Skip to content

Home

Jump to bottom
Georgy Dyuldin edited this page Nov 16, 2024 · 8 revisions

What is the R1CBU X6100 Software

The R1CBU X6100 software is an alternate to the original equipment manufacturer (OEM), Xiegu, software to control and operate the X6100 Amateur Radio transceiver. The software is developed as open source software and is covered by the GNU Lesser General Public License or LGPL.

This software is covered by a beerware license. There is no warranty that this even works. If does for you then great. Nor is the developer liable for any claim, damages or other liability, whether in an action of contract, tort, or otherwise, arising from, out of in connection with this software or the use or dealings in this software. The developer can not control your use of this software and associated hardware therefore they can not be liable for your problems. The proceeding words should keep the lawyers happy. If you use it for your purposes with success and meet the developer, then please buy him a beer or their favorite drink.

Many thanks for KD1XI Greg Majewski, R1CBU Oleg Belousov and Crazycats100 for creating materials for this guide.

Contents

Top Controls:

The buttons on the top of X6100 operate in almost the same way as described in the OEM manual. Please consult the OEM manual for their function. Differences:

  • SSB button short press toggles upper and lower sideband (USB <-> LSB and USB-D <-> LSB-D)
  • SSB button long press toggles digital mode (USB <-> USB-D and LSB <-> LSB-D)

Front controls:

The features of the R1CBU software are controlled by a menu system. The menu system is control by the upper rotary encoder labeled VOL SQL RFG, the lower rotary encoder labeled MFK, the six (6) buttons between the two (2) encoders and five (5) buttons on the bottom of the unit. With version 0.27, the buttons labeled DFL does not provide any menus.

Both encoders (VOL and MFK) have 2 modes: select and edit. Short press on encoder is used to change mode.

In the edit mode rotating encoder changes value of the parameter.

In the select mode text color on message is dimmed, rotating encoder selecting next or previous control.

Default functions on the VOL encoder:

  • Audio Volume
  • RF Gain (0 to 100 value)
  • Filter Low (controls the lower frequency of the demodulation digital filter)
  • Filter High (controls the upper frequency of the demodulation digital filter)
  • RF Power
  • H Mic Gain (Hand Microphone Gain)

Default functions on the MFK encoder:

  • Min Level of the spectrum and waterfall display
  • Max Level of the spectrum and waterfall display
  • Spectrum Zoom controls the frequency width of the spectrum and waterfall display
  • Spectrum Beta
  • Peak Hold controls the time the peak value of the spectrum is shown
  • Peak Speed

Parameters might be added to one of the encoders or removed from it by a long press on corresponding bottom button. E.g. - if you want to remove Spectrum Beta from MFK - press GEN button until button Spectrum Beta appear on the bottom part of the screen. Than, press for some time this button (Spectrum Beta) until Removed from MFK encoder message will appear. The same for adding parameters to encoder.

Short press on the POWER button turns display off and start voice prompt engine (can be disabled in Settings).

Left Buttons

GEN Button Menus

The button labeled GEN brings the general radio control menu for the five buttons on the bottom. The label above each of the bottom buttons is the function of the button. Pressing the first button on the bottom allows one to go to the four (4) menus that adjusted by the top VOL encoder.

The first (VOL1:4) level provides control of these functions:

  • Audio Vol
  • SQL, the level squelch is activated
  • RFG, RF gain setting
  • TX Power, transmission power

The second level (VOL2:4) provides control of these functions:

  • Filter Low
  • Filter High
  • Filter BW, bandwidth
  • SP mode, Speaker or headphones mode

The third level (VOL3:4) provides control of these functions:

  • Mic Select, allows one to select either hand or internal microphone
  • H-Mic Gain, sets the gain of the hand microphone
  • I-MIC Gain, sets the gain of the internal microphone
  • Moni level

The fourth level (VOL4:4) provides control of these functions:

  • Voice
  • Voice Rate
  • Voice Pitch
  • Voice Volume

Another lower first button push, will bring you to the functions control by the four (4) menus using the MFK encoder (lower encoder).

The first level (MFK 1:4) provids control of these functions:

  • Min Level of the spectrum and waterfall display
  • Max Level of the spectrum and waterfall display
  • Spectrum Zoom controls the frequency width of the spectrum and waterfall display
  • Spectrum Beta

The second level (MFK 2:4) provids control of these functions:

  • Spectrum Fill color
  • Peak is setting for displaying peak values
  • Peak Hold controls the time the peak value of the spectrum is shown
  • Peak Speed

The third level (MFK 3:4) provids control of these functions:

  • Charger, controls the state (on, off, shadow) of the battery charger
  • Antenna in version 0.16 has only one value and no control of it
  • RIT is receiver incremental tuning
  • XIT is transmitter incremental tuning

The fourth level (MFK 4:4) provids control of AGC functions:

  • AGC Hang, the time the AGC waits before changing
  • AGC Knee, the value of where AGC gain slope changes
  • AGC Slope is the slope value of AGC

Another lower first button push, will bring you to the Mem menu. There two levels (Mem 1:2 and Mem 2:2). Each menu page has four (4) memory locations for storing frequency and mode settings. A quick push on the memory location key will load the settings of the memory location. A long push of the memory location key will store the settings into the memory location.

Long press of the first bottom button loads previous page of the bottom buttons.

Press on GEN button loads next page of the bottom buttons.

APP Button

This has three levels of menu

The first level (APP 1:3) provids control of these functions:

  • RTTY, starts the RTTY mode receive decoder
  • FT8, starts the FT8 mode receive decoder
  • SWR Scan, performs a VSWR scan of the band
  • GPS, shows current GPS status

The second level (APP 2:3) provids control of these functions:

  • Recorder
  • QTH, Qwerty key appears to type your QTH Grid
  • Callsign, Qwerty key appears to type in your call sign
  • Settings, allows setting of date, time and some others

The third level (APP 3:3) provids control of only one function:

  • WiFi/BT, allows to connect to WiFi network

WiFi/BT provides control of these functions: (use MFK encoder to select wifi SSID)

  • On/Off WiFi/BT chip
  • Scan
  • Connect/Disconnect
  • Change password
  • Delete network

Status, IP address and Gateway info are displayed after successful wifi connection. Time synchronization occurs with NTP.

KEY Button

This has two (2) levels of menus.

The first level (KEY 1:2) provids control of these functions:

  • Speed, the rate (WPM) of the internal CW keyer
  • Volume of the side tone to monitor CW transmission
  • Train, this allows one practice sending CW without transmitting
  • Tone, sets the frequency of side tone to to monitor CW transmission

The first level (KEY 2:2) provids control of these functions:

  • Key Mode, a press of MFK encoder allows one select manual, auto-l, auto-r
  • Iambic Mode - A or B
  • QSK Time
  • Ratio controls the ration of a dit to a dah time.

Pressing the menu select button (Button 1) two times while in the Key menu will show the CW (1:2) decoder menu with two levels. These are the functions for this menu.

The first level (CW 1:2) provids control of these functions:

  • CW Decoder, turns on or off the CW decoder
  • Tuner, turns on or off indicator of frequency of received signal.
  • CW Decoder SNR, tuning CW decoder sensitivity

The second level (CW 2:2) provids control of these functions:

  • CW Peak Beta, for CW decoder
  • CW Noise Beta, for CW decoder

MSG Button

This has two (2) levels of menus. Select the recorded message with MFK encoder.

The first level (MSG 1:2) provides control of these functions:

  • Send
  • Beacon
  • Beacon Period

The second level (MSG 2:2) provides control of these functions:

  • in SSB/AM/FM:
    • Record message
    • Rename the saved message
    • Delete the saved message
    • Play the saved message
  • in CW:
    • New message
    • Edit message
    • Delete message

DFN (Digital Noise Filtering) Button

This has three (3) levels of menus.

The first level (DFN 1:3) provids control of these functions:

  • DNF controls the status of DNF either on or off
  • DNF Center controls the center frequency
  • DNF Width controls the width of the filter

The second level (DFN 2:3) provids control of these functions:

  • NB controls the status of NB either on or off
  • NB Level sets the level for noise blank
  • NB Width controls the width of the noise blank

The third level (DFN 3:3) provids control of these functions:

  • NR controls the status of noise reduction either on or off
  • NR Level sets the level for noise reduction

All this function behaves tha same way, as while using OEM firmware.

Hand mic buttons

Long press on 1-9 button - save frequency at memory slot. Short press on 1-9 button - load frequency from corresponding memory slot.

Settings

Settings allows to setup next parameters:

  • Date, time. Expected, that values are in UTC timezone.
  • Display brightness, timeout of inactivity before dimming.
  • Backlight of the buttons behavior.
  • Line in and line out levels for internal USB soundcard.
  • Magnification of frequency (while tuning), band info and ALC
  • Clock indicator settings
  • Actions for long press on the left buttons and F1/F1 keys on the hand mic.
  • Play and recording gains for audio generated by app and recorded by app.
  • Voice prompts parameters
  • Spectrum and waterfall autolevels controls
  • Waterfall smooth (delayed) scrool switch
  • Waterfall center line switch
  • Waterfall zoom switch. When turning off - only spectrum will be zoomed
  • Freq acceleration
  • Color theme
  • Transverter parameters
Clone this wiki locally