• audio interface stability for wsjtx/fldigi

    From Drew Arnett@21:1/5 to All on Fri Nov 10 03:40:02 2023
    Hi,

    I'm a big fan of using debian stable. Shortly after bookworm 12
    stable release, I updated a laptop and tried wsjtx and fldigi. Laptop
    has built in audio, but prefer to use a second sound device for
    software modems and am using a Behringer UCA202 USB sound interface.

    IIRC, I couldn't use pulse for the settings in wsjtx, but the longest
    form name for the alsa device worked. But the setting didn't 'stick'.
    Sorry, didn't take notes at the time. IIRC, needed to reconfigure the
    settings or some such thing which seemed like the sort of thing that
    shouldn't be necessary.

    So, returned this week to look at this again and take careful notes.
    Using the same 2nd sound device the Behringer UCA202. To simplify a
    bit, used a desktop instead of the laptop. Booted
    Debian live, specifically: debian-live-12.2.0-amd64-xfce.iso.
    apt-get install wsjtx fldigi

    I set wsjtx input and output to pulse. That worked for input, as I
    could set the wsjtx recording stream in puavcontrol to the USB device.
    No stream showed up in puavcontrol from wsjtx (turned on tune to
    force). Nice that pulse worked I suppose for input, but not for
    output.

    Setting both to the long form alsa device string in wsjtx worked:
    * alsa_input.usb-Burr-Brown_from_TI_USB_Audio_CODEC-00.analog-stereo-input
    (Not found)
    * alsa_output.usb-Burr-Brown_from_TI_USB_Audio_CODEC-00.analog-stereo-output (Not found)

    I could then use puavcontrol recording and playback tabs to set wsjtx
    stream to the usb device.

    The name of the stream in puavcontrol isn't very useful:
    'QtPulseAudio:10932: QtmPUlseStream-10923-140632395886544 from'. I
    wonder if wsjtx can have the Qt library identify this stream with a
    more useful label?

    Seem to get good levels with my transceiver with the puavcontrol mix
    set to 0 dB (default) for wsjtx input and to -20 dB (not default,
    important later) or so for wsjtx output.

    I stopped and restarted wsjtx. I unplugged and plugged in the USB
    sound device. Failed to get anything weird to happen.

    I fired up fldigi. Just setting it to pulseaudio was adequate. The
    stream name in puavcontrol wasn't great, really no name at all, but it
    did show the icon (!) for fldigi. Nice. Was able to configure
    appropriately and works fine.

    Went back to wsjtx and was fine.

    Wasn't able to get it to act up.

    Waited almost 24 hours and fired up wsjtx again. No luck. In fact,
    didn't see the usb device as a choice, but did see the "monitor"
    version of it which does not work.

    Fooled around. Eventually found that:
    pulseaudio --kill
    rm -Rf $HOME/.config/pulse
    pulseaudio --start

    got things working. But I had to reselect the alsa device in wsjtx.
    And had to set things again in puavcontrol including the non-default
    audio level for output. And there's more. Now when I exit wsjtx and
    restart it, the stream in puavcontrol recording is the 'monitor'
    device.

    This sounds weird enough to perhaps be the behavior I saw a few months
    back shortly after the 12.0 stable release. I haven't gone to the
    laptop now (with an upgrade to 12.2) and see how it behaves, but
    probably will soon.

    Things shouldn't behave this way I assume.

    I think pulseaudio is installed by default for most debian desktops?
    Without installing/removing packages, can I just ignore pulseaudio to
    setup and use wsjtx/fldigi/quisk et al?

    I'd be surprised if I'm the only one to see weirdness like this.

    Related to this? https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1023047

    Looks like involvement includes: wsjtx, qt, pulse, alsa, usb stack at
    the least, and I haven't looked in those directions, yet, for
    information or help.

    Thoughts?

    More than happy to trouble shoot, try a different sound device,
    provide info, demo via zoom type session, etc. I see value in having
    debian stable with current GA wsjtx and fldigi etc as a binary
    distribution that is straightforward for someone to setup and use, so
    I'll commit some hours of my own time to help.

    Thanks and best regards,

    Drew
    n7da

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  • From Christoph Berg@21:1/5 to All on Fri Nov 10 11:30:01 2023
    Re: Drew Arnett
    The name of the stream in puavcontrol isn't very useful:
    'QtPulseAudio:10932: QtmPUlseStream-10923-140632395886544 from'. I
    wonder if wsjtx can have the Qt library identify this stream with a
    more useful label?

    I was looking into this some time ago. It looks like Qt simply has no
    way to set the name of the output stream.

    I think pulseaudio is installed by default for most debian desktops?

    It should have been replaced by pipewire in the default setup now.
    Afaict things just continue to work normally, including using
    pavucontrol to configure which app plays on which device.

    Without installing/removing packages, can I just ignore pulseaudio to
    setup and use wsjtx/fldigi/quisk et al?

    It just works for me, and I do have a lot of audio devices on the
    shack computer.

    Christoph

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  • From Alan Crosswell@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Fri Nov 10 12:00:01 2023
    Did you try `alsactl store` to save your changed alsamixer settings?

    On Fri, Nov 10, 2023 at 5:26 AM Christoph Berg <[email protected]> wrote:

    Re: Drew Arnett
    The name of the stream in puavcontrol isn't very useful: 'QtPulseAudio:10932: QtmPUlseStream-10923-140632395886544 from'. I
    wonder if wsjtx can have the Qt library identify this stream with a
    more useful label?

    I was looking into this some time ago. It looks like Qt simply has no
    way to set the name of the output stream.

    I think pulseaudio is installed by default for most debian desktops?

    It should have been replaced by pipewire in the default setup now.
    Afaict things just continue to work normally, including using
    pavucontrol to configure which app plays on which device.

    Without installing/removing packages, can I just ignore pulseaudio to
    setup and use wsjtx/fldigi/quisk et al?

    It just works for me, and I do have a lot of audio devices on the
    shack computer.

    Christoph



    <div dir="auto">Did you try `alsactl store` to save your changed alsamixer settings?</div><div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Nov 10, 2023 at 5:26 AM Christoph Berg &lt;<a href="mailto:[email protected]">myon@
    debian.org</a>&gt; wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204)">Re: Drew Arnett<br>
    &gt; The name of the stream in puavcontrol isn&#39;t very useful:<br>
    &gt; &#39;QtPulseAudio:10932: QtmPUlseStream-10923-140632395886544 from&#39;.  I<br>
    &gt; wonder if wsjtx can have the Qt library identify this stream with a<br> &gt; more useful label?<br>

    I was looking into this some time ago. It looks like Qt simply has no<br>
    way to set the name of the output stream.<br>

    &gt; I think pulseaudio is installed by default for most debian desktops?<br>

    It should have been replaced by pipewire in the default setup now.<br>
    Afaict things just continue to work normally, including using<br>
    pavucontrol to configure which app plays on which device.<br>

    &gt; Without installing/removing packages, can I just ignore pulseaudio to<br> &gt; setup and use wsjtx/fldigi/quisk et al?<br>

    It just works for me, and I do have a lot of audio devices on the<br>
    shack computer.<br>

    Christoph<br>

    </blockquote></div></div>

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  • From Drew Arnett@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Fri Nov 10 16:40:01 2023
    I hadn't bothered using that, yet, as it was easy enough to remember
    to set the mix to 0 for RX and -30 for TX. :-) Actually jotted on a
    cheat sheet. Several transceiver settings changes between normal
    operation, soundcard modes, and transverters, so notes was starting to
    be useful. :-) But yeah, I'll definitely look at using that feature
    to save/restore settings; sounds like a nice process simplification.

    Thanks!

    On Fri, Nov 10, 2023 at 10:50 AM Alan Crosswell <[email protected]> wrote:

    Did you try `alsactl store` to save your changed alsamixer settings?

    On Fri, Nov 10, 2023 at 5:26 AM Christoph Berg <[email protected]> wrote:

    Re: Drew Arnett
    The name of the stream in puavcontrol isn't very useful:
    'QtPulseAudio:10932: QtmPUlseStream-10923-140632395886544 from'. I
    wonder if wsjtx can have the Qt library identify this stream with a
    more useful label?

    I was looking into this some time ago. It looks like Qt simply has no
    way to set the name of the output stream.

    I think pulseaudio is installed by default for most debian desktops?

    It should have been replaced by pipewire in the default setup now.
    Afaict things just continue to work normally, including using
    pavucontrol to configure which app plays on which device.

    Without installing/removing packages, can I just ignore pulseaudio to
    setup and use wsjtx/fldigi/quisk et al?

    It just works for me, and I do have a lot of audio devices on the
    shack computer.

    Christoph


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  • From Drew Arnett@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Fri Nov 10 16:40:01 2023
    Ah, let me read up on pipewire. Thanks!

    On Fri, Nov 10, 2023 at 10:25 AM Christoph Berg <[email protected]> wrote:

    Re: Drew Arnett
    The name of the stream in puavcontrol isn't very useful: 'QtPulseAudio:10932: QtmPUlseStream-10923-140632395886544 from'. I
    wonder if wsjtx can have the Qt library identify this stream with a
    more useful label?

    I was looking into this some time ago. It looks like Qt simply has no
    way to set the name of the output stream.

    I think pulseaudio is installed by default for most debian desktops?

    It should have been replaced by pipewire in the default setup now.
    Afaict things just continue to work normally, including using
    pavucontrol to configure which app plays on which device.

    Without installing/removing packages, can I just ignore pulseaudio to
    setup and use wsjtx/fldigi/quisk et al?

    It just works for me, and I do have a lot of audio devices on the
    shack computer.

    Christoph

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