Even when 'nothing has changed' your antenna connections might be loose, or corroded,or worn in some other way. I see signals on the waterfall that start strong and fade away, and often wonder if those rigs (or power supplies, or antenna tuners, or other parts of the system) can'tĬheck for RFI. Your QSO partner will read you at -12 instead of -10, butĬheck your antenna VSWR, see if output power is consistent during your transmissions. Back off by a couple dB on your transmit audio, yes your output power drops a lot, no it doesn't make a huge difference in decoding, and can eliminate all sorts of overmodulation problems. Make sure your microphone's not inadvertentlyĪctive. Make sure your computer's not sending other audio to the 'radio' sound card. Set all your filters as wide as possible, disable all audio processing. Make sure your Tx and Rx audio chains are properly set up. To get that carried away, but don't be afraid to move around if you've transmitted on one frequency 3-4 times and it's not working.
I wrote some Python code to go through the last couple of minutes of ALL.TXT and see what frequencies are actually in use, as separate from what's visible on the waterfall. Not on their frequency, as their Rx passband may not be very wide. Set Split Operation to "Rig" or "Fake It" so that you are always transmitting in the middle of your passband, set all your filters as wide as possible, and try for a clear spot in the passband near but Try different Tx (audio) frequencies in the passband. Make sure "Hold Tx Frequency" is checked so you (along with everyone else) don't move to your QSO partner's Tx frequency. Your transmit frequency is experiencing QRM on their side. Your time is off enough that they aren't decoding you reliably. Try working strong stations first to get some confidence in your setup. While I can _hear_ stations down to about -24, I can only reliably _work_ stations down to about -15.
You could be chasing stations too far away, with marginal or fading signals. Thisīehavior I have never experienced with earlier versions of the WSJT-X program, in the same computer (for the last two years or so) and all other equipment the same for many years (since the start of the program WSJT, before the WSJT-X was introduced).Īnd I think I saw another user reporting the same «receiving freeze» problem on this forum after the release of the Version 2.5.0-rc1. I have found no other cure to this problematic behavior than to close and restart the WSJT-X program, and then it works perfectly again for another ~24 hours or so. When the WSJT-X decoding suddenly stops).
The FT8 reception «freezes» in my Windows-10/64-bit PC about once a day, for no obvious reason.ĭecoding stops, and the left vertical LF strength bar shows suddenly nothing (zero dB), even if the band is active with strong FT8 signals, and the PC clock is correct, and the Icom IC-756PRO3 transceiver’s reception is working OK (and has not been transmitting
But with the newest rc1 (for Windows 10/64bit) Have had WSJT-X running continuously (often with FT8), and without any problems for weeks, with no interruptions. This helps a lot under such circumstances.Īnother problem, related to the newest Release Candidate 1 (rc1) of Version 2.5.0 of the WSJT-X program, is that it tends to «freeze» the reception once a day for me. In these situations I reload the web site «time.is» every minute to check the PC’s clock, and I press «Sync now» (or «Syncronize now») on the TimeSync program, if necessary. Strong 50 MHz signal is obviously playing tricks with my PC’s clock in a very strong RF field.
This may of course also happen on other bands as well, if the RF field is strong enough.Īnd especially if the PC is a plastic covered lap-top PC, like mine.Īll cables entering the PC and the transceiver are made from shielded cable twinned around ferrite rings and/or ferrite clamps in each end of all cables. I am using Icom IC-756PRO3 with WSJT-X (now using Version 2.5.0-rc1) without any important problems with the WSJT-X (but see one problem reported below).īut I have discovered on 6 meters, with 1 kW power from a PA to a 7 element Yagi antenna, when pointing the antenna in the direction to the shack, my strong transmittedĥ0 MHz signal is affecting my PC’s clock! Then I may experience that I will not be able to get answers from other stations, because my PC’s clock gets out of calibration.