Hello, I’m new with wfview and have a question about the standard 5 minutes PTT timer.
How can I deactivate the timer?
Reason is that I want to stream our weekly local HAM Podcast to the repeater. This should be done without interruption. The setup: VLC - VB audio cable - wfview (Windows 10)- LAN - IC 9700.
a 2nd question: what are the best settings for this kind of broadcast on the IOC 9700.
thx fer ur support 73 QTH Vienna
Hi Max,
You have a good question! In the US, we are not allowed more than 3 minutes continuous (even if we’re doing some kind of allowed “broadcast” we have to “let it drop” every 3 minutes), so I had not really considered how to disable it. Plus it was very handy in the beginning when I first started working on wfview and things could actually get stuck (not so much an issue anymore).
I will add a setting and checkbox for this next time I am working on the code. If you are at all into coding, we just need to comment out the pttTimer->start(); calls in wfmain.cpp, of which there are only two. This reminds me… you can bypass the PTT timer if you connect in via the rigctld emulated server using a program like flrig. I don’t think we run any timers on remote PTT commands. See here for how to use rigctld. We didn’t address flrig on that page but the setup is almost the same. You could also fire up a command-line rigctl client and manually run the PTT command. It would be something like this:
rigctl -r localhost:4533 --ptt-type=RIG
Command is “T” and then a “1” or a “0”. I have not tried this in a while so you may have to experiment a bit.
Best settings? 16 bit, 44.1khz (or 48 khz, which ever sample rate best matches your audio setup and virtual cables), LPCM 16 bit. Then I would put some time into checking the audio levels. Make sure the TX Latency slider is high enough to avoid any dropouts, plus a bit extra margin (+10%). VLC is a good choice for playback because you can use the audio compressor and other tools to really optimize the audio for radio transmission.
–E
de W6EL
Dear Elliott,
thx for the feedback and your great work. I’m aware about the restrictions as I also holt an US extra licence (AJ6UP). In Europe we are allowed to “broadcast” regular HAM oriented podcasts. I German called “Rundspruch”.
I will experiment with your hints and let you know how it works. I have to addmit that my best years in coding are gone. I volunteered to take over the HF streaming to the Repeater and never thought it would be an issue to take an audio stream and send it to the 9700 
vy. 73 de max OE3MTA / AJ6UB
Hi Max,
I just realized that, at least my version of flrig doesn’t support rigctl connections. So you would need to use some other program like grig or the command-line rigctl.
73,
–E
de W6EL
Do I understand you right: I use wfview for the streaming and instead of activation PTT with wfview I sent the PTT command with grig?
Hi Max,
Yes. I believe the correct way to launch grig is this:
grig --rig-file 127.0.0.1:4533 -m2 -p
However… PTT didn’t work when I did this just now. We might have a bug, or, maybe it works for you?
Let me know.
–E
Also, don’t forget to check the “Enable RigCtld” checkbox. This turns on the rig control server in wfview.
Hi Elliott,
I’ll test it over the WE and let you know on the outcome
thx agn de Max
for a start - be sure the TOT is in the rig setup also off
Hi Elliott,
Thx again for your support and your high-quality product. As mentioned, I did some tests and honestly, I failed. I’m sure it’s on my side. In the meantime, I played a lot with the SW and I’m now a great fan of wfview. 80% of my online time I’m now remote.
In your 1st response you mentioned that in future versions you could add a switch to disable the timer. This would be an excellent feature.
thx again
vy 73 Max, OE3MTA / AJ6UB