IO Board with LDG tuners Thetis timeout

[Claude]

Hello everyone,

I found the issue in Thetis why it drops at about 8s while automatic tuning is running more than 8s, the problem is not in my modified io board code but really in Thetis.

I tested my theory in modifying the very scary Thetis code (console.cs), applied my fix, recompiled and it works, I have a patch version 2.10.3.14 that has the timeout tuner fix if you ever need it, you just need to replace the thetis.exe file.

I've report this problem to MI0BOT and we should have a fix on the next release of Thetis as he did confirm the timeout issue with my findings.

The issue was that LDG Pro II series tuners might need up to 20s to resolve a antenna match (even though the manual state from 0.2s to 15s), Thetis did drop the RF at about 8s regardless of the tuner state. RF drops, tuner abort tuning.

I've posted the Thetis code fix in the issue here : https://github.com/mi0bot/OpenHPSDR-Thetis/issues/127#issuecomment-4541235079

Now I'm working on trying to find a way to run the automatic tuning FROM the TUNE button on the tuner itself (no need to use CTRL + TUN on Thetis), but it is still not working yet, I've tried many hours to enable this feature.

Thanks !

[Reid Campbell]

Hi Claude,

I had a quick look at your GitHub site and noticed that you state the Alt Rx antenna is not supported by Thetis, it is.

Tick Setup | General | Ant/Filter | Antenna | Antenna Control | RX1 for any band which the Alt antenna supports. You can then switch between antennas with the Rx Ant/Tx Ant button below the VFO sync and VFO lock buttons on the main console.

Cheers

Reid
Mi0BOT 

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[Claude]

Oh my god ! I did not know !!! Well, I guess I'll be able to remove that part of the code on my pico code I suppose !!!

I noticed with the method in Thetis, when the transision from TX to RX, it seems to switch for a brief moment to the standard antenna port and then switch back to the ALT RX port.

With my code on the io board, it always stays on ALT RX and the routing transition from TX to RX is handled by the io board which also route the PS and ALT RX ports, there is no "hickup". Maybe I'm doing it wrong ?

But thanks for the tip, I never knew that was implemented in Thetis !!

Maybe for the HL2 version replace RX1 by ALT RX ? Very neat that you can setup the ports per band, my way with the io board is all the bands or not.

Claude VA2CST

[Reid Campbell]

Hi Claude,

On 29/05/2026 08:04, Claude wrote:

Oh my god ! I did not know !!! Well, I guess I'll be able to remove that part of the code on my pico code I suppose !!!

I noticed with the method in Thetis, when the transision from TX to RX, it seems to switch for a brief moment to the standard antenna port and then switch back to the ALT RX port.

With my code on the io board, it always stays on ALT RX and the routing transition from TX to RX is handled by the io board which also route the PS and ALT RX ports, there is no "hickup". Maybe I'm doing it wrong ?

Possibly. The reason for the "double click" is related to the Rx/Tx change over relay preforming an isolating function with the Alt Rx. When the I/O Board switches across to the Alt Rx, it is putting the Alt Rx path in parallel with the normal Rx signal path. The change over relay has to be tripped to isolate the original signal coming from the transmit antenna.

In fact, if it was all working in harmony, there would be no clicking of the change over relay, as it is already in the Tx position.  Then somebody would claim it wasn't working right, as there was no click :-)

But thanks for the tip, I never knew that was implemented in Thetis !!

Maybe for the HL2 version replace RX1 by ALT RX ? Very neat that you can setup the ports per band, my way with the io board is all the bands or not.

I have plans for that page so will change the name to make the connection stronger.

Cheers

Reid
MI0BOT

Claude VA2CST

Le jeudi 28 mai 2026 à 17 h 05 min 49 s UTC-4, Reid Campbell a écrit :

Hi Claude,

I had a quick look at your GitHub site and noticed that you state the Alt Rx antenna is not supported by Thetis, it is.

Tick Setup | General | Ant/Filter | Antenna | Antenna Control | RX1 for any band which the Alt antenna supports. You can then switch between antennas with the Rx Ant/Tx Ant button below the VFO sync and VFO lock buttons on the main console.

Cheers

Reid
Mi0BOT 

On 28/05/2026 04:20, Claude wrote:

Hello everyone,

I found the issue in Thetis why it drops at about 8s while automatic tuning is running more than 8s, the problem is not in my modified io board code but really in Thetis.

I tested my theory in modifying the very scary Thetis code (console.cs), applied my fix, recompiled and it works, I have a patch version 2.10.3.14 that has the timeout tuner fix if you ever need it, you just need to replace the thetis.exe file.

I've report this problem to MI0BOT and we should have a fix on the next release of Thetis as he did confirm the timeout issue with my findings.

The issue was that LDG Pro II series tuners might need up to 20s to resolve a antenna match (even though the manual state from 0.2s to 15s), Thetis did drop the RF at about 8s regardless of the tuner state. RF drops, tuner abort tuning.

I've posted the Thetis code fix in the issue here : https://github.com/mi0bot/OpenHPSDR-Thetis/issues/127#issuecomment-4541235079

Now I'm working on trying to find a way to run the automatic tuning FROM the TUNE button on the tuner itself (no need to use CTRL + TUN on Thetis), but it is still not working yet, I've tried many hours to enable this feature.

Thanks !

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[Claude]

Hi Reid,

Thank you for the explanation, that makes sense!

Interestingly, the firmware I wrote for the IO Board to control ALT RX via J8 In5 does not produce this double-click "glitch". The reason is that the Pico detects the TX/RX changeover directly by reading GPIO13_EXTTR in hardware, without going through Thetis and the network. The switching happens within ~1ms of the EXTTR signal changing, which is fast enough to avoid the relay bouncing back to mode 0 before switching to mode 2.

So while Thetis has to go through the network → HL2 → I2C → Pico chain (introducing a few milliseconds of latency), the Pico can react to EXTTR directly and switch the RF path cleanly in one step.

This might be worth considering if a cleaner ALT RX switching implementation is ever planned in a future version, we could even use unused registers 200-255 just to command to activate or deactivate the ALT RX depending on the band selection in Thetis, the handling of the switching will be done by the pico very fast... just ideas !

Claude