Hi,
I’ve been using Wfview on Windows 7 for some time with an Icom R8600.
I find I cannot control the radios volume when using the LAN connection type.
The slider controls in Wfview do control the other R8600 front panel knobs and functions.
The AF slider in Wfview only controls the R8600 audio that is coming thru the computer.
I’d like to be able to control the actual radios speaker volume as I have a much better audio speaker attached to my 8600. The squelch control in Wfview does control the 8600s squelch.
If I switch the connection type to USB/Serial and set the baud to 115,000, I can then control the radios volume thru the AF slider in Wfview. But… then the waterfall display is painfully slow due to the serial connection speed limit.
Is there a way to use my R8600 with Wfview with a LAN connection and still be able to control the AF and Squelch levels in the 8600 but from Wfview?
The other finding is that Wfview appears to only operate the R8600 down to 0.135 MHz or 135kHz. Yet the R8600 does tune down to 0.010 MHz or 10kHz. I just can’t tune it below 125 kHz with Wfview.
I’m running version 2.03 of Wfview and have tried several of the test builds but no change in the above.
I’ve also tried the 64bit version of Wfview on Windows 11 but the same issues above are present in the 64 bit versions as well.
Indeed, when connected to over LAN, the AF gain slider is only for the computer. We used to offer it the other way, but it confused people so we had to implement a local computer-audio AF gain slider.
We don’t currently have a way for you to control the radio’s speaker level over LAN. If you are especially crafty, you could use the virtual serial port of wfview to insert your own CI-V commands for AF gain, but that is definitely expert-level territory. You could also override the rig file and replace one existing slider with the CI-V command for the volume. Again, far beyond the scope of what we can support!
As for the tuning range, we can look into it. I’m not sure anyone on our team tried to tune that low during testing!
Thanks for the replies everyone.
Now I know I’m not going crazy as I knew the AF slider used to control the 8600s speaker volume in earlier versions of Wfview!
I did play with the 8600.rig file but no luck getting it to allow tuning or displaying frequency below 135 kHz.
I did note while messing with Wfview, the waterfall display does appear to still track and display correctly when you use the 8600s tuning knob and tune below 135 kHz.
Steve
edit: I did manage to edit the r8600 rig file and can now use Wfview to tune down to 10 kHz.
I was editing the wrong r8600.rig file in my earlier attempts!
When connected over LAN, wfview has never controlled the local volume of the radio, you may have been connected over USB, where it does then control the local volume?
Can i ask you a question? As i know WFview works with r8600 only when USB driver is installed and radio itself is connected to a PC via USB–>MicroUSB Cable. Is that everything i need to connect to the radio?
I’ve used both methods but when using USB, the waterfall display on my computer monitor is painfully slow as it appears to operate at slow serial port speeds. Even when set to 115200 baud, the waterfall display is very slow. The spectrum scope is the same when using USB.
Control of the 8600 is reasonable with a USB connection however.
If USB is your only option, I’m pretty sure you can decrease the bandwidth of the spectrum and waterfall displays which will greatly speed up those displays realtime update.
If the waterfall and spectrum displays are important to you, you’ll want to use an ethernet connection if using a wide bandwidth for the display. They are very fast using wired ethernet.
Ethernet also allows use of the radio’s user name and password settings if access to the 8600 needs to be limited to certain users such as may be desired if accessing your 8600 over the internet. If using the serial port USB connection, usernames and passwords are not used and radio access and control is wide open to anyone with access to the radio via USB over its virtual serial port.
wfview works very well. Especially if you are looking to use wfview to display the waterfall and spectrum displays full screen on a computer monitor. I think many users may use wfview for this reason alone from the various comments in 8600 threads I’ve read on various support forums and sites. It’s a great program regardless.
I also use wfview for control much of the time I have it running with my 8600’s even though the waterfall and spectrum displays are my primary use of wfview…
My 8600’s are both connected to ethernet and USB.
Icom’s memory management software (CS-R8600) for the 8600 uses the virtual serial port over USB to upload and download radio settings and memory channel contents. Icom’s CS-R8600 software does not work over LAN.
You also need USB connections if you want to utilize the SDR features and the IQ output from the 8600. Main reason I have mine connected via both methods.
wfview is great and fun software for exploring more of what the 8600 model can do.
If you don’t need the fast speed the waterfall and spectrum displays are capable of, then USB connections have always worked fine for me when I was testing both methods.
