Setting up FT8 and WSJTX on the Xiegu G1M

I finally got a better radio, the Xiegu G1M HF transceiver

and after shouting CQ a few times I began to wonder if I was getting out and being heard. My experiences with the uSDX+ gave me a few doubts over audio and rf quality on transmit, but I hadn't seen many negative comments about the G1M.

I had tried transmitting and monitoring on my own RTL-SDR which resulted in a very compressed recording and attempts to pick up my own signal on WebSDR at Hack Green, Stoke on Trent and KiwiSDR at Leicester left me a but disillusioned. Then I remembered that people QSO using much less than 5 Watts by using FT8, and other digital modes. Time to experiment!

Firstly I needed to make up some leads, the Xiegu has seperate mic and speaker sockets and has the PTT signal on the mic and key sockets. We also need to isolate DC from the mic input. A 22-47uf capacitor will do nicely, negative pin to ground.

So one cable from Mic on the Xiegu to Spkr on the PC, top connected to tip via 22uF capacitor, sleeve connects to sleeve.

Another cable from Speaker on the Xiegu to Mic on the PC/Laptop, fully wired as normal ring, tip and sleeve.

The programming USB lead from COMM o the Xiegu to a USB port on the PC.

Find out what port it is on my plugging in and out while watching the Device Manager with Ports option open.

Next download WSJTX if you do not already have it from https://physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/k1jt/wsjtx.html
and Grid Tracker from https://gridtracker.org/downloads/
these two work seamlessly together.

Open WSJTX and click file, settings, general tab. Here are mine as a starting point.

Fill in your callsign and location (Maidenhead locator)

in the radio section fill in like this - and press Test CAT and see if it controls your transceiver (after SWRing it for the band that you wish to operate)

and in the audio section select your computers mic and speaker sockets.

Start the program and select the band on the left-hand side

Then select an audio sub band at the top of the waterfall display and make it a multiple of 50Hz.

The rest you will need to refer to the full manual by clicking F1, or for hints press F5.

To see my first attempts watch this https://youtu.be/pzjWukyLAF0

Comments

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