As described in the previous post, I have configured N1MM+ in SO2V mode to work with the FlexRadio 6400.
To recap: the 6400/8400 only has one SCU (unlike the 6600/8600 which has two), which means SO2R is not possible. However, two “slices” can be received simultaneously, but only on the same antenna. On the other hand, N1MM+ interprets the two slices as two radios because two COM ports need to be configured.
In short: to make N1MM+ work in SO2V mode with a FlexRadio 6400/8400, the configuration needs to be set up as if it were SO2R. At least, that’s my experience. Other opinions are welcome in the comments section below this blog.
The settings need to be adjusted at five different levels: DAX, CAT, N1MM+, SliceMaster, and CW Skimmer, which does not make things any easier.
1. DAX:
Here it’s important that both RX and IQ streams are enabled. Last time I had to restart the SMART-SDR software several times to achieve this. But there is a much simpler solution: if no panadapter appears, you need to select one in the SDR screen on the left in the DAX panel. Contrary to what you might expect, this is not the same DAX button as the one to the right of X/RIT. IQ-streaming is importart because it is the input for Skimmer.
Using all this software is a field of expertise in itself. Especially when certain features are used only occasionally, important items are quickly forgotten.
2. CAT:
Here the key is to provide a COM port for both slice A and slice B.
The choice of COM ports is entirely up to you, as long as they match the N1MM+ configuration and are not already in use by another Windows application.
VFO 1 (also called slice A) in my setup is linked to COM6, while VFO 2 (slice B) is linked to COM10. I also need a PTT link on COM7 (and COM11 for slice B), a Winkey link on COM9, and a UDP port 12060 (on the picture it is 12061, but better set it to the standard 12060) for sending spots. I’m not entirely sure how well this last one works, because the spot management is handled by SliceMaster (see below).
Finally, outside of contest use, there’s also TCP port 5003, which is used by FT8-WSJT.
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3. N1MM+ configuration:
As mentioned earlier, the choice of ports is free, as long as they match the CAT software settings within SMART-SDR.
Here are the parameters per port, with the most important note being that “SO2R” must be checked — not SO2V, even though the latter might seem more logical.
Configuration of the broadcasting :
Port 7811 is used for a home-made application in Python that does a realtime QRZ.COM lookup of every worked call.
4. SliceMaster:
This software makes it easy to link external programs to SMART-SDR. During contests, I use it for Skimmer and spot management; outside contests, for example, I can run two WSJT sessions simultaneously — for instance, listening at the same time on 50.313 MHz and 50.323 MHz.
The most important settings can be found here:
5. Skimmer:
This decodes the CW signals for the two separate VFOs and adds them to the Telnet server. It’s very important that the Telnet session from N1MM+ is linked to Skimmer and not to a DX cluster. For this reason, the password in the Skimmer configuration must be disabled.
Below are the different configuration screens for Skimmer slice A and slice B:
Never use the reserved channels, always take IQ RX1 and IQ RX2.
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