I’m planning another big update soon to add longmynd and winterhill functionality, but because I’m going to be away for a while I decided to do another quick update that fixes a few bugs and also adds a better upgrade wideband chat interface. First lets talk about the little things:
Signal Report: The previous version added signal report template which turned out to be popular. By default it was showing the frequency on which the tuner was set. ie, not taking into account the offset. This has been updated to show the Freq + Offset. It takes the offset as specified in the settings dialog.
FTDI Detection: While for the most part the auto detection has been fine there has been a few isolated cases where it detected the required ports differently. As these reports come in I’m updating the auto detection code, for example Jaap (PA2JSA) had a problem where his Minitiouner-S wasn’t being detected properly despite other users working fine. Turns out Jaap’s Minitiouner-S came from a different batch where the FTDI USB identifier strings are slightly different which means that Open Tuner couldn’t detect it properly (especially when using the 2nd transport output). The code has been updated with the alternative strings, but I also added in some functionality where you can bypass the autodetection and specify which ports to use for which functionality. For example a Minitiouner variant using both transports will have 3 connections. One for the I2C communication to the NIM and two transport ports (video for each of the demodulators).
If you are having trouble connecting to your device, then checkout the hardware information windows under Actions->Hardware Info (before you try to connect) and it will show a list of detected FTDI ports.
This screen will also show the serial number of these devices and you can now specify on the command line which devices it needs to use via the serial number.
The parameter to use is MANUAL={NIM_I2C},{TS}{TS}, so in my case as above I would use:
opentuner.exe MANUAL=DA5IG4NYA,DA5IG4NYB,DA5KEFFDBThis will then skip auto detection and attempt to open the ports as specified. This should allow you to get it going even if OT can’t detect it properly. Its also a good way to use multiple versions of OT and different Minitiouners on the same PC. Just create a shortcut for each with its serial numbers using the manual parameter.
Wideband Chat overhaul: The biggest change with the new version is new wideband chat interface. Its a lot more familiar as its based on the original web based chat in terms of look and feel. Word wrapping now works properly so you don’t need to scroll to see a long message.
You can also select a nick on the left side and the text will highlight the callsign in the chat and also scroll to the last message by that person. Double clicking on a nick places the @name in the chat input for you to add your person directed at that specific person. Thanks to Chris (D3CHS) for the ideas!
Misc Bug Fixes: As I add features I run into small bugs here and there and they get fixed as we go along so there are lots of small fixes/improvements and I also added the auto tune back (right click on the spectrum). The spectrum is also smarter again so that if you only using 1 tuner then you can utilize the full display for selecting signals.
Not a big update, but this should keep everyone going for a while as I work on the next big updates 🙂
As always you can download it on the Open Tuner page. Keep the feedback coming!
73,
Tom