Setting Up The SignaLink USB Interface For Digital Ham Radio

     I have noticed quite a few hams on the air having trouble configuring their radios and interfaces to get a good looking signal out.  I am hoping these tips will help.  I have been doing digital ham radio since the 1980s when the Commodore computers were popular.  I was doing Pactor and RTTY quite a bit.  Then in Sept. 1999 I got into PSK31 and other digital modes as they were developed.
     My digital program of choice is MixW 3.2.105 but most programs are pretty much set up the same way.  They all have a drop-down menu called Configure where you can set up the program and the SignaLink USB.
     Make sure that you have your digital program up and running and your SignaLink is plugged in and turned on.  Turn on the rig, too, because you will need to set up the CAT (Computer Aided Tuning) parameters.
     Go up to the top edge of the program screen and find the word Configure and click on it.  A drop-down menu will appear.  Now find TRANSCEIVER CAT/PTT and click on it.  At the top you will see 2 windows labeled CAT and MODEL.  Click on the little black arrow to the right of CAT and choose which radio you have and click on it.  Now go down to the MODEL window and click on that little black arrow and choose what model number of rig you have.
     Now go further down where it says PTT & CAT Interface and click on the label called DETAILS.  You will see 7 windows labeled Port, Baud Rate, Data Bits, Parity, Stop Bits, RTS and DTR.  Click on Port and you will see port numbers listed there and some will have an asterisk (*) by them.  These are the ones that have COM ports assigned to them.  Choose one.  Now, the numbers that go into the rest of the 7 windows should be as follows: Baud Rate: 9600, Data Bits: 8, Parity: None, Stop Bits: 1, RTS: Always On, DTR: Always Off.  These parameters are for an Icom radio.  If you have a different brand of rig, you might have to check the manual or you could go to the Tigertronics website to see what the parameters for your rig are. Yaesu rigs use a baud rate of 4800.  Once you have those 7 windows filled in, click OK.  There are other things in the menu box that need to be checked: Save frequency on exit can be checked in the little box beside it and CW out via Soundcard can be checked.  Also, AFSK in place of FSK can be checked.  Default digital mode should be USB.  You are now done with this part.  Click OK.  If you do not get an error message saying that the CAT interface Com port is in use or not functioning, this means that it is the correct Com port for your radio.  If you get an error message, you might have to go back to Configure and choose a different Com port number.
     Now go back to Configure and this time we will set up the PTT, sometimes called Secondary PTT Port.  Click on it then click on Port Settings.  You will see a little box with 5 windows in it.  They are labeled: Port, Baud Rate, Data Bits, Parity, Stop Bits, RTS and DTR.  The port number you choose should NOT be the one you chose for CAT.  Baud rate should be 9600, Data bits 8, Parity None, Stop Bits 1.  RTS should be PTT and DTR should be Always Off.  The boxes beside Echo, Disable and Hardware Flow Control should NOT be checked.  Now click OK.
     Now we go back to Configure again and click on Sound Device Settings.  At the top of this box, you will see Device, Input and Output.  Click on the little black arrow and you should see Sound Card (Internal or External, Rig Expert S/D, and Eye Of The Needle.  Click on Sound Card.  Then on the next two windows, click on the little black arrow.  In the Input window, choose Microphone (USB Audio Codec).  In the Output window, choose Speakers (USB Audio Codec).  Next, there is a window called Sample rate.  Type in 12000.  The default is 11025 but having a higher sample rate keeps your TX  signal from drifting. You don't have to do anything with Clock Adjustment or Sound History.  The next 3 windows down are Spectrum Speed, DSP filter and FFT Window.  Spectrum Speed adjusts how fast the waterfall display travels downward.  I like mine at X3.  DSP filter should be: None.  FFT Window should be: Hamming.  I have my DSP filter turned off because I have an outboard MFJ-784B tunable DSP filter hooked up to my rig.  Audio Processing window should be "Message-based (standard).  Now click OK and see if you have a waterfall display.  Tune your rig to 14.070 Mhz and see if you find some signals.  They should be traces that are about 1/4" wide.  Click on one with your mouse and see if the signal is being decoded by the software.
     The volume on the rig should be at about 9:00 and the volume (RX) on the SignaLink should be at about 8:00.  I have my volume set so I just see some slight speckling in the waterfall from the noise floor.
     Here is how I have my waterfall display set up for color display:  Click on View, then find Spectrum and click on it.  Now find Colors then find Waterfall Pallet.  You will see a bar with little squares of color.  You can change these colors by left clicking on each bar and choosing the color you like.  Here is how I have mine configured: black, black black, blue blue, yellow yellow yellow yellow.  This configuration gives me yellow traces on a blue background.  Click Apply then  click Save.  This will let you save your colors to a folder.  I use a file name called 3blk2blu4yellow.pal .  This tells me what the colors are.  I keep a folder called Waterfall Colors within the MixW folder where I keep my waterfall pallet files.
     Here is how you need to set up the rig for best signal output.  First, set the RF power to 100 watts.  My Icom rig uses a port in the back to connect to the SignaLink, so I don't need to mess with the Mic Gain.  TX output is set by the TX control on the front of the SignaLink.  When you transmit with the software, watch your ALC reading!  It should be at ZERO, showing NO reading at all.  If it does, your TX level is too high.  This is the most common mistake that hams make.  You don't need to drive the TX audio nearly as hard with digital as opposed to SSB voice.