FreeDV reporter and messages

[rfluharty]

Thanks for letting me join the group.  New to FreeDV.  I'm running version 1.8.11 from the Debian repository.  (I was going to download the program and found out it was already installed, probably due to some hamradio metapackage I had already installed)  

Anyways, I've not been able to hear anyone on any of the frequencies, but I think audio i just fine.  I get only a garbled fraction of a second of audio here and there.  I'm thinking it' not really a signal or it's just too weak.  Been a few days messing around with no luck.

The big question I have is when I click the FreeDV Reporter menu, I'm taken directly to the website: https://freedv-reporter.k6aq.net/ I do not get any windows in the app to open up the actual reporter to post any kind of messages.

I tried to verify I was transmitting a CQ by going to https://pskreporter.info/ as was in the instructions to see if my station was even reporting.  NOTHING.  I do have "enable FreeDV Reporting" checked. 

Finally, my "Txt Mesage" line under Options is greyed out and I can't type anything into it.  Sound's like I'm missing something major OR these things are not in my particular version.  

Thanks in advance for any help.

[Rick Kunath]

The latest FreeDV release version is 2.0.1 and the development versions
are at 2.0.3 and all of those had considerable changes from the old
version that you are running. I would expect your version to not work at
all, or very poorly on RADEV1.

I don't use any distro from the Debian side of things (openSUSE
Tumbleweed here) and I did not see a newer version for Debian out there
in deb form, but there is a new appimage available on the FreeDEV web
site. If you can install an appimage that should work for you, or you
can do as I did and build from source provided Debian is at the minimum
required versions of the supporting libs you need.

Rick Kunath, K9AO

[rfluharty]

I think you're right Rick.  Shortly after posting this, I downloaded the AppImage and noticed that the message window pops up on startup, which it did not before.  Unfortunately, I'm I only have access to my shack's computer remotely, so I could do that, but my radio and power supply are off so I can't test it till tonight.  I appreciate the reply and will keep my progress posted.  

73 AB8YI

[Rick Kunath]

You should see things come alive if the appimage is working for you. The
only tips I can think of is that the sideband follows the voice
standard, so LSB 40 and down and USB above that, not like the keyboard
digital modes.

And of course you'll need another speaker or a set of headphones that
look like a soundcard like a USB headphone does so that you have another
audio path for the decoded audio. The rig audio will be on the normal PC
speaker and over to FreeDV via either a monitor of the speaker audio or
if that is not there (and you can't get it via the manufacturer's sound
card driver not the OEM driver) then a virtual audio cable connection.

Rick Kunath, K9AO