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Help › Operating

Using the console

The console is the page you operate from at https://<yourcall>.remotemyshack.com. It works on phones, tablets and computers. On a wide screen the panels sit side by side; on a phone they stack.

Status at the top

The bar at the top shows two status pills (hover over one for what it means right now):

  • Station means your console is connected to the agent at the shack. Offline means it isn't (it retries by itself), and … means it's connecting.
  • The radio pill shows Radio with the round-trip time to a network radio in milliseconds, or Radio off, Radio starting, Radio… (connecting), Radio error or No radio. With a mouse, hover over it to see the error; the console also shows it in the middle of the page.

The red SOS button next to them opens a new support ticket in a new tab, so the console keeps running while you write it (see Getting help).

Under it, badges show the radio model, the mode and filter (for example USB · FIL2, or USB-D in DATA mode), SPLIT when the radio is in split (with the transmit frequency, on radios that report it; see A second VFO, for split), and RX or TX. The ⏻ button on the right turns the radio off; see Turning the radio on and off.

If the radio is connected but something is missing, such as audio, a warning line explains it.

Layouts

The menu next to the radio's name sets how the console is laid out on this device: Panadapter for a computer or tablet, Phone for a phone. A device starts with the one that suits its screen and remembers your choice, so your phone and your laptop can use different ones. The controls are the same in every layout; only where they sit changes.

  • Panadapter: for a big screen, using its whole width. Across the top, in one panel, are the volume above the frequency and meter, the receive buttons (preamp, attenuator, AGC, NB, NR, and ATU and TUNE where the radio has a tuner) beside them, and a row of band, mode and filter buttons. Under them the scope and waterfall take the full width and the rest of the window's height. Below the scope, scroll down to tabs showing one at a time: the mode's panel (CW, RTTY, FT8, SSTV or RADE), Cluster, Log, Amp, Antennas (your antenna switches and the signal path), Rotor and Controls (RF gain, TX power, the microphone and speakers, the filter and DSP controls, and whether the scope shows the solar numbers and DX spots). Amp reads Tuner if your only one is a tuner. Only the tabs for gear you have appear, the mode's panel comes up by itself when you switch to CW or a data mode, each device remembers the tab you chose, and a red dot on Amp means an amplifier is in Operate, whichever tab is open. The waterfall fits the window until you resize it. On a narrower screen the buttons move to their own row, and below about 1,000 pixels wide everything stacks.
  • Phone: for one hand. Under the radio and scope, tabs show one thing at a time: Band (bands, modes and filters), the mode's panel or your gear, Levels, and Log. The mode's panel comes up by itself when you switch to CW or a data mode. To save room, band and mode are menus (the mode menu has LSB-D and USB-D for LSB and USB with DATA on, and FT8, shown while you're on the band's FT8 frequency), each antenna switch port is a menu of its antennas, and amplifiers and tuners show just their state and Operate/Standby buttons, without their readings; while you transmit through an amplifier in Operate, its output is on the transmit meter.

Frequency

The large display shows the frequency in MHz. There are several ways to change it:

  • Tap a digit. Tap the top half of a digit to step it up, or the bottom half to step it down. With a mouse, you can also scroll over a digit.
  • Drag the tuning strip. Drag sideways on the strip marked drag to tune, like a tuning knob. Choose the step next to it: 10 Hz, 100 Hz, 1 kHz, 5 kHz or 10 kHz. You can also scroll over it, or click it and use the arrow keys.
  • Type it. Tap ⌨ and type a frequency, then press Enter. Numbers under 100 are read as MHz (14.074), larger numbers as kHz (14074).
  • Tap the scope. See The spectrum scope and waterfall.

With a second VFO, the display splits into a VFO A half and a VFO B half, each tuned the same ways.

Band, mode and filter

  • Band buttons show the bands your radio covers, for example 160 to 6 on HF, plus 2m and 70cm on radios that have them. The first time you pick a band it tunes to a common frequency there; after that it returns to where you last were on that band during this visit. If you're in SSB, it picks LSB below 10 MHz and USB above.
  • Mode: LSB, USB, CW, CW-R, AM, FM, RTTY and FT8, plus DV (D-STAR digital voice) on radios that have it: the IC-705, IC-9700, IC-905 and IC-7100. In DV the radio uses the D-STAR settings stored in it (your callsign, UR and the repeaters); set those at the radio. Choosing a mode also tunes into that mode's part of the band if you're outside it (from the ARRL band plan): USB and LSB to the middle of the phone band, CW to the middle of the CW end, AM to the band's AM window, RTTY to where RTTY usually is, and FM to the calling frequency on 10 m, 6 m and 2 m. If you're already in that part of the band, or the band has none (60 m, phone on 30 m), the frequency stays where it is. FT8 sets everything up for FT8 in one click: the band's FT8 frequency, USB with DATA on, the widest filter and the FT8 panel. DATA turns the radio's data mode on or off for the current mode, for digital modes such as FT8. In CW and CW-R, a CW panel opens for sending and decoding; see Sending and decoding CW. In RTTY, RTTY-R and LSB with DATA, an RTTY panel opens; see Sending and decoding RTTY. In USB with DATA, an FT8 panel opens instead (Super Station plan); see Operating FT8. Buttons above the panel switch between the digital modes: FT8, FT4 and WSPR (decoded at the shack, Super Station plan; see Decoding FT4 and Decoding WSPR), RTTY, PSK (see Decoding PSK31) and, in USB, RADE.
  • Filter: FIL1, FIL2 and FIL3 select the radio's three filter settings for the mode. Where the radio reports its width, the mode badge shows it (FIL1 2.4k), and you can change it under Filter and DSP.

Levels

In the Panadapter layout, Volume is in the radio's box above the frequency, and the rest are in the Controls tab. In the Phone layout they're together under Levels.

  • Volume sets how loud the audio plays on the device you're holding. It doesn't change the radio.
  • There's no AF gain control: when the agent connects to a radio it turns the radio's own speaker down (AF gain to 0), so the shack stays quiet. The audio you hear doesn't depend on it.
  • Away from the shack, the radio's audio comes to you compressed (Opus, about 15 MB an hour), so it works well on cellular data. On the shack's own network, and while you use RADE, it comes uncompressed. Browsers too old to decode Opus get it uncompressed too.
  • RF gain is the radio's RF gain.
  • TX power sets the radio's transmit power. Receivers don't have this slider.

The radio sliders take effect when you let go.

Receive controls

Each button steps through the radio's settings:

  • P.AMP: off, 1, 2
  • ATT: off, 6 dB, 12 dB, 18 dB
  • AGC: AGC F (fast), AGC M (mid), AGC S (slow)
  • NB (noise blanker) and NR (noise reduction): on or off

A highlighted button is on.

Antenna tuner

On an Icom with an antenna tuner, built in or an external one the radio controls (such as an IC-705 with an AH-705), two more buttons appear beside them:

  • ATU puts the tuner in line (highlighted) or bypasses it.
  • TUNE does what the radio's TUNE button does: the radio transmits a carrier for a few seconds while the tuner matches the antenna, and the button shows Tuning… until it's done. Tune after changing band, or whenever the radio hears little and the tuner needs a match to receive. Like transmitting, it isn't available while someone else is on the air.

Tune with your amplifier in Standby, so the tuner matches the antenna rather than the amplifier's input. The buttons don't show for radios that don't report a tuner.

Filter and DSP

Below the levels (in the Controls tab in the Panadapter layout) are the radio's filter, DSP and RIT controls. Radios differ in which they have, so only the ones yours offers appear: an Icom is asked for each when it comes on, and the controls it answers for show. Like the other sliders, these take effect when you let go.

  • Filter width sets the width of the filter you're on (FIL1, FIL2 or FIL3), so the radio remembers it for that filter. − and + step it as the radio does: 50 Hz at a time up to 500 Hz, then 100 Hz; 200 Hz in AM. FM's filters have fixed widths, so it's hidden in FM.
  • PBT inner and PBT outer (twin passband tuning) move the filter's edges in from either side to cut a neighbor's splatter without changing the width setting. Center puts both back.
  • SHARP / SOFT switches the DSP filter's shape: sharp skirts, or a softer, more natural sound.
  • AN is the automatic notch, which takes out steady carriers. MN is the manual notch; while it's on, Notch position moves it across the passband.
  • APF, in CW, is the audio peak filter: it peaks the CW note.
  • RIT (receive incremental tuning) listens up to ±2 kHz off your transmit frequency; the slider sets the offset and Clear puts it back to zero.
  • NB level and NR level set how hard the noise blanker and noise reduction work; the NB and NR buttons above turn them on and off.
  • Squelch mutes the audio below a signal level; all the way down keeps it open.
  • COMP, for transmitting SSB, turns on the speech compressor, with its level below while it's on. Receivers don't have it.

On an Icom such as the IC-7610, IC-7300 or IC-705 all of these appear. On a FlexRadio the width, AN, APF, RIT, NB and NR levels, squelch and COMP appear; SmartSDR has no PBT, filter shape or manual notch. Kenwood, Yaesu and Elecraft radios and the Hermes Lite 2 don't have them here yet.

Meters

The meter is a segmented bar, like the bar meter on an Icom's screen: segments light up to the reading, blue and then red above S9 (or past an SWR of 2), with the scale's numbers above or below it. While receiving it shows the Signal strength in S-units, numbered 1 to 9 and then +20, +40 and +60 dB in red. While transmitting, it shows Power in watts, SWR and ALC. With a PowerGenius XL in Operate, it shows the amplifier's Output instead, with the radio's Drive beside it, and the SWR at the amplifier's output (SWR · amp), which is what the antenna presents. ALC is always the radio's.

On an Icom HF radio, Analog meter under the meter switches it to a needle meter like the multi-scale face on an IC-7610's screen. The S scale is on top (white to S9, red above), then Id (the final amplifier's current), Po (percent of full power), SWR (a hollow band from 3 to infinity), COMP in blue (speech compression), the red ALC zone, and Vd (the final amplifier's voltage). While receiving, the needle shows the signal. While transmitting, a red TX lamp lights and the needle shows the scale you pick under it (Po, SWR, ALC, COMP, Id or Vd). The MET badge at the top left names what the needle shows, with its reading. The needle swings and settles like a real meter's. COMP, Id and Vd need agent 1.0.73 or later. Bar meter switches back. Each device remembers its choice.

The bottom bar

The bar at the bottom holds the receive-audio button and Hold to talk. See Listening and transmitting.