Operating Controls & Displays


The main display for fldigi is the waterfall display shown above in color and in scale x1.  The above display shows fldigi configured by invoking the following command line switches:

fldigi  -bg2 black -fg white -bg grey40 --toggle-check-buttons --twoscopes --wfall-height 150 --wfall-width 3000 --font sans:12

The colors are set to the default on the colors-fonts dialog.

You don't have to remember all of those switch settings every time you start fldigi.  Just enter them on the Command Line, Launcher tab for the desktop icon properties (Gnome desktop).

Or from Windows XP on the Target Line, of the Shortcut tab for the properties dialog associated with the fldigi desktop icon.

The Id? button toggles between normal decoding and RSID decoding.  The button Wtr toggles the display between a waterfall and a spectrum display.  Holding the shift key down and pressing this button will change the waterfall display to an oscilloscope display of the received audio signal.  Let the mouse cursor hover over any one of the controls and a small hint box will open to help you navigate the various controls.  The Norm button controls the speed of the waterfall drop.  Three speeds are available, SLOW, NORM and FAST.  The load on the cpu will be directly proportional to this selection.  If your cpu is slow you might want to select the SLOW option for the waterfall.

The scale control (X1, X2, X4) expands or contracts the view into the fast fourier transform that is displayed on the waterfall or the FFT display.  fldigi always computes the FFT to a 1 Hz resolution, and displays the results according to the scale control.

X1 scale X2 scale X4 scale

The next three controls are positional conrols for the waterfall.  The waterfall can display 4096 data points, where each one can be thought of as a spectral line at the equivalent Hertz.  The ratio is actually 8000/8192 and is related to the ratio of sound card sampling rate to Fast Fourier Transform length.  This ratio changes for some modems that require a sampling rate other than 8000 Hz.  The left arrow key will shift the display to the right (displays a lower section of the spectrum).  The right arrow key moves the display higher in frequency.  These two buttons are repeating buttons.  Hold them down and the display slews at about 20 shifts / sec.  The center button with the two vertical block lines is a "center the signal" button.  The current cursor (red signal cursor in the waterfall) will be centered in the display area.

Try moving the cursor around in the waterfall area.  You will see a set of yellow cursor blocks that show the center point and bandwidth of the current operating mode (psk31 = 31.25 Hz for example).  To capture a received signal just click near the signal and the AFC will perform a multi-step acquisition.  This will be very fast and should not require additional operator intervention.  Casual tuning  You can take a look at any received signal on the waterfall by right-clicking and holding the mouse button on or near the signal.  The modem will begin to decode that signal if it is in the currently selected mode.  The text will be a unique color on the Rx text widget so that you can discern the difference between casual and normal tracking.  Release the mouse button and the tracking returns to the previously selected normal tracking point.

Audio History Fldigi maintains a history buffer of the received audio.  This buffer is approximately 2 minutes in duration.  After tracking commences on a signal you can decode the audio history for that signal.  The audio history is invoked by a Ctrl-Left click anywhere on the waterfall.  You can also invoke the audio history for the casual tuning mode by pressing Ctrl-Right click on the waterfall.

The next control is your transceive audio frequency.  In the display above you can see that the audio signal is 1679 Hz.  The red cursor is centered beneath 14071.679 Mhz.  The transceiver was set to 14070 Mhz.  The arrow key pairs move up/down in cycles and tens of cycles.  You can fine tune the receive point using this control.

The next two controls to the right of the audio frequency control are for the receive signal processing.  The one that reads -10 is the max signal level for the waterfall/spectrum display.  The one that reads 51 is for the range over which that control will display signals.  Both of these are in dB.  The default of -10 / 40 is a good starting point, but you need to adjust these for band conditions.  You can see the impact of these controls most easily by putting the main display area in the spectrum mode.  Changes in these controls will effect the waterfall instantly and for all past history displayed on the waterfall.  You do not have to wait for new signal data to observe the effect.

The QSY button is very specific to rigs interfaced with either hamlib or the memory mapped i/o.  Each rig has a sweet spot associated with its bandwidth controller.  For the Argonaut V this is 1100 Hz.  For the the Kachina it is 1000 Hz.  As the transceivers bandwidth is changed the changes occur centered at this frequency.  So ....  let's say that I just started copying a rare dx at 1758 Hz and I wanted to put the signal at the sweet spot so I could easily narrow the receiver bandwidth.  Click on the signal on the waterfall.  Let the AFC capture and then press the QSY button.  The tranceiver frequency will be shifted and the fldigi audio tracking point shifted in unison such that the signal is now at the receivers sweet spot.  Very fast and very convenient!  If you do not have hamlib enabled for your transceiver this button will be dimmed and not activated.

The M> button allows you to store, recall and manage mode/frequency pairs.  If you want to save the current mode and frequency simply left click the button.  A right click will enable a popup menu from which you can select a previously stored set.  You can quickly move between modes and audio sub carrier using this technique.  A shift-left click will clear the memory.  When the popup menu is visible you left click on an entry to select it.  You can shift-left click on an entry to delete that single entry.

The T/R button should be self-explanatory.  It's your transmit/receive button.  Action is immediate, so if you were transmiting some text and hit the button the PTT is disabled, the transmit text area cleared and the program returned to receive mode.  The T/R button is a "lighted button" that shows RED when transmitting.  All other lighted buttons show YELLOW when they are in the active state.

The Lck button locks the transmit audio frequency to its present value.  You can then continue to QSY around your transmit position.  I have used this to reply to a DX station that wanted a +500 Hz  response.  The DX was at 690 Hz audio, and wanted a response at +500.  I moved the display cursor (or the audio frequency control) to 1190 Hz.  Hit the Lck button and then went back to 690 with the waterfall cursor.  Now the program is receiving on 690 Hz and transmitting on 1190 Hz.  Caught him on the first try.  Use this button also as a Master Station control.  Not all rigs are equal in their VFO performance.  Some exhibit a shift between receive and transmit.  If this occurs then the stations find themselves chasing each other with every t/r exchange.  Locking your transmit frequency with this control will inhibit that from happening.  Be sure to disable the control when that qso is over or you may forget and transmit over top of another qso!

If the "Lck" is enabled the TX frequency does not follow the AFC action applied to the RX frequency.

For transceivers which are either hamlib or memmap enabled, if the "Qsy" button is pressed BOTH the RX and TX frequencies are changed to synchronize to where the RX was positioned.

Perhaps some numbers will help to make that a little clearer.

"Lck"
 Before "Qsy"
After "Qsy"

RX
 TX
 RX
 TX
OFF
 1002 / 7071.002
 1002 / 7071.002
 1500 / 7071.002
 1500 / 7071.002
ON
 1002 / 7071.002
 1000 / 7071.000
 1500 / 7071.002
 1500 / 7071.002
ON
 1000 / 7071.000
 1800 / 7071.800
 1500 / 7071.000
 1500 / 7071.000

With "Lck" off the TX audio frequency is always synchronized with the RX frequency.

With "Lck" on the TX audio frequency is fixed with respect to the RX frequency UNLESS the "Qsy" button is pressed in which case it shifts to the RX frequency, the Transceiver VFO is shifted and both the RX and TX audio frequencies are shifted to put both into the middle of the transceiver passband.  The TX continues to be locked, but at the new audio frequency.

If the "Lck" is ON moving the cursor around will ONLY EFFECT the RX frequency and NOT the TX frequency.

The AFC and SQL buttons enable or disable the respective function in the software.  The slider just above the AFC & SQL controls is the squelch level control.  The bar indicator just above it is the equivalent of received signal level and relates on a 1:1 basis with the squelch level slider.

The indicator just to the left of the AFC button is the overload indicator.  It will flash red if your audio drive to sound card is marginally too high and turn red when it is in overload.  Back down the mixer control or the audio pad from the rig to computer.  Fldigi will not perform well if the sound card is over driven.  You will see ghost signals on the waterfall and the modem decoders will not work correctly.

Qso data


or

if you are not using hamlib or memmap rig control
If you are not using a Hamlib or memmap rig control interface
Clear button - clears the QSO fields and resets the time field to the current GMT.
Save button - sends the QSO info the Xlog compatible logging programs.  This includes the author's logging program, fl_logbook.  The QSO end time will be filled in as the GMT when the Save button was pressed.
QRZ button - executes a query to either a local QRZ cdrom, the www.QRZ.com web site, or the hamcall.net website.  If available, data is filled in for the Name, Qth, Loc and Notes fields.

Rx / Tx text pop up menus

Receive Text - a scrollable text viewer that shows incoming text in black and transmitted text in red.  Right clicking in the text area brings up the popup menu shown at the left.

If the cursor was pointed to the call then you can select Call for putting the data in the QSO box for Callsign.  The same for Name, Qth, Locator and RSTin.  This works on only a single word.

Look up call will enter the call into the correct data widget and also initiate the QRZ query.

Clear will clear the entire receive text area and reset the scrollbar.   Insert divider will add a line that looks like this:

<<======= 2008-06-25 16:52:21 -0500 ========>>

This can be used to separate transmit from receive or when copying several different signals and you are saving them to the log.

Word wrap can be enabled (default) for both the transmit and receive edit windows.
Transmit Text - a scrollable text editor that contains the text for transmission.  Entered text appears black on white.  As the text is transmitted it changes from black to red and is also echoed in the receive text area.  At the end of transmission (either by control macro or by the T/R button) the area is cleared of all text.

Pressing the right mouse button while the cursor is in this area brings up the popup menu shown at the left.

Clear button clears the entire transmit text box, but does not disable the PTT.
Append file button opens a file selection dialog.  You can select a file to transmit.  This file should be a plain text file.  The file contents are not expanded as a macro definition.
Transmit  - immediately enables the PTT
Send image - used only in MFSK 16/31/32/64 modes, this starts the image transfer process.
Paste - paste the contents of the system cut & paste buffer into the text at the current cursor position.
Receive - inserts the macro ^r end of text at the end of the transmit string.  When the transmit point moves to this two-character combination it will disable the PTT and return fldigi to the receive mode.

Macro Buttons



Each button has been defined by the "macros.mdf" file that was read at program start or by menu selection.  Click a button or press its function key (CQ = f1 in the above example) while the cursor is in the Transmit Text box and the contents of that macro will be expanded and added to the transmit text string.

The "Alt" button displays the alternate macro set of which there are 4 for a total of 48 macros in all.  Macros can be edited from within fldigi.

Contents Rig Control