Manager


Manager - NA4M
Manager Notes

Reviews For: Fldigi - Digital Mode software

Category: Ham Software/Apps - Other than logging

eMail Subscription

Registered users are allowed to subscribe to specific review topics and receive eMail notifications when new reviews are posted.
Review Summary For : Fldigi - Digital Mode software
Reviews: 98MSRP: free
Description:
A digital mode program for PSK31, RTTY, and many other operating modes. Available as free & open source software, coded in C++ for Linux.
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.w1hkj.com/Fldigi.html
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
35984.5
M0GNA Rating: 2012-09-02
The best things in life are free. Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I use it as a back up for my ears when trying to copy speedy CW.Its a great program it works and it costs nothing.Try it and judge for yourself.
STAYVERTICAL Rating: 2012-08-31
The Ferrari of digimodes Time Owned: more than 12 months.
As a primarily digimodes user, I operate with Flidigi every day.
I have also tried about every digimodes program on the planet, and paid for quite a few as well.
But in the end, I always come back to Fldigi.

For me, this program is simply the best mix of speed, utility and useability.
It is very light on computer resources, is stable and will operate over many platforms.
It does what it is supposed to do - run digimodes cleanly and well.
So far, I have not had intermittent lockups, crashes or other failures which other programs seem to have.
Fldigi is reliable, robust and feature rich - not to mention free.

Some programs are like schoolbuses, others Pinto's, but Fldigi is like a Ferrari.
It runs fast and efficiently getting the job done.

Kudos to Dave and his band of programmers for bringing us such a fine program.
K8WDX Rating: 2012-07-20
Great Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Great software, Dave has done a perfect job with this, does what it needs to do and no more, no bloat etc, I see a complaint of frequent updates, this is not a problem, the problem is the user is using it under windows, I f you use it under Linux then the updates come automatically with the package manager as long as you add the PPA. This program was designed to be run under the Linux OS, No one said you have to update it all the time either, this may be a good idea, because sometimes the updates have bugs.
Then I saw a post about how hard it was to set up! are you kidding me? If the user did, not get this set up, he is not using digi modes today. This is the easiest software to set up, only has what it needs including a built in logging program! what else do you need? Does PSK reporter and some other nice stuff, has almost all the modes, and CW receive and transmit as well, nice!! I have been using this for several years, and will continue to do so with My linux Ubuntu machine. Combined with CQRlog, I have a great set up here...GDDX my friends, see ya on PSK31 and RTTY and some others. 73 Tom K8WDX
W8NSI Rating: 2012-06-04
Does everything that it is supposed to do! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
FLDIGI is a FREE multi mode ham radio sound card program and it does all covered modes well. I use fldigi every day on the ham bands and on MARS frequencies (MT-63, Olivia, PSK31, AFSK RTTY) and it does the job. 5 STARS!

If you really hate incremental updates, then ignore them until a major update number occurs. All previous updates will be rolled into that major update! P&Ming about it will not change a thing.

If you really need an FSK rtty program, go use MixW or another that supports it. On the air, a purist cannot tell whether you are running FSK or AFSK rtty unless you tell him what software you are using.

FLDIGI is free and you get your moneys worth plus!

[FSK - Frequency Shift Keying]
[AFSK - Audio Frequency Shift Keying]
KE5VIC Rating: 2012-02-05
I use on Mac OSx. It works great! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
It works super. I have downloaded the source for study. very nice work.
K3PA Rating: 2012-01-01
Good, but fatal flaw Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
The progranm seems well done and receive capability is quite good. But there is a fatal flaw for RTTY; the program relies on AFSK. There is no capability for digital FSK via serial port as is implemented in MixW and supported by so many interfaces. In my opinion, this is a fatal flaw; there is no reason to ever use AFSK when cleaner, superior FSK should be the norm.

For other modes, recommended!
KC2RGW Rating: 2011-12-16
Fantastic, really well done Time Owned: more than 12 months.
This package is incredible. Open source, completely free software, very well maintained and a highly active community. It is a great example of open source contribution and project success.

Other reviewers obviously have no depth of experience in software and don't realize that for a cross platform tool kit, you will have the same look (of the toolkit) on any platform you run it on.

Integrating the native appearance of an OS native tool kit requires maintaining completely separate code trees. This is hundreds of man hours in effort just for the sake of appearances adding nothing to function.

Too many other software products focus on form over function and it is a waste of effort. The interface simplicity of fldigi is one of its greatest features. It is purpose built and going from Linux to Mac to Windows, it behaves the same way on each platform. No surprises.

Double clicking on setup.exe if new features or bug fixes are released is hardly an unreasonable hassle. At least this software is actively maintained and extended...and you aren't paying for new features as they are added.

I highly recommend this software and the accompanying suite of utilities, flrig, flmsg, and flwrap. The NBEMS system is still being worked on with tweaks and new modes added frequently. It is a really great system for sending forms based message data.

Because this project is open source, new features are being actively worked on and added all the time. There are alpha efforts to add packet functionality, digital voice modem implementations and other features.

I look forward to what this will be in another few years as it progresses further. Open source and open protocols should be something revered by ham radio operators...it is at the heart of why we exist.
K0LEJ Rating: 2011-12-16
Cottage software that needs polish Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I was using FLDIGI on a Windows PC (XP, Vista and 7), and while the program worked, it was obvious that program wasn't designed for Windows as it doesn't follow the Windows design and security standards. For example, the program is only visible under the user account it was loaded under rather than all the user accounts on the computer. There doesn't appear to be any file associations so that the companion programs automatically work. I know the program is written for several platforms, and that the author is promoting his way of use, but Windows users expect software to work within the Windows standards.

My biggest complaint is the never ending minor revision updates. I have seen multiple versions released within the same week. It would be much better to roll the minor revision updates into a quarterly update so that there is less confusion. While the technologically inclined likely have no issue with the multiple versions, think of a served agency that may not have the technical resources to update the software every week.

It's nice that the software is available on multiple platforms, but the software should designed to the operating systems standards (Mac version looking/operating like Mac software, Windows version looking/operating like Windows software, etc.). The program is good, but more work is needed to make it a professional looking and operating solution.
WA6LZH Rating: 2011-12-15
Diamond in the rough Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I stumbled on this little jewel while trying to install other psk software on a Linux system with Pulse Audio. More options for more devices (sound card). Use is a snap, not terribly pretty but it works very very well. Copy is excellent compared to most of the others out there. Got me interested enough to dust off my Kerigan/Ritchie and take a look at the source. Excellent effort for ham software. Rock solid. Macros well placed with groups of four just like the function keys they represent. A lot there now after using it I need to read the docs which are well written and very available.
N5JRN Rating: 2011-11-01
Works fine, could use a few more modes Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Right now, I'm using it to eavesdrop on HF communications (don't have a transmitting antenna up yet). Grabbed fldigi because (a) it's free, and (b) it runs on the Mac. Within 15 minutes I was receiving a weather fax, WITHOUT LOOKING AT THE DOCUMENTATION. Now THAT'S intuitive and logical design!

After playing around with fldigi for a day, I decided to download Multimode for evaluation and see how much better a "professional" package that I'd have to pay for was. BIG surprise -- it was MUCH harder to use! After fighting my way through it for a while, I put it aside and basically haven't touched my eval copy since.

Biggest minuses of fldigi are that it isn't very "Mac-ish" (it's clearly ported over from the *nix world, with no GUI rewrite done at all), and that it's missing a few modes I really wish it had (particularly AMTOR/SITOR and SSTV).

Regarding that user interface, don't let the "not 'Mac-ish'" comment frighten you away if you're a diehard Mac user. Again, it really IS a wonderfully intuitive program. It just explains itself -- there's a waterfall display (frequency along the horizontal axis, time along the vertical), and little markers that delimit the mark/space frequencies or the bandwidth limits. Click on the mouse to drag them, and you can slide them atop the signal.