TX Troubleshooting Checklist
You should be able to transmit using remote audio or DAX. Here are some things to check if it doesn't seem like it's working:
In Radio Settings (click gear icon in lower right, choose Radio Setup):
- Scroll down to the TX Misc card and ensure the Show TX in Waterfall switch is enabled, which will make it very plain to see whether you're getting any signal going out (even if it's too small to register on the RF Power meter).
Keying up with just room noise should produce very visible output if your mic is working. This is what "silence" looks like:
Remote audio is strongly recommended for any phone modes. Verify the following:
In Audio Settings (click gear icon in lower right, choose Audio Settings):
- Remote Audio switch is enabled
- RX Only switch is disabled
- Correct Input Device is selected
- Auto Gain Control switch is recommended to be enabled if available. This is a browser feature, not a radio feature.
- Enable other available features as needed (echo cancellation, noise suppression, etc), again these are browser features, not radio features.
At this point, if you speak or send some signal to your input device, you should see activity on the level meter in the settings dialog, confirming that your input device is working and the audio is making it into SolidSDR.
In the Radio Sidebar, P/CW section:
- AF Input Source is set to PC
- DAX switch is disabled
- TX Monitor switch is disabled (should always be disabled when AF Input Source is PC)
Then adjust AF Input Level, speech processor, VOX, etc as needed.
DAX is only recommended for digital modes. Verify the following:
In DAX Settings (click gear icon in lower right, choose DAX Settings):
- DAX TX switch is enabled
- Correct Input Device is selected
- Correct Channel is selected (more on this below)
- Reduced Bandwidth switch should always be enabled
- All browser features (auto gain control, echo cancellation, noise suppression, voice isolation) are recommended to be disabled for DAX operation, especially when operating digital modes.
At this point, if you can send some audio signal to the selected DAX input device, you should see activity on the level meter in the settings dialog, confirming that your input device is working and the audio is making it into SolidSDR.
In the Radio Sidebar, P/CW section:
- AF Input Source is set to PC
- DAX switch is enabled
- TX Monitor switch is disabled (should always be disabled when AF Input Source is PC)
This is in reference to the Channel drop-downs in the DAX Settings dialog, not the DAX channel number.
If you are using some type of virtual audio cable device to get audio to and from another application, like WSJT-X, some implementations use the same device for both input and output. This generally works ok, but internal buffering (in the virtual audio device) can result in retransmitting the tail of the received signal when switching to TX, which is obviously not desirable. Many apps like WSJT-X allow you to select only the left or right channel specifically for TX or RX, and SolidSDR does as well so you can effectively treat the left and right channels as separate devices, avoiding that brief TX overlap. If things don't seem to be working, make sure the channel selections are correct (as in set the same in SolidSDR and whatever other app), it's easy to mix them up.