Yaesu FT-991 FreedDV Remote Setup - Analog working but no TX in Digital Mode

[Warren]

I've been off air for a while but in a previous version of my remote operated ham shack I've hod things working.... But I can't seem to get back to where I was before.

The basics are:

• Yaesu ft-991 at remote location
• Raspberry Pi4 connected to radio USB and wireguard VPN
• FLRig runs on the pi for radio control
• Free dv 1.8.11 onMacOS at Home with wireguard VPN connecting to remote RPi4
• On both the Mac and the RPi I have no machine to share screens and route audio over the VPN connection.

I use SSB voice on the Mac with a couple of source/sinks setup on the pi. I route audio from the no machine mic source to the 991, and I route audio from the 991 to a dummy sink (default) routed to no machine speaker out via a loopback module.

On my Mac I use a headset or laptop speaker and mic selected in no machine and can use SSB voice without issue.

For free dv I created 2 black hole audio devices for routing on the Mac. So free dv audio is connected to a physical mic, speaker and 2 virtual audio devices that are connected to no machine.

On the 991 I use the USB inputs/outputs for audio in/out and this is all working with SSB voice.

On FreeDV I enabled Analog mode and have the USB option checked off in conjunction with VOX on the radio. This seems to work just fine so I'm thinking I have all the routing correct.

I switch to Digital mode and the TX breaks.

My RX is just fine, but with TX it's as if I get no audio modulation to the 991. Yet I get voice when I do SSB and I get a signal from FreeDV if I use the analog mode.

I used to use VOX in place of PTT and it used to work for me but now the radio never triggers TX in digital mode.

I've looked at settings over and over - not sure if something isn't right on the Mac TX audio, the forwarding of the tx audio over the link, the audio inputs on the 991 or something in the FreeDV setup.

Thanks for reading, just spit balling here to see if anybody has suggestions for something I've overlooked or a good way to pinpoint exactly where it breaks down.

[Mooneer Salem]

Hi Warren,

Try going to Tools->Options->Rig Control and enabling "Use USB/LSB instead of DIGU/DIGL". If the 991 has an option to use USB for audio if in DIGU/DIGL mode, setting that could also help. Let us know how it goes!

Thanks,

-Mooneer K6AQ

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[Warren]

Hi Mooneer - I've tried both modes again - and while I can get analog audio to pass from FDV to Radio USB (I verified hearing myself on Utah SDR) it's like the drive level to the radio is really low ... I have very little modulation in analog and have to speak very loud to get VOX to trigger. In digital mode it should trigger without audio modulation (right?) , but I don't see that happening - the modulation for the radio might have a proper path but too low on the interface to trigger VOX and modulate carrier?

Maybe I have a level problem - the paths seem intact but why only FreeDV so low ? I have no TX attenuation and if I use just voice audio (not FDV) my levels all work fine to drive the radio TX in SSB modes.  Hummm

[Mooneer Salem]

Hi Warren,

It might be worth checking pavucontrol on the Pi as well and seeing what the levels look like there. It's possible that it's forcing the levels lower than you'd expect, especially if FreeDV in analog mode is low.

Thanks,

-Mooneer K6AQ

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