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										 |  |  | Do not confuse FST4 with FT4, which has a very different purpose! | 
					
						
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										 |  |  | FST4 is designed primarily for making weak-signal 2-way QSOs on the  | 
					
						
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										 |  |  | LF and MF bands. T/R periods from 15 s up to 1800 s are  | 
					
						
							|  |  |  | available. Longer T/R periods provide better sensitivity only if  | 
					
						
							|  |  |  | Tx and Rx frequency instability and channel Doppler spread | 
					
						
							|  |  |  | are small enough so that received signals  | 
					
						
							|  |  |  | remain phase coherent over periods spanning several transmitted symbols. | 
					
						
							|  |  |  | Generally speaking, Rx and Tx frequency changes  | 
					
						
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										 |  |  | during the transmission and channel Doppler spread should each be small compared | 
					
						
							|  |  |  | to the symbol keying rate shown for each T/R duration in Table 7 within section | 
					
						
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										 |  |  | <<PROTOCOL_OVERVIEW,Protocol Specifications>>. For example, the keying rate for  | 
					
						
							|  |  |  | the 1800 s T/R period is 0.089 Baud, so | 
					
						
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										 |  |  | successful operation using this T/R length requires Tx and Rx frequency | 
					
						
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										 |  |  | stability better than 0.089 Hz over the duration of the 1800 s transmission in  | 
					
						
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										 |  |  | addition to channel Doppler spread smaller than 0.089 Hz.  | 
					
						
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										 |  |  | Operation with FST4 is similar to that with other _WSJT-X_ modes: most | 
					
						
							|  |  |  | on-screen controls, auto-sequencing, and other features behave in | 
					
						
							|  |  |  | familiar ways.  However, operating conventions on the 2200 and 630 m | 
					
						
							|  |  |  | bands have made some additional user controls desirable.  Spin boxes | 
					
						
							|  |  |  | labeled *F Low* and *F High* set lower and upper frequency limits used | 
					
						
							|  |  |  | by the FST4 decoder, and these limits are marked by dark green | 
					
						
							|  |  |  | angle-bracket symbols *< >* on the Wide Graph frequency scale: | 
					
						
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										 |  |  | 
 | 
					
						
							|  |  |  | image::FST4_Decoding_Limits.png[align="center"] | 
					
						
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 | 
					
						
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										 |  |  | {empty} + | 
					
						
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 | 
					
						
							|  |  |  | image::FST4_center.png[align="center"] | 
					
						
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										 |  |  | 
 | 
					
						
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										 |  |  | It's best to keep the decoding range fairly small, since QRM and | 
					
						
							|  |  |  | transmissions in other modes or sequence lengths will slow down the | 
					
						
							|  |  |  | decoding process (and of course will be undecodable).  By checking  | 
					
						
							|  |  |  | *Single decode* on the the *File | Settings | General* tab, you can | 
					
						
							|  |  |  | further limit the decoding range to the setting of *F Tol* on | 
					
						
							|  |  |  | either side of *Rx Freq*. | 
					
						
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										 |  |  | 
 | 
					
						
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										 |  |  | A noise blanker can be enabled by setting the *NB* percentage to a non-zero value.  | 
					
						
							|  |  |  | This setting determines how many of the largest-amplitude samples will be  | 
					
						
							|  |  |  | blanked (zeroed) before the data is submitted to the decoder. Most users find | 
					
						
							|  |  |  | that settings between 0% (no blanking) and 10% work best. If the noise  | 
					
						
							|  |  |  | blanker percentage is set to -1%, then the decoder will try 0, 5, 10, 15, and 20 % | 
					
						
							|  |  |  | in succession. Similarly, a setting of -2% causes the decoder to loop over | 
					
						
							|  |  |  | blanking percentages 0, 2, 4, ... 20 %. To save time, the multiple blanking  | 
					
						
							|  |  |  | percentages triggered by negative *NB* settings are tried only for signal  | 
					
						
							|  |  |  | candidates located near (within +/- 20 Hz) of the *Rx* frequency setting. | 
					
						
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 | 
					
						
							|  |  |  | .Open a sample Wave File: | 
					
						
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 | 
					
						
							|  |  |  | - Select *FST4* on the *Mode* menu. Set *T/R* to 60 s and *Decode | Deep*. | 
					
						
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										 |  |  | - Set *NB* (noise blanker) to 0%. | 
					
						
							|  |  |  | - Set up the Wide Graph display with settings appropriate for the FST4-60 mode.  | 
					
						
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										 |  |  | For example, try *Bins/Pixel* 2 and *N Avg* 4. Set the *Start* frequency and the width of  | 
					
						
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										 |  |  | the Wide Graph to include the frequency range that you want to decode. For this | 
					
						
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										 |  |  | example, make sure that *Start* is less than 1000 Hz and that the Wide Graph extends to above 1400 Hz. | 
					
						
							|  |  |  | - Set *F Low* 1000, *F High* 1400. These settings define the decoder's frequency search range. | 
					
						
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										 |  |  | - Open a sample Wave file using *File | Open* and select the file | 
					
						
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										 |  |  | ...\save\samples\FST4+FST4W\210115_0058.wav. After _WSJT-X_ has processed the file you should see something similar to the following screen shot: | 
					
						
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										 |  |  | 
 | 
					
						
							|  |  |  | image::FST4-1.png[align="left"] |