audio interface stability for wsjtx/fldigi
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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