Enabling Commander's Spectrum-Waterfall Window when Controlling an Icom Transceiver

When controlling an IC-705, IC-7300, IC-7610, IC-7850, IC-7851, or IC-9700 via a direct USB connection with a baud rate of 115200, Commander can display a Spectrum-Waterfall window that displays realtime spectrum data, a waterfall display, and callsigns of active DX stations color-coded for award progress need and participation in LoTW and eQSL AG:

http://www.dxlabsuite.com/commander/Help/Spectrum-Waterfall.jpg

The functionality available in Commander's Spectrum-Waterfall window is documented here.

If your transceiver is not connected to your computer via a direct USB connection, the instructions for establishing this connection are here. Properly installed, Icom's device driver will create a virtual COM port for transceiver control.

To configure the direct USB connection for communication at 115200 baud,

  1. Open the transceiver's Menu system, and make the following changes:
    1. CI-V USB Port => Unlink from [REMOTE]

    2. CI-V USB Baud rate => 115200

  2. In the Primary CAT Serial Port panel on the Ports tab of Commander's Configuration window,

    1. set the Port# selector to the new COM port to the transceiver control COM port created by Icom's device driver

    2. set the Baud selector to 115200

After confirming that Commander can control and track your transceiver's frequency and mode,

  1. on the Configuration window's Bandspread tab, check the Spectrum-Waterfall window box in the upper-left corner; Commander's Spectrum-Waterfall window should appear

  2. in the Spectrum-Waterfall window, increase the Ref Level slider until you see a spectrum display

You can also direct Commander to display the Spectrum-Waterfall window by depressing the CTRL key while clicking the Main window's Bandspread button.

Clicking the Spectrum-Waterfall window's Spectrum Config button displays the Spectrum-Waterfall Configuration window, from which you can

The DX Spots panel on the Configuration window's Bandspread tab governs the management of duplicates, split, filtering, and lifetime, as well as Commander's behavior when your click on the callsign of a station operating in CW, Phone, or RTTY modes.

Here's the Spectrum-Waterfall window configured to use a black background in the Spectrum section with a black-to-red palette in the Waterfall section:

http://www.dxlabsuite.com/commander/Spectrum-Waterfall-Dark-Spectrum.jpg

In this example,

Allowing the mouse cursor to hover above a callsign for a few seconds will display an explanatory popup that displays the frequency, mode, UTC time, age, spotter regions and spot notes.

Clicking in the Spectrum, DX Callsign, or Waterfall sections will set set the transceiver's frequency; depressing the Alt key while clicking in the Spectrum, DX Callsign, or Waterfall sections will enable Split and set the transceiver's TX frequency. Like the transceiver's RX frequency, the TX frequency is identified by a marker in the DX Callsign section; you can select the color of the markers used to depict the RX and TX frequencies in the Colors panel on the Spectrum-Waterfall Configuration window.

Clicking a callsign will set the transceiver's frequency to that callsign's frequency and reported mode; if the station is reported to be operating split, the transceiver's split will be enabled and its TX frequency will be set to the callsign's last reported QSX frequency.

With the Digital Mode Application panel set to WinWarbler on the Configuration window's Bandspread tab and WinWarbler running, clicking the callsign of a station in the Spectrum-Waterfall window that is operating in PSK31, PSK63, PSK125, or RTTY will convey the entry's callsign, frequency, mode, and grid square to WinWarbler, which will populate its QSO Info panel with this information and direct Commander to QSY your transceiver to the appropriate frequency and mode. You can also configure Commander to convey information to WinWarbler when you click the callsign of a station operating in CW, SSB, FM, or AM, or to convey information to a digital mode application other than WinWarbler.

The Spectrum-Waterfall window's DX Rows panel lets you control the number of rows of callsigns displayed in the DX Callsign section. The presence of a + symbol in this section means that additional callsigns would be displayed if more rows were available.


Getting Started with Icom Transceiver Control

Getting Started with DXLab

SpectrumWaterfallIcom (last edited 2020-08-13 03:08:03 by AA6YQ)