Highlights
VARA HF
SDROxide now speaks VARA HF, the connected-mode ARQ modem that most Winlink RMS gateways and VarAC stations run. The modem is xara, an open, MIT-licensed implementation of the VARA HF protocol by its author, built right into SDROxide - there is no separate modem program to install, no virtual audio cable and no extra PTT wiring. It works with any radio SDROxide can transmit on, SDR or sound-card rig.
Choose VARA HF from the DIGITAL row. Two stations make a link, then trade bursts and acknowledgements, and the speed climbs and falls with the path. It is always upper sideband, centred on 1500 Hz of audio, at one of three widths: 500, 2300 (what most gateways run) or 2750 Hz.
There are three ways to drive it, one at a time:
- The VARA panel: call a station and type to it, as in VarAC's chat. STATUS shows the session state (LISTENING, CALLING, CONNECTED), TX while keyed, BUSY while someone else is heard on the channel, and the peer, width, speed level and net bit rate, the far station's S/N and the bytes moved. TUNE sends a steady tone for an antenna tuner, ABORT drops a link at once.
- The MAIL window: forward Winlink mail through an RMS gateway over HF - set the route to Radio (VARA HF) and name the gateway.
- Your own software on VARA's TCP ports: turn on TCP host and SDROxide answers on 8300 (commands) and 8301 (data) the way VARA HF does, so Pat (
vara:///CALL), Winlink Express or VarAC can use this radio as their VARA modem with no change on their side. The ports listen on localhost only. While an external program holds the modem, the panel's terminal shows its commands and the modem's replies, so you can watch the session go by.
⚙ SETUP holds the station call (with optional SSID), the bandwidth, Registered (unlocks the speed levels above 4, for operators who own a VARA licence), retries, CW ID at the end of a link, the transmit latency the turnaround timing depends on (Auto picks a value for SDRs and sound-card rigs), and whether to answer incoming calls.
While VARA HF runs, SDROxide reads the receiver in small blocks so the modem hears the far end from the moment its own over ends, which an ARQ handshake depends on. The panel and setup page are translated into every language.
VARA HF support is experimental and brand new. Tests and bug reports with this mode are very welcome - links to gateways and VarAC stations, sessions driven from Pat or Winlink Express, and how it behaves on your radio. Please open an issue with the log and a description of what happened. See the manual, section 3.27, and chapter 11 for Winlink.
Window management: undocked modules, tool windows, workspaces
Parts of a radio's screen can now move into OS windows of their own, ported from madmedicnl's sdroxide-brown:
- Undocked modules (Settings > UI): the panadapter, a second spectrum (AUX SP, with its own zoom and layers), the operating panel, the control strip and the band/mode selector can each go to their own window. Whatever stays in the main window takes the space back, and closing a module's window docks it again.
- Tool windows (settings, logbook, scanner, memories, spots, satellites and more) get a ⇱ in their title bar that moves them into an OS window, and remember it.
- Floating operating panel: the panel can float over the main window, so a tiling window manager cannot lose it.
- ▣ chip: shows on the System row while something is out of the main window. Left-click brings everything home, right-click lists every module and where it is.
- Workspaces: save a window arrangement under a name and put it back later, also with
Ctrl+Alt+1…9, 0.Ctrl+Alt+Wopens the window list andCtrl+Alt+Ffloats or docks the panel. - Every window has a stable application id for compositor window rules; the manual lists them with niri and i3 examples.
Your own filter presets
Right-click a filter preset chip in the BW popup to make it your own: give it a label and its low and high edges, or take the receiver's current filter with Use current. Each mode keeps its own presets, and Reset brings back the built-in. (#761)
TCI Client follows the radio
The outbound TCI client now also listens: turning the knob on the far radio moves SDROxide's dial, with echoes of its own tuning filtered out. (#760)
Upgrading a client/server station
The remote protocol version moves from 189 to 190 (the VARA HF mode, commands and status). Update the server and every native remote client together; the browser client is served by the server and updates with it.
What's Changed
- VARA HF: new experimental mode on the vendored xara modem, with its own panel, setup page, a Winlink route in the MAIL window and a VARA-compatible TCP host on ports 8300/8301
- Window management: undocked modules, tool windows in OS windows, a floating operating panel, workspaces and window keys, ported from sdroxide-brown by @joscandreu in #766
- Window management: the window keys are not read while a text field has focus, so AltGr typing (Ctrl+Alt on Windows) no longer triggers them; tool windows remember whether they were in their own window
- Filter presets: right-click a chip to make it your own by @kingsqueak in #761
- Filter presets: an open editor holds the BW popup and closes with it; the editor is translated into every language
- TCI Client: follow the radio when it is tuned from its own side by @kingsqueak in #760
- TCI Client: a heard frequency the dial has already tuned past is dropped, and sent echoes are pruned on every send
- Audio, receive-only modes, network buffering: fixes backported from sdroxide-brown by @joscandreu in #765
- a renamed or missing sound card is reported instead of silently becoming the default
- the engine refuses to key the transmitter in a receive-only mode (WEFAX, NAVTEX, ACARS, ADS-B and others) by any route, and the TX controls are hidden there (#239)
- the web client no longer stutters on a healthy network, and HPSDR gets a receive socket sized for I/Q
- SSTV, WEFAX, Hell and RF Paint are excluded from the auto-notch, which was cancelling the picture
- zooming the panadapter out past the window no longer shakes it
- a logbook shared between tabs is kept when there is no store to re-read
- Audio device swap: an ambiguous match between two cards of the same model is refused, and a renamed card asks to be picked again
- Desktop: links in the app open in the system browser by @HDZucht in #780
- Waterfall: spot labels stack above the band-plan strip and the memory marks by @HDZucht in #781
- Full-band strip: the tuned frequency is marked in magenta, with triangles on the edges by @HDZucht in #782
- FT8: the action row (CALL CQ, STOP QSO, STOP TX) stays inside the window by @HDZucht in #788
- RTL-SDR: less CPU work converting samples, which helps on a Raspberry Pi by @0xPr0ton in #784
Bug Fixes
- SSB/CW passband: the filter length follows the bandwidth, so a narrow CW filter has narrow skirts (#758)
- Band stacks: a band left by a dial move (a digital mode's band chip, a typed frequency) is now recorded on its stack (#762)
- (tr)uSDX: key with TX0 when the audio rides the CAT link, so the host's audio goes out instead of the mic (#724)
- HPSDR: fall back to a broadcast discovery when a board ignores the directed probe (#744, #789)
- Radio tabs: ⊞ on the only pane opens a split with the next radio instead of doing nothing (#763)
- TX Audio: the pages scroll under a pinned meter strip, so the window fits the screen and can be dragged shorter (#790)
- Memories: CLEAR stays armed for five seconds instead of disarming when the pointer leaves it (#755)
Documentation
- VARA HF: a new manual section (3.27), the Winlink chapter's VARA route and the TCP host
- Window management: undocked windows, the floating panel, workspaces and window rules for tiling window managers
- Elecraft: RX SHFT is a menu entry on the KX3 itself, not a control in SDROxide and not on a K3 (#774)
New Contributors
Full Changelog: v1.6.11...v1.7.0