apache-labs.com

ramdor wrote:PA gain profiles anyone?

R.

Oh my goodness, yes!

In fact, if this could be something akin to the DDUtil "autodrive" feature that would be truly wonderful.

http://k5fr.com/DDUtilV3wiki/index.php?title=AutoDrive

At its most basic, autodrive will set the drive level whenever it detects a band change. This overrides any bandstack drive levels.

I find this absolutely indispensable and merrily switch bands with abandon. I also use the "expert" feature which allows an offset for AM and digital modes.

The only thing that would make this better is if 60M was not omitted, and if there was a similar "autodrive" column for tune power. For those of us with autotuners sometimes you need a little more or a little less on a band by band basis.

Richie,

That would work for me as well however, a simple "right click" on power slider and lock it and turn red that was persistent would work as well.

Thank you for your hard work.

73's
Mike WA3O

dittos... I quite literally have a slider on my midi that I'm always bumping and knocking off my correct input power to amp. I could use a lock/unlock for that slider. like a safety on a gun, hi.

PA Gain profiles, brilliant enhancement idea. Id like to take advantage of the moment to advertise my favorite feature request:
Display->RX1(RX2) Spectrum Grid AUTO MIN. set. (Automatically set the Min Spectrum Grid to a variable value above the bottom of the Spectrum Display window.)

Jeff
NJ2US

PA gain profiles would be awesome Richie. Especially useful for those of us with amps that have very different drive requirements.

Jeff, the auto setting for min spectrum grid value to float a specified distance from the bottom of the display window would be an excellent operating enhancement.

73, Rob W1AEX

Linked to PA gain profiles idea:

It would be great to have the ability to limit PA output (per band or across all bands). This is to avoid accidental overdrive of solid state amps which (like mine) require less than 10W to drive. On many occasions I forget to reset the drive level after using 50W or 100W (no amp) and then have keyed the amp and have to rely on the amp's overdrive protection. The protection is usually effective but I have lost a couple of LDMOS devices when it hasn't worked!


73 Dave G3ZQH

Richie- many thanks for all the unbelievable improvements in Thetis. The new auto gain and noise floor displays are just amazing. I now use then all the time.

Returning to the topic of an audio difference between AM and SSB when monitoring an AM station (this earlier item: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=3861&start=90#p166360) ...

Apparently, if you check "Fade Leveler" in the DSP->AM/SAM tab, the difference in audio level disappears. I don't know why that is but the result is exactly what's needed. I will have a look at the code because I'd like to understand the effect.

W2PA wrote:Returning to the topic of an audio difference between AM and SSB when monitoring an AM station (this earlier item: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=3861&start=90#p166360) ...

Apparently, if you check "Fade Leveler" in the DSP->AM/SAM tab, the difference in audio level disappears. I don't know why that is but the result is exactly what's needed. I will have a look at the code because I'd like to understand the effect.

Are you sure, Chris? It makes no difference for me whether the fade leveler is on or off. Note that the default is on, AFAIK.

I've observed that enabling NR2 will remove any difference in audio level between SSB and AM/SAM (actually, I run NR2 as a matter of habit so I never hear any difference between SSB and AM anyway).

Mark

Hi Ramdor,

I really appreciate your great works to enhance Thetis.

Is your update below for the TUNE STEP by mode?
[done_21j]30) Step size stored against mode

I've just updated Thetis 2.8.11 original to 21k7. I'm not able to have TUNE STEP by mode.

73,
Tokio
JA1CCA

jeffreydoran wrote:PA Gain profiles, brilliant enhancement idea. Id like to take advantage of the moment to advertise my favorite feature request:
Display->RX1(RX2) Spectrum Grid AUTO MIN. set. (Automatically set the Min Spectrum Grid to a variable value above the bottom of the Spectrum Display window.)

Jeff I also think that would be a brilliant idea. Can't see any point in looking at 20dB of blank below the noise floor. Pulling the whole spectrum data line down to near the bottom of the panel would leave more space above for meaningful data, and would make the display look more consistent from one band to the next.

Richie's developments are a breath of fresh air after the stagnant environment of Flex not-so-smart-SDR

73 Steve G1XOW

Hi Ramdor,

I've found Recover Tune Step Option in Misc of Option-1.
It works fine.

Thank you again.

73,
Tokio

w-u-2-o wrote:Are you sure, Chris? It makes no difference for me whether the fade leveler is on or off. Note that the default is on, AFAIK.

Yes - quite surprising. Mine was off. I was led to this by comparing settings with John, W1JA, who was not noticing the difference in audio level. Sure enough, I checked the box and the difference was gone.

If you’re not seeing this, then perhaps there’s yet another setting that affects it.

A bit more on this on closer observation.

I tried it again this morning and observed something different. With Fade Leveler on, switching from LSB into AM, the difference *initially* is much less, not entirely gone (close enough that it seemed equal last time with a quicker listen). Then, over a period of several seconds in AM mode, the audio gradually decreases as before. Awfully puzzling.

Chris,

The answer is found in the WDSP Guide, page 31:

For both AM and SAM demodulation, there is an option to "level" the carrier in situations of carrier fading. This is accomplished by stripping out the varying carrier and replacing it with a stable carrier. This feature is deactivated/activated with the following call.

void SetRXAAMDFadeLevel (int channel, int levelfade)
channel: number of the receiver channel being accessed
levelfade: 0 = OFF; 1 = ON
[default = 1]

Since there is always a carrier, one way or another, there will be the same carrier effects on AGC.

Yes, I saw that too, Scott. But since the same behavior - different audio levels on SSB vs AM - happens whether it's switched in or out, I'm still puzzled.

The carrier's effect on AGC action is understandable and seems correct. But when I similarly switch between AM and SSB on an analog rig (my FT-1000D, for example) I see no such effect - in fact, audio is louder on AM.

I'm convinced this is an AGC thing, especially since playing with filter edges has such a dramatic effect (as in original post).

Chris--no need to be "convinced", it IS an AGC thing. This was asked and answered nearly a month ago:

w-u-2-o wrote:I did some research on the AGC issue. I can report that it is working as originally intended, nothing is broken. The AGC responds to the full signal, including carrier. Long ago in the development of the WDSP library there was an attempt to have it respond to audio for AM, much as has been suggested here. The AM operators at that time quickly responded that the quieting due to the carrier was missing and they found that quite annoying. Thus the implementation remained as it is today.

In consultation with Warren, this is not something that can be or should be changed at the ALC level. And, as also posted a month ago, it should be possible to merely add a 6dB boost in the audio chain when in AM/SAM. Again, you could potentially petition Richie for such an option.

Yes I read it. I was hoping for a solution more to the point than compensating with gain. I actually tried doing that in the code myself and it works fine as an easy fix. Simply apply the 6db when coming into AM/SAM and remove when coming out.

However, not everyone sees this behavior and fixing it that way would break things in the opposite sense for them. So, I continue to wonder why some see it and some don't.

Who claims they don't see it? It should be the same for all. If they can't hear it tell them to put a meter on it

Yeah, it's pretty strange, but W1JA, with whom I've been comparing settings to try to chase this down, doesn't hear the effect (but was hearing it months ago, and dating back to the PowerSDR times). In fact, now he reports sometimes hearing the opposite effect (louder on AM modes). So we'll continue to poke at and compare settings.

If anyone else reading this forum similarly doesn't see the effect, please chime in.

Of course if there are some who don't hear the effect, enabling the audio boost in AM could be made a settings choice. The wonders of SDR - (almost) anything's possible.

Start a separate topic for this, please, Chris.

post #1 updated to this point.

R.

Would it be difficult to make the low cut audio filter work on AM for both RX and TX? Something tells me this may just be how SDR AM works.

For RX on SSB we can adjust the high and low ends of the filter, but only the high end can be adjusted for AM.

A friend recently discovered the low cut filter does nothing for AM transmit. He injected a 200 hz tone, set the low cut filter well above 200 hz and it had no effect. It works as expected on SSB.

73

Hi, why not use the Equalizer? IMHO the low filters (for RX and TX) are sharp enough.

AG5CK wrote:Would it be difficult to make the low cut audio filter work on AM for both RX and TX?

The filter you speak of is not an audio filter. It is an IF passband filter. While this has the happy accident of working as an audio filter for SSB modulated signals, since an AM signal has a DC (carrier) component by definition, the passband filter needs to include that in order to demodulation AM.

The only true RX AF filtering in Thetis is the RX EQ. Unfortunately it does not provide the sort of "brick wall" filtering you are probably seeking.

PD3LK wrote:Hi, why not use the Equalizer? IMHO the low filters (for RX and TX) are sharp enough.

The eq works good enough. I was curious about the mechanics of it. Thanks.

w-u-2-o wrote:

AG5CK wrote:Would it be difficult to make the low cut audio filter work on AM for both RX and TX?

The filter you speak of is not an audio filter. It is an IF passband filter. While this has the happy accident of working as an audio filter for SSB modulated signals, since an AM signal has a DC (carrier) component by definition, the passband filter needs to include that in order to demodulation AM.

The only true RX AF filtering in Thetis is the RX EQ. Unfortunately it does not provide the sort of "brick wall" filtering you are probably seeking.

That makes sense. Thanks for the explanation.

I can't count the number of times I adjusted the filter when band conditions were poor and never realized it didn't do anything. Fortunately my audio chain has a quick and easy low cut adjustment.

73

NC3Z wrote:I think Scott made a wish list item to have Macros on the GUI so you can do what ever you want. I use a StreamDeck and I have a Split button that does all that via CAT commands, set Split, turn on MultiRX, set 2nd freq up 5KHz, etc. Works pretty slick.

I have written a small tool (windows) which toggles split. On "split on" it sets vfob 5khz above vfoa and activates MultiRX,TX FL and split.
On "split off" it disables MultiRX, TX FL and split.
Its a simple exe with an ini-file (for comport and baudrate). Each call of the exe toggles split.

If someone needs this small tool, please let me know



73 Ernst

Rich,

The sync'ed up/down shift/dragging of the spectrum for RX1 and RX2 is very nice, but it always locks both receivers to the same db level as soon as dragging begins. IMO that's not a good thing, because odds are that the receivers are on different antennas with different receive signal strengths between them (my RX1 is on a tuned dipole and RX2 is on an active mag loop). Once I get both receivers set to optimum spectrum displays I'd like to be able to sync-drag them while maintaining the preset "delta" between them.

I hope I explained that satisfactorily.

Thanks for everything,

Mark

Richie,

This isn't high priority but may be easy to implement and would enhance panadapter use.

For certain zoom levels, including the one I mostly use which is roughly 180-200 kHz wide, the frequency grid lines are 4kHz apart - an awkward size for quickly seeing a signal's frequency. There is a wide variety of zoom settings that result in 4.

It would be useful if the display tried to keep the frequency grid line spacing something more immediately readable, like 1, 2, 5, 10, etc., as zoom levels change.

Also not a high priority, but I'd like to see sticky values for Reference Source of the Phasing Control.

Thanks for consideration.