Enable CAT control for WSJT-X on the (tr)uSDX on macOS

README.md

CAT Control on the (tr)uSDX for WSJT-X on macOS

This will enable CAT control on your Mac running WSJT-X with the (tr)uSDX and possibly other USDX rigs as well. WSJT-X uses Hamlib to connecto to and manage CAT on different radios. The problem (thanks to Guido PE1NNZ for identifying), is that Hamlib resets the port when it connects. This causes the radio to reset and then it's not yet available when Hamlib tries to connect. We can work around that by blocking the ability for Hamlib to reset the port. The simplest way to do that is to have the port already in use when Hamlib starts up.

I was not able to achieve that using the Hamlib built into WSJT-X. However, by installing Hamlib separately, and running it in TCP server mode (acts like a network server), I was able to get this all to work.

You need to install hamlib with brew install hamlib. If you don't have brew already, then you will need to either install it, or use a in different method for installing hamlib. Once that is installed, you should be able to run rigtctld on its own.

Running It

1. Connect the (tr)USDX to external power first
2. Connect the USB cable to the rig
3. Copy the shell script above into your path (e.g. /usr/local/bin)
4. Run chmod 755 <where you put it> to make it executable
5. Run the script with urig if it's in your path or ./urig if it's in the current directory

Once that says 'rigctld' running, you can start WSJT-X. Configure WSJT-X like the screenshot included in this gist.

urig

#!/bin/sh
PORT=`ls -tr /dev/tty.usbserial-[0-9]* | tail -1` 
if [ -z $PORT ]; then
	echo "No suitable USB serial port found"
	exit 1
else
	echo "Found USB serial port named ${PORT}"
fi

cat $PORT &
CAT_PID=$!

echo "Starting 'rigctld'"
## NOTE! Some versions of the (tr)uSDX use 115200 and you may 
## need to change this setting from 38400 -> 115200
rigctld --model=2028 --listen-addr=127.0.0.1 --port=7006 -s 38400 -r $PORT &
RIG_PID=$!

echo "Waiting for radio initialization to complete"
sleep 3

echo "Stopping 'cat' command"
kill $CAT_PID

echo "'rigctld' running"
wait $RIG_PID

Great solution. May I ask what everybody is doing for audio? Thanks!

I'm using analog audio to the Mac's headphone/microphone jack. I put some resistors in the cable to match the expected voltages better, and to mix the left and right outputs from the Mac.

(The resistors are in KΩ. You can ignore the colors, which were just for the particular cables I got on Amazon and cut up.)

I use the Loopback app to route the audio in the Mac. Though it costs as much as a (tr)uSDX! (I had Loopback for other reasons anyway.) I hear that the free/donateware Blackhole app can do the same thing.

Recent (tr)uSDX firmware can also stream audio both ways over the USB port. Though it's only 8 bits per sample streamed, whereas internally the audio is 16 bits. So I'm thinking the analog audio is higher fidelity. But I have no data there.

The M1 MacBooks don't have audio in any more, so I'd have to get some sort of interface, but thanks. Is there a way to use the audio stream from USB on macOS by now? A one-cable-solution would be great.

The M1 MacBooks don't have audio in

Are you sure? Mine does.

@fidepus @madler I just use a €3 USB sound card and modified an audio cable per (tr)uSDX docs.