1.Introduction
xwefax is an X/GTK+-3 Linux application for the decoding,
displaying and saving of Wefax and Radiofax images, as received by
an HF receiver, or as from version 2.1 with a Perseus SDR
receiver.
Usage: xwefax [-hv]
-h: Print usage information and exit.
-v: Print version number and exit.
Sound-card
set-up
xwefax automatically prepares the sound card and sets the mixer
Capture level to the value specified in the ~/xwefax/xwefaxrc
configuration file. For proper operation, the level of the input
signal must be adjusted from the receiver, if volume control is
available, or by changing the value of the Capture level in the
~/xwefax/xwefaxrc configuration file, if audio is taken from a
fixed-volume source, such as the "data" i/o port. Please see the
Operation section for details on how to
set-up the sound card.
Software AF/FM
Frequency Discriminators
xwefax carries out demodulation of the Audio Frequency-Modulated
Wefax signal with fairly simple DSP FM discriminator algorithms.
There are two such FM discriminators, a Zero Crossing detector and
a Bi-level Tone detector, one of which can be selected from the "FM
Detector" popup menu item. The default is the Zero Crossing
detector which is usually more suitable for general use, as the
Bi-level detector posterizes the WEFAX image, and is mostly useful
for receiving stations that transmit a white|black image only.
The Zero Crossing detector works by keeping a sliding window average of the incoming signal samples from the audio DSP, and then detecting a zero-crossing of the WEFAX carrier signal by comparing the signs of two consecutive averages. If they are different, then the carrier signal has crossed the zero level and therefore we have the beginning of a half cycle of the incoming (sinusoidal) carrier signal. By counting the number of DSP samples to the next zero crossing, the half-period of the carrier signal can be measured and thus its frequency can be estimated.
The Bi-level detector works by implementing two Goertzel tone detectors, one on the White frequency (2300 Hz) and one on the Black frequency (1500 Hz). By comparing the signal levels as measured by the Goertzel detectors, the frequency of the WEFAX carrier signal can be estimated. These level comparisons are limited to only 5 thresholds, therefore the Bi-level detector produces a posterized WEFAX image.
The calculated frequency of the input AF signal is scaled and threshold-ed so the a value of 0 to 255, for the brightness level of the relevant Wefax image pixel can be calculated and used to create the Wefax image. The standard frequency range for transmitting Wefax and Radiofax images is 1500 Hz for black and 2300 Hz for white. Here is the complete specification for the Wefax image transmission process, as generally accepted by most Wefax stations:
| Signal | Duration | IOC576 | IOC288 | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Start tone | 5s | 300 Hz | 675 Hz | 200 Hz for color fax modes. |
| Phasing signal | 30s | White line interrupted by a black pulse. | ||
| Image | Variable | 1200 lines | 600 lines | At 120 lpm. |
| Stop tone | 5s | 450 Hz | 450 Hz | |
| Black | 10s |
"Waterfall" display with
CAT
xwefax has a "Waterfall" (audio Spectrum) display derived from an
DFT of the receiver's audio output. The Waterfall display has two
vertical white lines at each side of window, which indicate the
position of the White and Black frequencies. The position of these
lines depends on the specified White and Black frequencies
(normally 2300 Hz and 1500 Hz). Wefax/Radiofax signals are mostly
concentrated around the White frequency, so the Spectrum display
usually shows a band of signals either side of this frequency. For
proper tuning of a Radiofax signal, this spectrum band should be
centered on the White frequency line at the right of the Spectrum
display. Most Wefax/Radiofax stations on the short waves specify
the carrier frequency, while the modulation is Upper Side Band
(USB) and it is centered in the middle between the white and black
frequencies, e.g. (2300 + 1500) / 2 = 1900 Hz. So the receiver must
be tuned to 1.9 KHz lower than the specified carrier frequency. For
example DDK3 transmits on 7880 KHz so the receiver must be tuned to
7878.1 KHz USB. Some stations, like SVJ4 in Athens, specify the
receiver dial frequency, e.g. 8105.0 KHz, which gives the right AF
output frequencies already.
Status
Indicators:
There are three Status Indicator icons in the xwefax Control
Frame:
o The "Start Tone" Indicator shows a green "LED" icon when
xwefax is listening for a Wefax/Radiofax Start tone. If this stage
in the decoding of Wefax images is skipped by the user, this
indicator shows a red "cancel" icon and if a start tone is
detected, it shows a green "tick" icon.
o The "Sync Pulse" Indicator shows a green "LED" icon when
xwefax is synchronizing itself with the Phasing Pulses transmitted
by the station. If this stage in the decoding of Wefax images is
skipped by the user, this indicator shows a red "cancel" icon and
when synchronizing is complete, it shows a green "tick" icon.
o The "Decoding" Indicator shows a green "LED" icon when
xwefax is decoding the Wefax/Radiofax image from the incoming
signal from the receiver. If this stage in the decoding of Wefax
images is skipped by the user, this indicator shows a red "cancel"
icon and when decoding is completed (a Stop Tone has been
detected), it shows a green "tick" icon.
o The "Save Img" Check Box can be used to disable or enable
Saving of the decoded WEFAX image. The "Save Img" Indicator shows
the status of the WEFAX image Save functionality. If saving is
disabled then the "x" icon is shown. Otherwise a green "LED"
indicates that saving is enabled and a green "tick" icon indicates
that image saving to file has been successful. A red "LED"
indicates a problem with image saving.
o At the right of the Wefax Control frame, a Level Bar
indicates the level of either the Start or Stop signal, depending
on the current operation. The Level Bar indicates Green color if
the signal is above the "Detected" threshold, Orange color if the
signal is between the "Detected" and "Activate" threshold and Red
if the Start/Stop signal is not detected. Xwefax expects the level
of the Start/Stop signal to first rise into the Green sector and
then fall below the Orange sector (Hysteresis), before it is
considered as successfully detected.
Image Slant
Correction:
Unfortunately Wefax/Radiofax stations do not follow a consistent or
standard format of image transmission and this makes it difficult
to decode images in a uniform way. Some stations transmit a regular
Phasing (Sync) pulse at the start of each image line. This pulse is
usually about 55-60 pixels long and it is black color on a mostly
white line. xwefax can use this pulse to synchronize decoding of
images so that there is little or no slanting of the image content,
due to slight timing differences between the transmitting and
receiving stations. Some stations just do not transmit in-image
phasing pulses and others transmit shorter or intermittent pulses,
making it impossible to actively synchronize sender and receiver.
In this case xwefax can de-slant images pre-emptively by applying a
correction factor, calculated from measuring the slant of a saved
image. This de-slanting factor is in (pixels/1000 lines of image)
and it can be specified either permanently in the Stations Treeview
Window (and saved to the Stations file) or set before decoding in
the Fix Slant spin button. Positive figures compensate for slanting
to the left and negative figures for slanting to the right.
The slant correction factor is calculated as follows: First receive and save a wefax image, one that contains a vertical line or the trace of the phasing pulse, if transmitted, and then open the Wefax image in and image editor like the Gimp. Measure the horizontal position in pixels of the vertical line at the top and bottom of the image and find the difference (in pixels). Then measure the vertical position of the line at the top and bottom of the image (this is the height of the line in pixels). Divide the slant of the vertical line with the height and multiply by 1000, to calculate the slant correction factor in pixels/1000 lines. If the image is slanted to the right, the correction factor is negative, otherwise positive. This value can then be entered in the stations file, either using the stations Treeview window or if necessary using a text editor.
Status Text
Messages:
The "Xwefax Messages" text view port prints various messages from
xwefax regarding the status of various operations, error conditions
and other information relevant to xwefax's operation. Pending
operations are shown in black, successful completions in green,
canceled operations in orange and error messages in red.
Wefax/Radiofax
Stations List
The Stations Treeview Window presents a list of Wefax/Radiofax
stations and some of the relevant parameters for decoding images.
For each station row, there are the following columns:
o The Name of the station.
o The Frequency in Hz it transmits on, including a 1900 Hz
compensation to take into account the use of USB mode, and
frequency shift from 1500 Hz to 2300 Hz (center frequency 1900
Hz).
o The RPM (transmission speed) value in lines/min.
o Image resolution in pixels/line.
o The IOC (Index Of Co-operation) value.
o The Image Slanting correction factor in pixels/1000 lines.
If CAT is enabled, which is available for the Elecraft K2/K3 or
Yaesu FT847/857, it is possible to tune in the receiver to the
station frequency and for the K3 to set the mode (USB) and
bandwidth (1400 Hz, centered on an IF shift of 1900 Hz). In any
case, the Wefax/Radiofax decoding parameters are also entered into
the relevant items in the pop-up Menu. To navigate the Treeview
list, the Up and Down buttons can be used, as well as the Up/Down
arrow keys in the keyboard. With CAT enabled, the receiver will be
tuned to the station frequency as well.
3.
Compilation
Please note that I use Void
Linux which is a "bleeding edge" type distribution, so there
may be compilation and/or run time difficulties if you are using a
relatively old distro. This is mostly true of the basic
dependencies like GTK+-3, and there can also be sound card
incompatibility problems at run time.
Because this version of Xwefax has support for the Perseus SDR receiver, it is necessary to install the libperseus-sdr library before compiling. This may already be available in more comprehensive Linux distributions. Once libperseus-sdr is installed, compile Xwefax as below.
To compile the package, it may be preferable to first run the included "autogen.sh" script in the package's top directory, to produce a fresh build environment. Then the "configure" script can be run with optional parameters to override the default settings and compiler flags, e.g: ./configure --prefix=/usr CFLAGS="-g -O2" will override the default /usr/local installation prefix and the "-Wall -O2" compiler flags.
Running "make" in the package's top directory should produce the executable binary in src/. Running "make install" will install the binary into /usr/local/bin by default or under the specified prefix. It will also install the xwefax working directory and default configuration file into the user's home directory. This will have to be edited by the user as required. There is also this hypertext documentation file which you can copy to a location of your choice.
xwefax requires a directory named xwefax in the user's Home directory, where the ~/xwefax/xwefaxrc run time configuration file is placed after suitable editing. A list of several Radiofax station frequencies and other relevant parameters is also included, in a file named stations. This file can be edited in a text editor but the formatting must be adhered to, especially the position of data in the columns. This file is more safely edited in xwefax Stations Treeview window. Finally a folder named "images" is needed, for xwefax to save images in.
4. Command line
options
xwefax can be invoked with the following options:
-h: Print this usage information and exit.
-v: Print version number and exit.
xwefax User
Interface
xwefax is an X/GTK+-3 application for Linux. The main application
window has the following widgets:
1. The Wefax/Radiofax Image Viewport: This is the main part of the xwefax application window and it is used to display the Wefax/Radiofax image as it is decoded progressively. Right clicking on the window opens the main Pop up Menu. When image decoding is over, the displayed image is saved in a PGM file format in ~/xwefax/images/ folder The Wefax image can be processed, while it is being received, either by contrast stretching or bi-level (black-white) threshold ing. These functions are selected from the "Enhance Image" item in the Pop up Menu.
2. The Signal Input Display: This is the small window at the bottom left of the xwefax application window, with the dark green background. It can display either the output of the FM discriminator (e.g. the incoming Wefax signal) or the amplitude of the AF signal supplied by the radio receiver. In the latter case it is used for setting up the Capture level of the Sound Card, for proper operation.
3. The Spectrum/Waterfall Display: This is to the right of the Signal display and it has a black background. It is used to display the Spectrum of the incoming Wefax signal, as produced by an DFT function, in the form of a "waterfall". This display can be used to tune the receiver via CAT, but only for a Yaesu FT847/857 or Elecraft K2/K3 rig. The Wefax signal's spectrum is normally concentrated around the White frequency of 2300 Hz and it produces a fairly wide strip down the Waterfall. By clicking on this strip, it is possible to tune in the Receiver, fairly accurately.
4. The Xwefax Control Frame: This frame contains a couple of buttons, one for starting xwefax and one for skipping between operating modes of xwefax. The "STANDBY" button puts xwefax in the Receive mode, whereby the button label indicates "RECEIVE" in green and the top "Start Tone" red indicator changes to green. In this condition xwefax waits for a Wefax Start tone, to initiate the image decoding process. The "Skip" button causes xwefax to skip forward to the next mode, e.g. from waiting for a Start tone to Synchronizing with the Phasing pulses, or from this mode to Decoding the Wefax image. This makes it possible to bypass missed stages in the Wefax image transmission sequence. The appearance of the indicators shows Non-Function (Red), Operating (Green), Skipped (Red X) and Finished (Green tick).
As of version 1.7, there is also a vertical Level Gauge at the right side of the frame. This gauge indicates signal level when the "Capture Setup" item is activated in the pop-up menu, otherwise it indicates the output of the Start Tone detector when xwefax is waiting for one, or the output of the Stop Tone detector while an image is being decoded. I added this gauge as there were some problems detecting start/stop tones and I wanted an indicator to help me investigate.
5. The Messages Text Viewport: Various messages are printed here by xwefax to indicate current status, operations like saving images, setting up CAT or the Sound card, error conditions etc.
6. The pop-up Menu: This opens on a right-click on the
Wefax Image window. It has the following items:
o Stations List: Opens the Stations List Treeview window
from which a Wefax/Radiofax station can be selected by clicking on
a Treeview row. It is also possible to move between stations by
clicking the Up or Down buttons or the Up/Down arrow keys on the
keyboard. The Delete button removes a row, whereas the New button
creates a new row, which can be filled either manually or by middle
clicking on the row. In this case the row will be filled with the
currently used values of the xwefax parameters. If CAT is enabled,
the receiver's frequency will also be entered.
o FM Decoder: Select one of the two available WEFAX carrier
signal decoders, the Zero Crossing detector or the Bi-level Tone
Detector.
o RPM: Select the RPM (Lines/min) value used by the station.
Default is 120 RPM (lines/min).
o Resolution: Select the image resolution in pixels/line.
The default is 1200 pix/line.
o IOC Value: Select the IOC (Index of Co-operation) value of
the station. The default is 576.
o Phasing Lines: Select the number Phasing lines to examine
at the start of image transmission. There is no universally
followed standard unfortunately, with some stations transmitting as
few as 10 phasing lines and others up to 60. The default of 20
lines will not work for stations transmitting less than this. As of
version 1.7, the number of phasing lines to listen for can be
specified and saved in the Stations List Treeview window. This will
override any selection made from the popup menu, when a station is
selected from the list.
o In Image Phasing: Enable synchronization with in-image
phasing pulses transmitted by some stations.
o Image Enhancement: Select "Normalize Image" to stretch the
contrast of the image as it is being received or "Bi-level Image"
to threshold the image to only Black or White values.
o Image File Format: Select the Image File format: JPEG, PGM
or Both, if needed. xwefax has a simple built-in JPEG encoder for
gray scale images that can reduce the image file size considerably.
The JPEG file format is the default.
o Capture Setup: Enable the display of input signal level
for setting up Capture level.
o Quit: Quits xwefax.
Configuration and
set-up
After compilation and installation, the ~/xwefax/xwefaxrc run time
configuration file MUST be edited for proper operation! To do this,
load ~/xwefax/xwefaxrc into your favorite editor and make sure that
you review ALL the configuration fields in the file and that you
properly edit all the ones that must be edited. There are more
detailed instructions in the file itself so please follow them for
a proper set-up.
Next, the sound card must be set up. For this to be done, the receiver's audio output should be connected to the computer's sound card (usually to the 'line' input) and the receiver tuned to some stable carrier signal with no AM modulation. Modern HF transceivers have general coverage receivers with DSP audio filters down to 25 or 50 Hz bandwidth and this makes it possible to use a local broadcast station as a signal source.
With the narrowest bandwidth selected, start xwefax and fine tune the receiver, in USB mode, for the specified White tone frequency. This can be done by placing the Spectrum trace under the right guide line. Next, open the pop-up Menu and activate the "Capture Setup" menu item. For the correct level of audio input, the signal level line in the Scope display should be no higher than about 80% - 90% the height of the Scope display. If the audio level is to high, then the signal trace will be broken and irregular. If this happens, then reduce the receiver's volume level or if the audio output is taken from a fixed-level outlet (like the 'data' port), set the correct input level by editing the Capture level value in the ~/xwefax/xwefaxrc file. It is also possible to use a mixer application to adjust the Capture level for the correct signal level, and then use the setting in xwefaxrc.
Using the Stations
Treeview List
The Stations Treeview Window opens when the "Station List" menu
item is activated. The Stations Treeview can be used to select the
desired Wefax/Radiofax station and to enter the decoding parameters
into the relevant menu items. As well as selecting stations and
entering decoding parameters, the Treeview can be used to edit all
data in the columns of a selected row and save all Treeview data to
the "stations" file in the ~/xwefax directory. The following are
the columns available in the list:
STATION NAME: The name of the WEFAX station in the row.
FREQUENCY: The frequency of the station in Hz. This is normally
1900 Hz below the specified carrier frequency. This needs to be
fine-tuned by tuning the Receiver, so that the trace of the White
frequency (2300 Hz) in the Waterfall display is under the vertical
white line at the right of the display. When using the Perseus SDR
or one of the supported receivers with CAT, clicking near the trace
of the White frequency will automatically tune the receiver to the
right frequency. This setting can be saved to the Stations List by
middle click on the selected Station row.
S/B: The side band used by the WEFAX station. This should normally
be Upper Side Band but on a couple of occasions I heard one station
using LSB, so I added this column as of xwefax v1.7
RPM: The RPM or Line Transmission Rate of the station. This is
normally 120 RPM or Lines/min but some stations (Kyodo News) use 60
RPM also.
PIX/L: The resolution of images in pixels/line. This is normally
1200 pix/line.
IOC: The Index of Cooperation. This is normally 576.
PHL: The number of phasing lines to listen for, after the Start
Tone. The default is 20, but some stations (the Hellenic Met
service) use only 10 but since 2-3 line may be missed at the start,
due to a delay in the Start Tone detector, it is necessary to
specify 10 for this station. For most others, a value of 40 can be
specified if desired, since usually about 60 phasing line are
sent.
SKEW: The image slant correction factor in pixels/1000. This is
needed to compensate for the difference in timing between the
sending and receiving stations. The right value must be found as
described previously.
Receiving Wefax/Radiofax
signals
Wefax/Radiofax signals are transmitted on the short waves by
stations operating in the USB mode and with a Frequency Modulated
output, in a Slow Scan TV format. White color is represented by a
2300 Hz signal and Black color with a 1500 Hz signal. The
transmission begins with a few seconds of a Start Tone and then a
number of Phasing (Synchronizing) lines are sent. These are used to
synchronize the start of image lines at the receiving end with
those of the transmitting end. The Phasing lines are black with a
short white part at the beginning, and they are then followed by
the image lines, with the height of the image (the number of image
lines) being variable. Some stations transmit phasing pulses at the
start of image lines, but these are short black lengths in mostly
white lines. Unfortunately not all stations follow the accepted
standards for Wefax transmissions, making it rather difficult to
apply regular algorithms for sync detection.
To receive a Wefax/Radiofax station, first set up the receiver for USB mode and if possible, adjust the receiver bandwidth to cover from about 1200 Hz to 2600 Hz (with a center frequency of 1900 Hz). Some receivers (my Elecraft K3) have IF Shift and Bandwidth control which can make this easier. Then tune a station manually or, if using an Elecraft K2/K3 or Yaesu FT847/857, for which xwefax has CAT control, by using the Stations Treeview window. Again, if using a K2/K3 or FT847/857, the Spectrum display can be used to accurately tune in, by clicking on the White signal trace in this display. The CAT function will tune in the receiver fairly accurately to the right frequency. If xwefax is started by clicking on the STANDBY button, it will wait until a Start Tone is received and when the Phasing Pulse signals begin, it will synchronize itself and enter the Image Decoding mode. The Wefax image is decoded line by line and displayed in the Image window. When a Stop Tone is received, xwefax saves the decoded image and again it waits for the next Start Tone. If left to its own devices, it will continue in the way, automatically decoding and saving images.
6. Bugs and deficiencies
I have fixed whatever bugs I came across testing xwefax, but there
may be some hiding, waiting for the right conditions to appear.
Because at the moment the Blocking read method is used to read DSP
samples from the sound card, the GUI is rather unresponsive while
xwefax is in the Receive mode. Also, using the CAT function to tune
the Receiver can cause loss of data from the sound card and this
will slant the image to a large extend. Hopefully this deficiency
may be rectified if a non-blocking method can be implemented in
xwefax. This is mainly a matter of finding documentation,
apparently mostly lacking for the ALSA sound system.
Version 0.1a First alpha version of the basic xwefax application.
Version 0.2a Added the Pop up menu widget and its functionality.
Version 0.3a Added the Stations Treeview window for selecting Wefax stations and tuning the Receiver via CAT.
Version 0.4b First beta release version with documentation and much testing by clang analyzer and Coverity Scan.
Version 0.5b Some code clean-up and tidying. Also edited the default xwefaxrc file to have the CAT entry as NONE by default.
Version 0.6b Fixed some bugs reported by Al Bolduc, KA1AS, regarding CAT error messages and difficulties in canceling CAT. Also in the ~/xwefax/stations file, I zeroed the slant correction factors, since these are dependent on individual stations and must be calculated by the user after receiving and saving images, as explained in the documentation.
Version 0.7b I modified the code related to reading samples from the sound card DSP and decoding images so that it returns control the the GTK+ main loop more often. This helps to make the user interface more responsive as the application spends a lot less time blocked by ALSA's samples reading functions.
Version 0.8b I modified the AF frequency discriminator code to hopefully improve rendering of Wefax images, especially thin vertical lines.
Version 0.9b I fixed a bug in the code that handles the Quit menu option, to actually quit xwefax fully.
Version 1.0 I changed the algorithm that carries out
frequency discrimination on the incoming AF/FM Wefax carrier. The
new algorithm seems to be doing a better job and it is also able to
take advantage of slower pixel transmission rates (as when 60 rpm
is used, for example).
Also fixed a couple of memory leaks reported by valgrind and
modified the code that handles manual syncing of the image to avoid
an occasional line misalignment problem.
Version 1.1 I changed the Stations File saving code since the original would leave the file empty, if a save was activated while xwefax was in the RECEIVE mode.
Version 1.2 I changed the Stations File saving code so that data in the Treeview column are formatted properly before writing to file. Also fixed a bug that caused xwefax to crash if the Treeview window was closed after a save, while xwefax was in RECEIVE mode, and then put to STANDBY mode.
Version 1.3 I added a simple JPEG encoder code for gray scale images, derived from Moodstocks SAS "jpec" image compressor code. xwefax now saves images in jpeg format but it can also save in pgm format or both, selected from the pop-up menu.
Version 1.4 I increased the Period Size of the Sound card DSP to 4096 and the Number of Periods to 4 to reduce occurrences of "Broken pipe" when reading of DSP samples is hampered by e.g. user interaction with the application's GUI.
Version 1.5 I fixed a bug in the code that produces the "Scope" display for the setting up of the input signal level. I also made changes to the Image Enhancement code to improve the results from the "Normalize" and "Bi-level" algorithms.
Version 1.6 I replaced the original Frequency Discriminator with a more effective Zero Crossing detector which is more resilient to noise and has a better response to the frequency modulation of the WEFAX signal. I have also added an alternative Frequency Discriminator, the Bi-level Detector which estimates the signal frequency by employing a Goertzel detector centered at the Black and White frequencies (1500 and 2300 Hz). The output of this Discriminator is produced by comparing the outputs from the Goertzel detectors and estimating the signal frequency. This detector produces a posterized output and is more suitable for stations that transmit mostly black|white images.
Version 1.7 I added a vertical Level Gauge at the right of the Control Frame to indicate the WEFAX signal level or the output of the Start or Stop tone detectors. Also added two new columns to the Stations List, one to specify station side band (LSB or USB) and one to specify the number of Phasing Lines to listen for.
Version 1.8 I modified slightly the code for the Zero Crossing FM detector to improve contrast and sharpness, but this has made it a little more susceptible to noise. I modified the functions that handle the Popup menu items relating to the WEFAX decoders parameters, as well those that handle the same parameters (RPM, Pix/Line, IOC etc) from the Stations List, so that new stations can be selected while xwefax is in RECEIVE mode. Previously doing so did not correctly set up decoder parameters, resulting in the Start and Stop tones not being detected when changing between stations with different RPM values (like from Kyodo News to others).
Version 1.9 I modified the zero crossing detector to operate in a more continuous way, to improve performance in noisy conditions. I have added a "Save Img" checkbox and Indicator in the Xwefax Control frame to facilitate enabling/disabling of WEFAX image save-to-file. I also added a vertical Level bar to indicate the detected level of the WEFAX Start or Stop signal.
Version 2.0 I made some changes to the DFT code used to produce the Waterfall display, e.g. to decimate the sampling rate by simple "box" averaging instead of skipping samples.
Version 2.1 I have added support for the Perseus SDR receiver so that WEFAX stations can be received with this device. There is no sound output though, as WEFAX stations are on fixed frequencies and tuning is done visually on the waterfall.
Version 2.2: I updated the GUI code to the latest GTK+-3.22. This made it necessary to make minor changes to the User Interface but functionality remains the same. An advantage of this version is that the GUI specification is in a Glade-3 XML file in the ~/xwefax/ folder (xwefax.glade), and this can be edited in Glade-3 if some cosmetic changes are desired, I migrated the internationalization system from "intltoolize" to GNU GetText, as the former is now considered obsolete. Also replaced the autogen.sh script with a newer version.
Version 2.2.1: I fixed some warnings produced by clang-analyzer although they mostly did not refer to real bugs of consequence. One bug report in the targeting code was real and had to be fixed.
Version 2.3: I arranged for autoconf/automake to only compile support for the Perseus SDR when the relevant libraries are installed.
Version 2.4: I fixed a bug in the above changes to the code and extended the conditional compilation to some more places in the source code.
Version 2.4.1: I have separated the pseudo-colorization code for the waterfall into a separate function and edited it to improve the colorization algorithm.
Version 2.4.2: Fixed a minor bug in the function that saves WEFAX images in the JPEG format, although it would not have had any significant impact on the saved images.
Version 2.4.3: Changed the installation commands in Makefile.am so that all the relevant files (desktop file, application pixmap, configuration file, executable binary etc) are installed under any location specified to the configure script by the --prefix= option. Also modified the program so that on first start up after installation, the application will create its working directory by copying files from the relevant directories under the installation prefix.
Version 2.4.4: Fixed a bug in the Zero Crossing FM detector that resulted in black dots being printed in the decoded image.
8. Copying This software package is released under the GNU Public License. Please see the COPYING file for more details.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.