Thetis v2.8.11 - UPDATES and current issues

[ramdor]

Richie, ignore this if not a priority, (it's not), but I've noticed:

Appearance -> RX Display -> Waterfall, even if SHOW FILTER, Show Zero Line, Show TX Filter are ALL UNCHECKED, the display still initializes with Filter and Zero Line showing at "Power" on. Cycling with a checkmark, fixes it for that session.

logged, thanks Jeff

[oe3ide]

Going forward I need people to check the old version if they think any problem has been introduced in 21x updates. Either that or just don't use the updates because as you can imagine for me to do this checking it eats into free time that could be better spent writing code.

Hey Richie,
its easy for me to revert to a specific version, but in this case I was vy sure so I didn't double-check it Sry!

"Workaround": close setup with the X

cheers & 73
Ernst

[ramdor]

no worries Ernst. The cancel thing is far from ideal.

Richie.

[ku4sd]

I thought it would be nice if the "Rx BYPASS on TX" could be selected by a button on the main GUI, so I wouldn't have to go into the settings every time I turn the amp on or off. That would be a nice to have...

[ramdor]

I thought it would be nice if the "Rx BYPASS on TX" could be selected by a button on the main GUI, so I wouldn't have to go into the settings every time I turn the amp on or off. That would be a nice to have...

I am planning to add a custom control panel where you can use a modifier key on the setup form and click on certain controls in setup. Those setup controls will then add to this custom control panel that is on the front end. Clicking the control in this custom controller panel will 'click' the control in setup.

This should allow things like this and make it generic, blob control, etc etc.

It is on the list... with so many other things

Richie.

[DL8LAQ]

Using 21c:
The Waterfall setting "Use Spec Min/Max" doesn't seem to work when I use cat commands (DDUtil macro) to change spectrum min/max. Using the dB scale and left/right mouse button it works like it should.

[PD3LK]

Hi Richie, two things,

INTERNAL PA (7000)
Setup General-Ant/Filters-Antenna : "Disable HF PA"
The help text says : "disables external PA" but in fact it disables the Anan 7000 INTERNAL PA.
(long time ago it took me a few day's before i discovered why my TX didn't transmit ....)

FOOTSWICH
I own this nice USB footswitch with 3 fully programmable switches:

https://nl.aliexpress.com/item/10050015 ... 99d0af7-10

It works great with SDRConsole: TUNE (function key F5) on the most left switch and TX (F8) on the most right switch.
I would like to have the same function keys assigned to the same functions in Thetis. Is that possible?

r/Leon

[ramdor]

min/max cat issue noted
pa tooltip issue noted


Ok, so setup cancel is a problem. To solve this issue I have implemented the following in 21d

1) when setup window is shown we clear two lists down, one list holds any setting that is clicked, the other list is for any setting that is updated in any way

2) if an update is made to any setting in the setup form, from within it, or from outside such as min/max grid size an entry will be placed into the updated list

3) if you click on any setting in the setup form an entry will be added into the clicked list

4) on apply we clear the lists and save out every setting, the setup window does not hide away

5) on save we save out every setting and close window

6) on cancel, we run a process that removes any setting of interest from the updated setting list such as grid min/max as long as it does not have a matching entry in the click list. If it does have a matching entry we have clicked and changed it in setup so a cancel needs to pull back the original value. Importantly we only remove settings of interest. We then recover any setting that is still in the updated list.

Can anyone see any problems with this approach?

Richie.

[K1LSB]

I'm good with that, thanks Richie.

Mark

[K1LSB]

Richie,

One more bug I just remembered, the MIC button won't stay disabled regardless of what I do to turn it off (apparently another persistent cling-on bug from earlier versions).

Thanks,
Mark

[ramdor]

Richie,

One more bug I just remembered, the MIC button won't stay disabled regardless of what I do to turn it off (apparently another persistent cling-on bug from earlier versions).

Thanks,
Mark

yep, there is an issue added to list. Thanks Mark.

Richie.

[w-u-2-o]

Richie,

Any advice on what to do/not do if you are seeing bursts of yellow square GetPixel warnings?

Thanks,

Scott

[ramdor]

Richie,

Any advice on what to do/not do if you are seeing bursts of yellow square GetPixel warnings?

Thanks,

Scott

Not really Scott.

I think we need to have a chat with Doug/Warren about it. It signifies when GetPixels does not have data to provide for the current frame that needs rendering. When you call GetPixels (which happens each screen render frame) a flag is cleared (via interlocking) in the analyser to say that the data has been 'consumed'. When a new frame has been 'stitched' together the flag is set to signify pixels are ready again. If a call is made to GetPixels when that flag has not been set to 'ready' since the last time it was cleared the yellow box is displayed.

It is all related to 'overlap' as described in the WDSP guide for the SetAnalyzer function.

It was part of my investigations into why sometimes there was very slight noticeable slow down in the waterfall.

Richie.

[ramdor]

As a follow up Scott, what I have just found is that if you tell the analyser you want say 70fps by setting main display FPS to 70, but you limit the display to vsync which on mine is 60fps the yellow light doesn't blink any more.

It is very odd though, like it cycles from not being shown to blinking for like 20 seconds then stopping again.

Richie.

[ea3aqr]

Jordie : if you were using 2_8_11 from 2020 then it DID change the locked bandstack frequency if you left the band on a different frequency with everything locked. It has been like that for ages.

Ernst: yes we know about this, it is not ideal at all. It has been in there like that for years.

I decided to make vid response to you both where you can see it all happening in the original 2_8_11 version from 2020.

Going forward I need people to check the old version if they think any problem has been introduced in 21x updates. Either that or just don't use the updates because as you can imagine for me to do this checking it eats into free time that could be better spent writing code.

The video : https://youtu.be/gOqkU-BNVbQ

Richie.

Good morning Richie,

First of all thanks for the video!

I think that I have a backup of my old Thetis config, so today I will take a look on it and try to test it.

Of course I don't discuss with you how the code is...

Let me check it and I will record a video if it works as i'm saing.

Thanks again for your great work!

[ea3aqr]

Richie,

Tested with an old version pre 21x and I must admit that YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT!
Excuse me for wasting your time with this issue...

[ramdor]

Richie,

Tested with an old version pre 21x and I must admit that YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT!
Excuse me for wasting your time with this issue...

hah no problem I was thinking I might have done something crazy. Currently working on the new bandstacking system. Will be a couple of days though.

Richie.

[EA1DAV]

Hi Richie and all. May be you can see of some interest a feature that I see in spectrum analizers, it is the 'move to next rigth peak', 'move to next left peak' or 'move to max peak'. In cw mode I see it very interesant, even with a keyboard short cut to be more agile and not touch the mouse.

Best 73 and thanks a lot by all your work.

Jesus

[w-u-2-o]

Hi Richie,

Understood on the getPixel flag. Will just watch and see. I always have vsync enabled and run 30Hz to match my (slow) 4K displays. I use Prio to save process priorities in Task Manager and set Thetis to "realtime".

BREAK

Some thoughts on the cool new display features (obviously all shamelessly driven by my desire for individual artistry ):

- Is it possible to set the Active Peak decay time? Maybe I just missed where this is?

- Active Peak makes TX-RX transients on the display much more visible. That's something to look into in the future.

- When using the new gradient feature, would it be possible to have it respect the setting of Data Line and Line Width? I miss having the outlining of the spectrum.

- It is impossible to put the circle marks as close together or as precisely as I'd like. While I understand the +/-200 scaling issue, the UI mechanism you have devised could still be designed so the bottom is -150 (still below the noise floor, just extend that color down to -200) and the top is at +20 (above the max. allowable input of +13, just extend that color up to +200). This will more than double the precision of the UI. The bar could also be made a little longer, further improving precision. Finally, having a tooltip that showed the exact value of each circle would be very nice.

Thanks!

Scott

[DO2ZA Erwin]

Richie,

Any advice on what to do/not do if you are seeing bursts of yellow square GetPixel warnings?

Thanks,

Scott

Not really Scott.

I think we need to have a chat with Doug/Warren about it. It signifies when GetPixels does not have data to provide for the current frame that needs rendering. When you call GetPixels (which happens each screen render frame) a flag is cleared (via interlocking) in the analyser to say that the data has been 'consumed'. When a new frame has been 'stitched' together the flag is set to signify pixels are ready again. If a call is made to GetPixels when that flag has not been set to 'ready' since the last time it was cleared the yellow box is displayed.

It is all related to 'overlap' as described in the WDSP guide for the SetAnalyzer function.

It was part of my investigations into why sometimes there was very slight noticeable slow down in the waterfall.

Richie.

Hi Ritchie,

running here with 144 Hz, sometimes the yellow LED is binking, but I never see slowdown in Waterfall/Spectrum. It runs very fine here.


In the Setup-Form you can read in the Tooltip-Text from the Cancel-Button " Load Setting from Database and close Form."
I think that is clear, if you have not press Apply you load your last Database without Changes.


73 Erwin

[rbduck]

Hi Richie,

Understood on the getPixel flag. Will just watch and see. I always have vsync enabled and run 30Hz to match my (slow) 4K displays. I use Prio to save process priorities in Task Manager and set Thetis to "realtime".

Scott

I too am running Thetis set to "real time" I am running 30Hz. I see a few seconds of the yellow blinking LED's only occasionally.
I have not seen the least hesitation of the waterfall at any point.

[ramdor]

Hi Richie,

Understood on the getPixel flag. Will just watch and see. I always have vsync enabled and run 30Hz to match my (slow) 4K displays. I use Prio to save process priorities in Task Manager and set Thetis to "realtime".

BREAK

Some thoughts on the cool new display features (obviously all shamelessly driven by my desire for individual artistry ):

- Is it possible to set the Active Peak decay time? Maybe I just missed where this is?

- Active Peak makes TX-RX transients on the display much more visible. That's something to look into in the future.

- When using the new gradient feature, would it be possible to have it respect the setting of Data Line and Line Width? I miss having the outlining of the spectrum.

- It is impossible to put the circle marks as close together or as precisely as I'd like. While I understand the +/-200 scaling issue, the UI mechanism you have devised could still be designed so the bottom is -150 (still below the noise floor, just extend that color down to -200) and the top is at +20 (above the max. allowable input of +13, just extend that color up to +200). This will more than double the precision of the UI. The bar could also be made a little longer, further improving precision. Finally, having a tooltip that showed the exact value of each circle would be very nice.

Thanks!

Scott

There is active peak hold time but not decay time. At the moment after configurable hold time (in setup) they decay at an ever increasing dBm rate. I could put in a dbm/second thing, but if we just use a fixed 2 second decay for example, peaks that were very high would look as if they were falling faster than short ones. Not sure how it would look.

It does respect line and width, but the line becomes a gradient as well. If you turn alpha on the line to 255 and the alpha on datafill somewhat lower you can see it. I want to add an option to have solid outline and ignore the gradient.

Yeah the gradient control need more work. Up/down dBm number controls either end in the short term, and a way to get/use the colour data so you can share some nice gradients. The number controls can be initialised at -150/13. Yep tooltip good idea. The circles are kept radius apart at the moment, I could change it to be so they can overlap upto the centre of adjacent, but any closer and you will end up with chaos

Re the yellow flicker led. Whilst it is interesting to know that the analyzer has not 'had enough time yet' to prepare the pixels for the frame, the graphics engine will use the last set it obtained for this frame anyway. So after thinking about it, it is not related to the very tiny slowdown in waterfall drop rate that happens from time to time, as there is no shortage of pixels and the frame will get rendered anyway. Some more investigation is required

Cheers, Richie.

[w-u-2-o]

There is active peak hold time but not decay time. At the moment after configurable hold time (in setup) they decay at an ever increasing dBm rate. I could put in a dbm/second thing, but if we just use a fixed 2 second decay for example, peaks that were very high would look as if they were falling faster than short ones. Not sure how it would look.

As I mentioned in my first post, I had not found the configurable hold time, but I finally found it this afternoon I was able to bump that up a bit and it looks better for me now. But a decay time might be nice, too

It does respect line and width, but the line becomes a gradient as well. If you turn alpha on the line to 255 and the alpha on datafill somewhat lower you can see it. I want to add an option to have solid outline and ignore the gradient.

Exactly the option I'm requesting--standing by!

Yeah the gradient control need more work. Up/down dBm number controls either end in the short term, and a way to get/use the colour data so you can share some nice gradients. The number controls can be initialised at -150/13. Yep tooltip good idea. The circles are kept radius apart at the moment, I could change it to be so they can overlap upto the centre of adjacent, but any closer and you will end up with chaos

Outstanding first effort, no matter how much we nitpick! But a few nits picked and it'll be really sweet. Thanks!

[Joe]

Richie,
Is it possible for me to get your source code (Thetis) for the latest changes. I have a few things that I use in my copy that I would like to fold over into your latest version. I have a sampling reset built into the code that stabilizes the audio runaway when first started and the changes for the amp ptt disable during tune along with some other minor stuff. I really would like to stay up with your latest versions as they come available.

Thanks and 73’s
Joe
WD5Y

[ramdor]

Richie,
Is it possible for me to get your source code (Thetis) for the latest changes. I have a few things that I use in my copy that I would like to fold over into your latest version. I have a sampling reset built into the code that stabilizes the audio runaway when first started and the changes for the amp ptt disable during tune along with some other minor stuff. I really would like to stay up with your latest versions as they come available.

Thanks and 73’s
Joe
WD5Y

I keep it all hidden until Doug puts the changes into the main repo. It is safer this way as my version is always in a massive state of flux. I would have to put some thought into git commit descriptions and stuff like that otherwise people will end up pulling all sorts of work in progress and then wonder why everything is broken.

Richie.

[Joe]

I understand, no problem. Hopefully Doug will get it posted soon. I know it takes time and really appreciate all that is being done.

Thanks,
Joe
WD5Y

[ramdor]

Well, some progress with the new bandstack system which is based on stack filters. You can define a filter, which at the moment can contain a number of frequency ranges, a number of region based band sub filters, a number of modes and sub modes, or any combination of. All the back end stuff is done (with the exception of DB save/load). If there are no filters applied in a StackFilter then the stack will show everything you have ever stored.

The system creates band stack filters that replicate the old stacks and they are accessible in the normal way through the band buttons.

There are a good many days of development ahead, but I think it should make a nice system. For instance, a single filter for all regional bands could be created, that contained DIGU as the mode, and FT8 and FT4 as submodes. The filter can then be activated on the DIGU button. Pressing this would cycle the stack and move you through all FT8/FT4 frequencies on all bands.

Still lots to do. Hopefully I will have a vid to show the initial implementation by the end of the week and will probably be included in a build before the weekend, fingers crossed.

Some initial work on the bandstack form (filled with random junk at the moment) :

bandstack2.jpg (39.35 KiB) Viewed 17108 times

Cheers, Richie. MW0LGE

[oe3ide]

Richie, that sounds great!

btw 21c runs perfect!

One question:
Is there a way to determine if Thetis/Anan is actually using the external 10mhz reference (if connected) and show this in Thetis?
There is a thread, where people asking "how I can I see, if my anan is using the connected 10mhz reference"...
Scott has it explained in the thread (if correction factor is 1.000000, then we can be sure, that the external reference is used).
But an indication - ie. in the calibration tab - would be great.

73 de Ernst
OE3IDE

[ramdor]

Richie, that sounds great!

btw 21c runs perfect!

One question:
Is there a way to determine if Thetis/Anan is actually using the external 10mhz reference (if connected) and show this in Thetis?
There is a thread, where people asking "how I can I see, if my anan is using the connected 10mhz reference"...
Scott has it explained in the thread (if correction factor is 1.000000, then we can be sure, that the external reference is used).
But an indication - ie. in the calibration tab - would be great.

73 de Ernst
OE3IDE

Unfortunately it seems not so Ernst. Scott has been looking into it recently. The thoughts behind it are that the firmware and fpga dont care. They get a 10meg, accurate or not.

Of course, I could add a button that sets the offset to 1.0 and greys out the text box, turns a green REF on the status bar. Who is to say you are not on frequency Perhaps you are, or perhaps everyone else is not

Richie.

[ea3aqr]

Hi Richie,

Could you please add an option to auto start spotting on Thetis start up?

Thanks