Ham radio digital modes (FT8 with JTDX / WSJT-X)
Toumal runs JTDX and GridTracker on a CM4 uConsole with a Xiegu X6100 — one USB cable carries CAT and audio; N4C3R took the same idea to Field Day with WSJT-X.
What it takes
- Software only
- Purchase required
Difficulty 1 of 3 — easy.
Details
Digital modes need nothing exotic: JTDX or WSJT-X plus GridTracker, and a transceiver that puts a sound card and CAT control on one USB cable — Toumal's X6100 works that way with no extra interface, though he warns a later Xiegu firmware broke CAT control and points at the R1CBU alternative firmware. Screen space is the limit at 1280 × 720; N4C3R ran the waterfall on the console and the main WSJT-X window on a portable HDMI monitor, with GridTracker on another machine over UDP. Several readers ordered a uConsole off the strength of this thread.
For radios without a built-in interface, yaghini's HAM HAT and SwiftyTheFox001's RigCon (Expansion entries) provide the audio and rig-control path inside the case; an RTL-SDR only receives.
Links
Open at Forum threadRelated mods
Run a Meshtastic node on the console itself: meshtasticd drives the AIO's SX1262 over SPI, with the graphical MUI, the web UI or the Contact TUI client on top.
On Rex's images a single apt install gives you SDR++ for the AIO's RTL-SDR or a USB dongle; his AIO package adds the sdrpp-brown fork.
Rex's ClockworkPi-RetroPie image (Pi-Gen, EmulationStation, RetroArch) is the working answer; the Debian install and gamepad threads fill in the rest.
jutleys booted a prepared Windows 95 disk image in RetroArch's DOSBox-X core with working mouse buttons; plain DOSBox on the A-06 needs output=opengl to behave.
Two receivers, two recipes: the 4G card's GNSS via AT+CGPS on /dev/ttyUSB3, or the AIO's GPS on the serial port (/dev/ttyS0 CM4, /dev/ttyAMA0 CM5) at 9600 baud.
The AIO's PCF85063A keeps time off-grid once the right overlay is in config.txt — and on a CM5 the built-in fake RTC has to be switched off first.