4
Terminal Applications
QDX provides a suite of applications which may be accessed via a Terminal emulator running on
your PC. These applications provide configuration utility, and various self-test tools. It is very
educational and interesting to experiment with these tools.
However,
most QDX users need never use the terminal applications, it is not necessary for
ordinary operation of QDX with WSJT-X etc
. The terminal applications are for the interested
user, or if you need to set up a particular configuration.
The terminal applications display everything as ASCII text in a 80 x 24 character window. It’s not
as polished as a dedicated graphical user interface software application for QDX would be.
However, it has the advantage of requiring no special software or drivers, and all the variations
that would have to be supported for different PC Operating Systems such as Mac, Windows and
Linux, software installation procedures etc. Instead, all the applications are hosted and coded in
the QDX itself. The terminal emulator is only used to display the results. This keeps things simple
and low maintenance. After all, the terminal applications are useful bonus features rather than
core QDX functionality.
4.1 PC terminal emulator
I use Linux (XUbuntu 18.04) and I’m using the PuTTY terminal emulator. There are numerous
other terminal applications which will work fine. You may have your own favourite. They are all
capable of correct operation with QDX in its terminal mode.
I start PuTTY using command line “sudo putty” then connect to QDX on /dev/ttyACM1. Again as
before (refer to the Operating Instructions for connecting to QDX using CAT on WSJT-X) it is
necessary to know which serial port is being used by QDX. There is also a guide to identifying the
serial port at
(scroll down the page); or you could use WSJT-X.
Make sure WSJT-X is NOT running, when you connect to the QDX serial port using the
terminal emulator. Only one PC application at a time can connect to Virtual COM Serial
ports.
Set the size of the terminal window to 80 columns and 24 rows.
QDX operating manual; firmware 1_04
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