QRP Labs QDX Manuel utilisateur
QDX
QDX: QRP Labs Digital Xcvr (transceiver)
Operating manual, firmware 1. 4
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Contents
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1. Introduction
The QDX is a high performance, four-band 5W Digital modes transceiver with CAT control and
built-in SB sound card. QRP Labs presents QDX, a digital transceiver with a ratio of performance
to price not available until now.
•Four band 80, 40, 30 and 20m; 5 W from 9 – 10V supply
•Clean single signal output (zero residual carrier, zero unwanted sideband)
•Solid state PIN-diode switched Low Pass Filters and solid state Band Pass Filters
•Solid state transmit/receive switching
•High performance embedded-SDR SSB receiver using 110dB 24-bit stereo ADC chip
•Built-in SB sound card: 48ksps 24-bit stereo
•Built in SB Virtual COM port serial for CAT control
•Si5351A Synthesized local oscillator with better than 0.001Hz resolution and high precision
25MHz TCXO reference as standard
•Built-in signal generator
•Built-in suite of configuration and analysis tools
•Lifetime free firmware upgrades with QRP Labs Firmware pdate (QF ) bootloader for
easy firmware update on any OS with no extra software, or drivers, or programming
hardware
•All SMD components pre-installed by factory, only through-hole component soldering by the
kit constructor
•Receive current: 100mA; Transmit current 1.0 – 1.1A (9V supply, 5W output)
•Only three connectors: SB (audio and serial for CAT), Power and RF
•Optional smart aluminium extruded enclosure measuring just 89 x 63 x 25mm
No test equipment is required to build, align and operate this digi modes transceiver. There are no
alignment tasks.
Assembly of the transceiver is covered in a separate document, along with design details
(theoretical explanation) and performance measurements.
This document describes operation of QDX, and applies to the firmware version specified. This
manual will get you started with QDX and your WSJT-X or other digi modes software in minutes.
PLEASE READ THE BASIC ASSEMBLY AND USE INSTRUCTIONS IN
THIS MANUAL VERY CAREFULLY BEFORE APPLYING POWER TO
THE BOARD!
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2 Operating instructions
Operation of the QDX transceiver is really simple. There are only three connections:
1. DC Power: use a regulated well-
smoothed DC supply of not more
than 12V; it should be capable of up
to 1A current supply. The connector
is a 2.1mm barrel type (outside
diameter 5.5mm).
2. RF: a standard BNC connector to
your antenna system
3. SB: SB type B connector (a
standard SB type A to B cable is
required) for Audio and CAT control.
Drivers
No additional drivers are required for operation with most Linux distributions, Apple Mac or MS
Windows 10.
For older versions of MS Windows, it may be necessary to install a driver for the serial port
because this driver is not on your computer already by default. This driver is available from the ST
Semiconductor website at https://www.st.com/en/development-tools/stsw-stm32102.html and is
applicable to 98SE, 2000, XP, Vista®, 7, and 8.x Operating Systems. There is a description for
installation on Windows 7/8 on the QRP Labs QLG2 page http://qrp-labs.com/qlg2 so if in doubt,
please check this.
Linux special note
On Linux systems, a particular problem can occur. When the QDX Virtual COM (Serial) connection
is detected, the PC thinks that a modem has been connected and starts trying to send it Hayes
AT-commands dating back to 1981, implemented on Hayes’ 300-baud modem. Yes! 40 years
ago…
The Operating System attempting to send AT commands to your QDX will certainly mess
everything up. Not least because when QDX receives a carriage return character, it will enter
Terminal Applications mode; this will send all sorts of characters back to the PC (as QDX thinks it
is now talking to a terminal emulator) and it will disable CAT command processing, so your PC digi
modes software will not be able to talk to QDX. Disaster.
To fix this you need to issue the following commands to disable ModemManager:
sudo systemctl stop ModemManager
sudo systemctl disable ModemManager
sudo systemctl mask ModemManager
This will permanently stop ModemManager. If for some reason, you actually DO need
ModemManager operational, for some other reason… well there IS a way to stop it just for QDX…
but Google will be your elmer on this!
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WSJT-X configuration
Next it is necessary to set up WSJT-X to communicate with QDX. We will use WSJT-X as the
example, because it will be what most people are using. But other software will be identical (for
example JS8Call) or similar. There are two parts to the set-up – firstly to choose the right SB
Sound card, and secondly to set up the CAT communication so that WSJT-X can control the QDX
via the serial comm port.
Open the WSJT-X settings window (from the File menu) and select the Audio tab. Select “QRP
Labs QDX Transceiver” as the input and output sound card. The below screenshot shows how it
looks on my system, which is Linux (Xubuntu 18.04). It will look different on Windows, Mac and
perhaps other Linux distros but the basic idea will be the same… you should see something in the
drop-down which says something about QDX, and that’s the sound card to select.
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Next click the “Radio” tab in the settings window, which sets up the CAT control communication.
The following four settings need to be changed, and are illustrated in the diagram below:
•Rig will be set to None by default, click the drop down and choose “Kenwood TS-440”
which should work well with QDX. On some other software, if you find that TS-440 is not
present in the list or does not work properly, you could try “Kenwood TS-480”. More details
about CAT and debugging any CAT problems are in another section of this manual, where
the CAT test terminal screen is described.
•The Serial Port drop-down must be set to the correct port where QDX is connected. On my
Linux system it is either “/dev/ttyACM0 or /dev/ttyACM1. On Windows systems it will be a
COM port numbered COM1, COM2 etc. nfortunately unlike the SB Sound, the serial port
name doesn’t contain the text “QDX”. If you are unsure which port to choose for QDX, the
easy way to find this is as follows. nplug QDX. Restart WSJT-X. Look in Settings -> Radio
and make a note of the list of serial devices. None of these are QDX (because you
unplugged it). Now close WSJT-X, plug in QDX, start WSJT-X and again look in Settings ->
Radio, and now you should see a newcomer in the list of available ports. The newcomer is
QDX!
•Note that none of the Serial Port Parameters need to be changed, leave them all at their
defaults. Even the baud rate 9600 is unimportant because it is irrelevant to the SB Virtual
COM Port which is a virtual port over SB, not a real physical serial port.
•Change the Poll Interval to 10 seconds, the default will be rather chatty with QDX which
probably is not a problem, but anyway I feel more comfortable with the less frequent polling.
QDX has no capability to alter its operating frequency for example by itself, it can only do so
at the command of WSJT-X over CAT; therefore the polling is actually redundant anyway.
•Change PTT Method from the default “VOX” to “CAT”. VOX means “voice operated
exchange” or “voice activated transmission”; the radio will automatically switch to transmit,
when incoming audio is detected. With PTT Method set to CAT, when WSJT-X wishes to
start a transmission, it will send an actual CAT command to QDX informing it to start the
transmission, before sending the audio. This CAT command causes QDX to switch from
Receive mode to Transmit mode (and back again afterwards). “CAT” is preferable to “VOX”
because if system sounds are accidentally routed to your “QDX” sound card as output, then
with VOX that will enable the QDX transmitter and try to transmit the sound.
•Now click the “Test CAT” button and after a few seconds, it should turn Green to indicate
successful communication with QDX.
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NOTE 1: If you are using other software than WSJT-X or JS8Call, then QDX CAT commands
should still work with this software. If you encounter difficulties then it is possible that your software
is trying to communicate with QDX using CAT commands that are not supported by QDX. In the
section of this manual on the CAT Test utility (in the QDX Terminal applications), you will find a
listing of the CAT commands supported by QDX. Another useful utility is the log file, which will let
you record all CAT commands received and investigate any issues. If CAT commands are missing
for your application, QRP Labs can add support for them easily.
NOTE 2: As mentioned above, CAT control of transmit/receive switching is recommended. If you
INSIST on using VOX, QDX can support that. For example, you may be using a software
application which does not support CAT control of transmit/receive switching and can only use
VOX. In that case you should change the QDX transmit/receive switching mode from CAT to VOX
in the QDX terminal Configuration utility, which is described in the terminal applications section of
this manual.
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NOTE 3: The Data Bits, Stop Bits, Handshake should not need to be changed; however several
users have reported that changing them to the settings shown in the orange box has resolved
some issues with CAT reliability on Windows Operating Systems.
WSJT-X “Pwr” Slider
The only other point to note is that WSJT-X should be operated with the power slider at the
maximum setting. This point is discussed further in the QDX design section which explains that
best accuracy in determining the audio tone frequency being sent by the PC, is when the Pwr is at
the maximum setting. There is no point to using any setting other than maximum, because QDX
only ever transmits at full power (5W), there is no way for it to transmit at a lower power output
under command of WSJT-X. If you wanted a lower power output, you would need to use a lower
supply voltage. Furthermore, QDX cannot be “over-driven” by too high volume, in the way that a
SSB transceiver could.
Therefore the “Maximum” setting for the Pwr slider is highly recommended, it is the optimum
setting for QDX operation.
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QDX Status LED
The front panel of QDX contains a 3mm red Status LED. The operation of this LED is as follows:
•Quick flashing (flickering) for first 5 seconds after power up: if you disconnect power now,
then next time you power up, QDX will be in firmware update mode. During this five
seconds QDX is also operating normally in Receive mode. After five seconds, the LED will
go to a steady on (lit) state.
•Slow flashing: QDX is in firmware update mode (refer to the Firmware pdate procedure
section of this manual). If you did not wish to be in firmware update mode and have entered
firmware update mode inadvertently, simply power down QDX and re-apply power; QDX
will now be in normal operating mode again (quick flashing for the first five seconds, see
above).
•Steady LED on state: QDX is in normal Receive mode operation
•LED flashes 3 times in quick succession, repeating every 1 second: QDX is in normal
Transmit mode operation
•LED flashes 2 times in quick succession, repeating every 1 second: the PC host software
application is sending audio to QDX, and QDX is detecting and measuring the incoming
audio, however the volume is too low (refer to Troubleshooting section, below).
•LED flashes 1 time in quick succession, repeating every 1 second: the PC host software
application has activated PTT but the QDX is not detecting any audio signal from the PC
(refer to Troubleshooting section, below).
Operate!
Once CAT is configured and working, and the QDX sound card is chosen, just operate WSJT-X as
you would normally! You can choose the desired band 80m, 40m, 30m or 20m from the WSJT-X
screen and WSJT-X will communicate with QDX via CAT, to cause QDX to switch in the correct
filters.
This QDX manual is not the place to include tutorials on various digi mode operation or particular
application software such as WSJT-X, such guides are readily available and written very much
more thoroughly than I could hope to achieve!
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3 Firmware Update procedure
On occasion QRP Labs may make available updated firmware for QDX, in order to deliver bug
fixes or functionality enhancements.
QDX contains a new firmware update procedure for STM32-series microcontrollers, called QF
(QRP Labs Firmware Update) which provides the following features:
•Easy – anyone can do the firmware update
•No additional hardware required: only a standard SB A-B cable (or micro- SB cable if
you have installed a micro- SB connector)
•No additional software required: just the standard file manager application that is already
available on any PC
•No drivers: no special drivers need to be installed, the existing drivers on any modern PC
operating system are used
•Works on any PC Operating System: and in the same way: Windows, Linux, Mac
•Secure: firmware files are published on the QRP Labs website and are encrypted using
256-bit AES encryption technology
Entering bootloader (firmware update) mode:
QDX provides two possible ways to enter firmware update mode:
1) On powering up QDX, you will see the QDX status LED flickers quickly for 5 seconds after
power up, then illuminates solidly. If you power down QDX during this 5 seconds, then apply
power again, QDX will now boot up in QF (Firmware pdate) mode.
2) Select the “ pdate firmware” menu option in the QDX Terminal (see subsequent section of
this manual). QDX will then enter firmware update mode.
In firmware update mode, the status LED flashes slowly.
Exiting bootloader (firmware update) mode:
QDX provides two possible ways to exit firmware update mode:
1) pdate the firmware! After updating the firmware, QDX will automatically reboot in normal
operating mode.
2) Power down QDX, and re-apply the power again. QDX will reboot in normal operating mode.
USB Flash memory stick emulation:
In the firmware update mode, the QDX pretends to be a SB Flash memory stick, having a
4MByte capacity and implementing a FAT16 file system. This virtual “Flash stick” contains two
files:
the firmware program file of the QDX microcontroller. You may read the file from QDX, or
write a new one, just by dragging files in your file manager application.
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2
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