Connecting your Radio

There are a few options in order to interface your iPhone/iPad with your transceiver. Please select the one that is best suitable to your needs:

1. No interface: put your phone next to your radio's speaker and mic and use the phone's builtin speaker and microphone. This requires a VOX capable radio and a quiet environment (and nerves of steel).

2. Build a custom cable between your phone's phone jack and your transceiver. Make sure to have 2k2 resistor between mic input and ground on the phone side to make your phone believe it is connected to a headset. This requires a VOX capable radio.

3. Use a digital mode interface like a DigiLink Nano, Signalink or other and a suitable cable or adapter (e.g. Apple Lightning USB 3 camera adapter, or a USB-C to mini/micro-USB cable for iPads with USB-C connector). Make sure the power requirements can be met by your iPhone or iPad.

Depending on your interface, this will or will not require a VOX capable radio.

Connecting your Radio

Settings

When starting iFTx for the first time, you will be guided to the settings view automatically. Please enter your callsign and Maidenhead locator, otherwise you will not be able to send out messages. The other settings are explained in the following:

Log Information

Band, Contest and Power are used for logging contacts only. Please make sure these are set correctly as the log cannot be edited later.

Max number of transmissions per state

This is used to automatically timeout a contact if no further reply is received from your QSO partner. Usually, the defaults settings are fine.

Skip reply message

Instead of sending a reply to a CQ message, a reply message is sent. This will make QSOs faster but your peer will not receive your Maidenhead locator.

Use RR73 instead RRR

This shortens the signing and will lead to faster QSOs. As this is supported by most or all FT4/FT8 software, this should usually be enabled.

Click on Save to save your settings and return back to the main view.

Main View

The main view is where (most) of the magic happens. Usually, you enter it in the listen mode and will see all received messages. Clicking on a CQ message will start a QSO with the caller (see below). CQ messages are marked with a green or red background, green meaning that this caller is not yet in your log on the current band and mode. Red means worked-before on the current band and mode.

Mode indication (top left). Clicking onto this indicator toggles between FT4 and FT8 (if you are in-midst a contact, this contact will be aborted!)

Waterfall settings - see below for details.

Log view, shows all logged contacts and allows to export the log - see below for details.

Show settings view - see above for details.

Operating the app and running contacts is controlled over the action control below the waterfall view:

Listen: Decodes all received messages. Tapping on a CQ or Reply message will transfer you into Exchange Mode and start a contact.

Reply: Will only display received CQ and Reply messages. Tapping on one of these will transfer you into Exchange Mode and start a contact.

Call: If you wish to send CQ messages, tap on the Call Action. Only your CQ messages a reply messages directed at your callsign will be shown. Tapping onto a reply message will transfer you into Exchange Mode and start a QSO with the caller. Tapping on Listen or Reply will abort your CQ call.

Exchange: Selected automatically when a contact was started (see screenshot to the right). The line in blue shows you the current state of your conversation. Stay here until the status says 'Finished and logged' or press any other Action (Listen, Reply, Call) to abort the contact.

Waterfall View

The waterfall view shows you the received (and transmitted) audio spectrum. FT4/FT8 signals appear as short vertical lines from green to red, depending on signal strength. Tap into the waterfall view to change your TX frequency (as indicated by the vertical pair of lines).

The appearance of the waterfall view can be changed slightly by tapping the waterfall settings button .

Show Waterfall: Show/hide the waterfall view

Contrast: Change the contrast - useful in very weak signal conditions.

Width: Change the displayed frequency bandwidth.

Log View

The log view shows all completed contacts with some details. Clicking onto the sharing button allows you to either export the full log or all new entries since last export by e-mail, Messages, Files etc. or to a log app you have on your phone.

Tap on an entry to see full details.

Swiping a log entry from right to left allows you to delete an entry. However, since your log is also used to determined whether you already worked a call before, it is not recommended to delete any entries.

Thank you very much for using iFTx. Please send questions, problems, corrections and proposals to hb9zhk@uska.ch.

Contents

Connecting your Radio

Settings

When starting iFTx for the first time, you will be guided to the settings view automatically. Please enter your callsign and Maidenhead locator, otherwise you will not be able to send out messages. The other settings are explained in the following:

Log Information

Band, Contest and Power are used for logging contacts only. Please make sure these are set correctly as the log cannot be edited later.

Max number of transmissions per state

This is used to automatically timeout a contact if no further reply is received from your QSO partner. Usually, the defaults settings are fine.

Skip reply message

Instead of sending a reply to a CQ message, a reply message is sent. This will make QSOs faster but your peer will not receive your Maidenhead locator.

Use RR73 instead RRR

This shortens the signing and will lead to faster QSOs. As this is supported by most or all FT4/FT8 software, this should usually be enabled.

Click on Save to save your settings and return back to the main view.

Main View

Waterfall View

Log View

The log view shows all completed contacts with some details. Clicking onto the sharing button allows you to either export the full log or all new entries since last export by e-mail, Messages, Files etc. or to a log app you have on your phone.

Tap on an entry to see full details.

Swiping a log entry from right to left allows you to delete an entry. However, since your log is also used to determined whether you already worked a call before, it is not recommended to delete any entries.

Thank you very much for using iFTx. Please send questions, problems, corrections and proposals to hb9zhk@uska.ch.