is limited but not approved during the saveprocess of the database.

Thanks a lot for your activities in advance

73 de Josef
DL5TT

[I2NOY]

Make a copy of chkTUN-0.png and chkTUN-1.png. Rename the copies as chk2TONE-0.png and chk2TONE-1.png

Richie.

Hi Richie, it works perfectly!
I learn another thing on Thetis.
Many thanks.

[Yevgeni]

Hi

I ask the question again.
Is it possible to fix errors in saving the level across the ranges of the "AGC Gain" Level engine.
For example, the "Drive" slide works great, there were no errors when switching ranges.

PS.
Maybe the error is only mine.

[rbduck]

Hello Richie,

Your changes are running really well and the spectrum gradient color scheme is quite nice. On a side note I have been running Thetis v2.8.11 for about a week on the Windows 11 platform. Not any change in performance though. I wasn't expecting any change. It is more stable than I expected. Thanks again!

Edit. The only request I have is related to the recording and playback realm. I run VAC audio and have all the sound routed in windows through
virtual audio cables. The Record and Quick Record functions work well. To transmit a recording it is necessary to push the PTT or MOX button and then press the play button. My main issue with that is when the play button is pressed the Monitor is activated as well and if the AF is not reduced before playback the feedback is bad. It would be great if the Monitor function did not activate every time Playback is pushed. I hope I explained that clearly. This is not something I do often , but it is great when letting another operator know the quality of their transmitted audio. This is not a bug and I'm sure would go the bottom of a Want list. Thanks for all you do !!

[DH1KLM]

I made 2Tone buttons for the following skins. IK3VIG Special, OpenHPSDR-Gray, W1AEX Dark Metal, W1AEX High Visual.
They can be downloaded as a zip file from https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eELS_GHAhLcrzX5SDQjnXr6NGUUarIl7/view?usp=sharing

You only have to copy the contained button pics into the corresponding skin directory.

Usually at C: \Users\ yourusername\AppData\Roaming\OpenHPSDR\Skins.

I hope to be able to help someone with this.

[W1AEX]

All button packs at the link below have been updated to support the Quick Recall Buttons and the 2TON button in Thetis version 2.8.11 21b. If you simply want to add the Quick Recall Buttons to any currently installed skin you can download this simple pack that will install only the buttons that Richie made:

http://www.w1aex.com/hpsdr/packs/21B_Quick_Recall_Buttons.zip

The full button packs at the link below can be unzipped into the Console folder of any skin to apply the updated 2TON and Quick Recall Buttons. Scroll down near the bottom of the skins page and you will find pictures of the button packs displayed. Grab any pack you need or want and unzip it into the skin's Console folder. Sigi has taken care of the skins he listed but if you are using a different skin downloaded from my site these will take care of the added buttons.


73, Rob W1AEX

http://www.w1aex.com/hpsdr/hpsdr.html

[Joe]

Richie,
It really is great you are back, I really appreciate your work and look forward to the updates.

I have some of my own items that I have coded into my Thetis version but very limited and usually wait until the source is posted so I can adjust for my use. Here are the two items if possible for consideration:

1) collapsed screen - when I hover over the “numeric slide bar” the numeric amount shows along with the description on the audio, power output; etc. I mainly want to see the values especially in case of driving an amp.

2) I use the OC control for the amp ptt instead of the main ptt out, only because I could not find a way to disable the amplifier ptt while in “tune mode”, I have code in place that when selected the amp will not transmit while tuning (safety for amp). I searched code to be able to do this with the main ptt out but I believe this is hard wired into the Orion board. Also, it is nice to be able to select amp ptt by band on the OC page, keeps amp from keying on wrong band.

Thanks again for your work,
Joe
WD5Y

[kc2rgw]

Thanks for all the work you’ve done.

I’d love a diversity screen that scales so when a corner is dragged it just resizes and scales to the window size.

This one is a stretch but it would be super cool to see a multi-bar pop-out window showing the effective db compression drop of each band of the CFC when applied. It’s kind of a black box where it’s very hard to tell the threshold of engagement of each compressor. Even something simpler like a numerical value meter to show the level of engagement per band in real time would be a help.

Doubtful with the ancient MSFT forms interface, but the ability to arrange or hide or otherwise customize the layout of the controls panels would be a nice thing to have as well. If they were broken out as object collections that could be defined in a template in some sort of markup language, that would be neat as it could allow for theming in a layout context.

[ramdor]

Hey all,

Cheers for the feedback.

Yevgeni - I have checked through the code paths and it looks ok. I have added the agc issue to the list to keep an eye on

Josef - all noted, some fixed, and some added to to my list. Please could you make vid or explain the 0beat issue

Ruben - added to the todo list for monitor off setting

Sigi & Rob - great work on the button skins

Joe - please add a screenshot showing 1) details from your post. Yep I am not sure if we can set a bit to stop the rear PTT output. I checked the code quickly and all that seem to be available is TXRX relay, and the PA. I'll poke Doug to find out more, and if that fails add some checkboxes to OC to bypass when TUN/2TON.

Chris - yes I noticed that. It would be nice to be able to resize (and have the form size saved). I will quickly look at the cfc stuff to see if that data is provided without too much work otherwise will have to sit on the future list. Regarding the rework of the front end..... yep but after all these fixes/changes and it has reached a level of stability. I am contemplating an XML based profile system, where you can define what you want shown, but there is a lot of work to do in splitting out the RX1/RX2 links and making it RX generic.

Cheers,

Richie.

[oe3ide]

So I also throw in one wish Autostart of dx spotting (maybe selectible via setup) would be really great (just using the last settings from the dx-spotting screen and start spotting (ok its not spotting, its "connect to dx-cluster").

And the blue text in the dark menu-strip (if spotting is enabled) is hard to see, maybe light green/light blue would be better.

Thanks!

[W1AEX]

Hi Richie,

The only anomaly that I noticed today with the new version is that the resolution scaling does not seem to be accurate when using the presets down in the lower left corner of the status bar. As an example, to make the GUI display as 1280 x 720 the setting in the status bar needs to be set to 1266 x 684. Definitely not a big deal but it works correctly with the original 2.8.11 so something may have changed somewhere inadvertently.

Great job on all that has been done with this version!

73, Rob W1AEX

[ramdor]

Hi Richie,

The only anomaly that I noticed today with the new version is that the resolution scaling does not seem to be accurate when using the presets down in the lower left corner of the status bar. As an example, to make the GUI display as 1280 x 720 the setting in the status bar needs to be set to 1266 x 684. Definitely not a big deal but it works correctly with the original 2.8.11 so something may have changed somewhere inadvertently.

Great job on all that has been done with this version!

73, Rob W1AEX

odd that Rob. I will look into it. It uses two methods of setting size based on the 'include borders' option :

1) Form Size - where the dimensions relate to the entire window/form including the window borders
2) Client Size - where the dimensions relate to the internal area of the whole console window/form excluding borders

I'll have to install a paint package to check out the sizes that it is creating

Cheers, RIchie.