It seems Windows is the by far dominant OS in the Amateur Radio community. However so far I got almost everything working flawlessly on Linux & MacOS. The Linux flavor should not matter too much, for my use I’m driving a Debian based ParrotOS and Pop_os ad my daily driver.

On the iCom itself there is very little to do. Set it to SSB-Data mode (it will likely also work just fine with the normal SSB filter) and enable the data mode USB settings. On more or less recent OS releases, you should not have to install any “drivers”. (We’re not talking windows here…)

LINUX / DEBIAN setup:

1.) Uninstall all previous WSJTX. It is important to also remove the “data” part! sudo apt remove wsjtx wsjtx-data

2.) Download WSJTX 2.4 (currently the one I got to work just fine)

3.) Make sure to meet requirements, you may have to manually install: sudo apt install libboost-filesystem1.71.0 libboost-log1.71.0 libboost-thread1.71.0 libboost-regex1.71.0-icu67

4.) Install WSJTX sudo dpkg -i wsjtx_2.4.0_amd64.deb

5.) Fire it up!

6.) Set Audio-card

7.) Set the CAT control like below. Note, that none of the settings had been “auto populated” after connecting for me, in an ideal case it should be able to. Split operation you can set to whatever you prefer, all settings seem to work ok.

8.) Profit!

MacOS setup:

All in all it’s very straight forward – HOWEVER – I noticed a weird behavior when my buetooth headset is connected (sony WF-1000XM3 earbuds.). These seem to occupy somehow internally the same “ports”. (the culprit is likely /dev/cu.WF-1000XM3-IAPSERVER somehow interfering with /dev/cu.usbmodem146201).

1.) Uninstall all previous WSJTX

2.) Download WSJTX 2.4 (currently the one I got to work just fine)

4.) Install WSJTX

5.) Fire it up!

6.) Set Audio-card

7.) Set CAT control

8.) Profit!

JS8CALL MacOS

For JS8CALL the setup is similar, however at the moment of this writing, JS8CALL version 2.2.0 is current which does not yet have an icom IC 705 setting. We can work around this by using the CIV settings on the icom itself and modify it so we have the same hex-address as an icom 7300 (94h) which is present as a setup in JS8CALL. I like to use the “preset” function to set this if I want to use JS8CALL; this allows me to quickly change settings without having to drive trough menus. Otherwise you can find it: Menu – Set – Connectors – CI-V (default is A4h) (btw. for any setting you can revert to default by pressing the “QUICK” button) Note, that a true ic-705 setup will come soon, it seems to already be in the beta-sourcecode.

Settings on the icom via the presets:

Here are the RIG settings for JS8CALL

And Audio

JS8CAL on Linux

Currently due to the state of JS8CALL you will have to make a choice. JS8CALL is using an older version of hamlib – meaning if you have installed WSJTX you will likely run into problems. I have no current “good” suggestions – my workaround is to use LXC-containers which is more involved than simply installing. An other option is to run with an older version of WSJTX depending on your setup. An other way would be to not control the radio via software and use VOX. I played with it and it seems to work just fine.