This is shown for the author's Icom 746 Pro. The frequency list can be manipulated with the following buttons:
- arrow, move current frequency to the list
- X, delete highlighted frequency from the list
- square, delete all frequencies from the list
The combo box on the left will allow the selection and control of the operating mode of the transceiver.
The combo box on the right will allow the selection and control of the transceiver bandwidth.
The frequency display is in fact a set of special buttons. Each digit may be left-clicked on the upper half to increment it by 1, or left-clicked on lower half to decrement it 1. The leading digits will follow suit if a decade rollover occurs. You can also place the mouse cursor on a digit and then use the mouse wheel to roll the frequency up and down.
The mode combobox, the bandwidth combobox and the frequency display also annunciate the current transceiver status. If you change operating mode on the transceiver, that will be annunciated in the respective combobox and fldigi will adjust any internal parameters accordingly. Fldigi queries the transceiver 10 times per second to maintain a lock step with the transceiver.
Hamlib versus rigCAT
Hamlib is a set of standard libraries for interfacing to a large number of transceivers. The hamlib library system consists of a front end which acts on behalf of all rigs and backends which are specific to each rig. The fldigi implementation of hamlib differs on the various OS for which it is targeted. On the Unix/Linux based systems the hamlib is a shared library which the user must have installed on his or her system. This is the standard way of handling hamlib on Unix/Linux systems. On Windows the entire hamlib library has been compiled and statically linked into the application executable. No additional dynamic link libraries are necessary. This approach simplifies the installation of fldigi on Windows platforms.The hamlib interface is the recommended way to interface to your transceiver as little additional knowledge is required on the part of the user.
If your rig is not in the hamlib pull down menu then you will have to work through creating a rig definition file for use with the rigCAT interface. RigCAT data transfers and responses are defined in a rig.xml file which contains all of the required queries and responses in extended markup language format. Please read the specification document rigxml to learn more about this new way of building generic rig interface definitions and how they are used with fldigi. fldigi will look for a file in the $HOME/.fldigi directory with the name "rig.xml" which contains the rig xml definitions for your specific transceiver. You can download the appropriate xml file from the resource directory tree http://www.w1hkj.com/xmls or from the archives web page. Modify it as necessary and then place it in the $HOME/.fldigi directory with the name "rig.xml".
If you do not have a rig with CAT, but you can control the PTT with a serial port RTS or DTR line then you can set up a rig.xml file to control that transceiver. The instructions for doing so are here.