[Ham-Mac] Fldigi Update (and a little cocoaModem info as well)

[Dino Papas]

For those Mac digital type who've already tried Fldigi and found a  
couple of issues the good news is that the guys on the Fldigi team  
are working on them.  For those of you who haven't you should give it  
a try.  See:

http://www.w1hkj.com/

(1) Screen resize limitation.  The ability to resize the display pane  
was severely limited in the Mac V3.03 distribution (you could only  
resize the display slightly and then only in the horizontal  
direction).  Stelios, M0GLD who has been one of my points of contact  
on the team, has found the bug and it will be corrected in V3.04  
(thanks Stelios!).

(2) PTT toggle with some microHAM interfaces.  Fldigi PTT keying  
works fine with the older uHAM USB II interface, but does not  
function with their newer DigiKeyer or microKeyer series.  Frankly  
that's not a big deal since all you really have to do is put your  
radio in the VOX mode and it toggles just fine.  However, Stelios  
told me that he will look at that to see if there's anything that can  
be done to create that capability.   According to Joe W4TV at uHam  
the issue boils down to the following:

"Fldigi expects rigid UART compatibility.  DigiKeyer is a  
microprocessor and would require that Fldigi had a driver to provide  
the proper low level command."

(3) I found that Fldigi would crash repeatedly on my G4 MDD with OS  
10.4.11 when put into the DominoEX 5/11/22 and Thor 5/11/22 modes,  
but others could not duplicate the issue; other modes worked ok.   
With help from Stelios and Mike N4ZNV, another member of the team, we  
discovered that changing one configuration setting in the sound card  
"converter" selection solved the problem for me.  I changed the  
converter setting from the default "Linear Interpolator" to "Fastest  
Sinc Interpolator" and all was well.  Both Stelios and Mike figured  
that out pretty quickly after I sent them some crash reports and  
their knowledge of the mathematical interrelations amongst the  
crashing modes.

Would also like to put a plug in for the microHAM interfaces....I  
just upgraded mine from the USB II to the Digikeyer and it's really  
nice not to have all those audio and switching lines running around  
the shack.  The DK has a built-in sound card and gets all its audio  
in/out from the single cable that goes to the ACCY2 socket on the  
back of my TS-940S.  One of the other advantages of the external  
sound card is that it frees up your system to use the computer  
speakers AND you cannot send any of the computer system sounds out  
along with your audio tones.  Obviously there are other manufacturers  
of these units but I've found microHAM to be VERY responsive and  
helpful with various technical issues (well done Joe W4TV).

Finally, for us cocoaModem users, Chen W7AY has a couple of utilities  
that allow using the DK and microKeyer interfaces with his great  
multi-decoder.  His micro Router utility establishes the connectivity  
between cocoaModem and my DK and allows you to use the FSK mode on  
your radio if you desire to do so (thanks Chen!).  Chen's other  
utility allows you to update the firmware on the DK and microKeyers  
as wel.

Sorry for the long note but hopefully my trials and tribulations can  
help others avoid any frustrations with these two great programs and  
the great uHAM interfaces.

73 -- Dino KL0S