Just came back for a periodic checkup on progress. Last time I was here I remember having a question about the CW Sender, and now I see it’s a thing of beauty. Everything works as expected. I do have a suggestion or two but I’ll put them in a separate message.
I see in the Roadmap you are planning on adding Audio Processing and Additional radio controls. I have an IC-7300. Do these roadmap items have to do with the 7300’s Noise Blanker, DSP denoiser and Notch filter? They seem to be the only significant missing controls.
Anyway, things are looking REALLY good! Good enough that I can seriously think about setting aside the rig control software I’ve been using till now!
It’s our intent to slowly provide more and more controls for things the radio does, such as DSP NR and other features you mentioned. There is a lot of work happening on this front right now which will make adding new commands easier. This is the “Additional radio controls” part of the roadmap. There’s so many controls, and we’ve tried to focus wfview on the most important ones first.
The roadmap item (“Audio Processing”) refers to audio processing on the computer (EQ, compression, noise gate). We have tested this idea and just need time to write the proper implementation and user interface. It is more complicated than I thought it would be, but it’ll be worth it.
In the four years I have operated my remote 7300 with Win4Icom suite I have never used the noise blanker or notch filter. I use the DSP denoiser sometimes, mostly in CW. Thr trouble with all of these features is that the sliders are all too small and too (I’m thinking of the right word)…granular? Tiny movements of the slider result in huge changes at the radio, especially when adjust filter width for CW. For example, changing the CW filter from 350 Hz to 200 is almost impossible. The mouse wheel doesn’t work on all sliders and seems to depend on which computer I use at this end.
It’s VERY interesting to hear you will be expanding features by adding them to wfview instead of providing access to them on the radio. I understand some of them are not accessible remotely so providing them in the software is very welcome!
Personally, I do not understand why the Icom radios do not have more advanced audio controls. Ham radio deserves more than “bass and treble” knobs like some 1970s stereo – and this is what Icom has put in their top flagship radios. I’d prefer an EQ with an adjustable band or two in the midrange, where the most audio actually is! I also like a tweakable compressor where I can set the threshold and ratio separately. And I also like a good noise gate at the front sometimes. It all depends, but I do like to adjust it and try and get a very clear sound, both for receive and transmit. Part of that is my audio background, but also, I really detest poor audio on the air. We’ve only got a few KHz, let’s make it nice, you know? If you’ve ever heard that one guy in the pileup with crisp, clear audio, then you know.
A while back when I had a block of time to do it, I did add audio plugins to wfview. But I was quite dissatisfied with the interface and configuration options. So we put that on the shelf for a while. Meanwhile, now we have a much better audio back end, thanks to Phil’s efforts, and I am really looking forward to putting some time into it.
I’ve been planning it for a long time, but really, until I can get some good focused time on it and do it right, I don’t want to put it out there.
Anyway, hang in there and we will get there eventually .
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