Ok, Irad. THANKS for looking into into that glitch. 73!

Addendum: I had a station send the LHR command today while I was running version 3.5 and it worked as expected. Will wait on 3.6 till I see what you suggest. 7i3, Joe

Here you go. Both QSO log (first), and Last Heard Log 26/04/2022 23:39:44 - N7TES> Well - I will install the new update today. BTW - I saw your name on the Ham Radio Course YouTube this weekend. Josauh was talking about this app. I need to confirgure for a monitor panel as he deminstated. 26/04/2022 23:40:15 - N7TES> <LHR> 26/04/2022 23:40:39 - WD4KAV> hihi I also did a connect to him after the show was over, and we chatted for a bit. 26/04/2022 23:40:53 - WD4KAV> send the lhr again 26/04/2022 23:42:07 - WD4KAV> not seeing any print now from you ?? 26/04/2022 23:42:55 - WD4KAV> Let me re-connect. 26/04/2022 23:43:04 - DISCONNECTED FROM N7TES 26/04/2022 23:43:18 - CONNECTED TO N7TES 26/04/2022 23:43:34 - WD4KAV> de WD4KAV <R+17> 26/04/2022 23:44:42 - WD4KAV> Something is foo-bar. I hear your tones, but no text on screen. I'm going to re-install previous version after I check for any additional update to the latest version. 26/04/2022 23:45:19 - DISCONNECTED FROM N7TES 26/04/2022 23:50:08 - INCOMING CONNECTION REQUEST.. Hold tight! 26/04/2022 23:50:20 - CONNECTED TO N7TES 26/04/2022 23:50:28 - WD4KAV> Hello! <NAME:Joe> <QTH:Puyallup, WA> <LOC:CN87tc><SND> Be right with you..... de WD4KAV 26/04/2022 23:50:44 - N7TES> de N7TES <R+16> I just installed v3.6.5 26/04/2022 23:50:51 - WD4KAV> <R+14> 26/04/2022 23:50:55 - N7TES> NAME:John QTH:Puyallup, WA LOC:CN87td> 26/04/2022 23:51:02 - WD4KAV> Back on version 3.5 Do that LHR command again. 26/04/2022 23:51:19 - N7TES> <LHR> 26/04/2022 23:51:52 - WD4KAV> Odd... no response. Wonder what the deal is? 26/04/2022 23:52:46 - WD4KAV> Let me disconnect and make sure that it is still enabled. 26/04/2022 23:53:28 - WD4KAV> Better yet, let me cold boot the win 10 pro pc and start over. No data from you at all. 26/04/2022 23:59:05 - CONNECTED TO N7TES 26/04/2022 23:59:12 - N7TES> ok de N7TES 26/04/2022 23:59:21 - WD4KAV> de WD4KAV <R+10> 26/04/2022 23:59:27 - N7TES> <R+11> 26/04/2022 23:59:38 - WD4KAV> <QSYD> 27/04/2022 00:00:42 - WD4KAV> On 3.6.5 now 27/04/2022 00:00:47 - N7TES> NAME:John QTH:Puyallup, WA LOC:CN87td> 27/04/2022 00:01:10 - N7TES> Good copy at my end. 27/04/2022 00:01:24 - WD4KAV> <NAME:Joe> <QTH:Puyallup, WA> <LOC:CN87tc> 27/04/2022 00:01:28 - N7TES> I'm also on v3.6.5 27/04/2022 00:01:56 - WD4KAV> Try Last Heard Peeking 27/04/2022 00:02:07 - N7TES> ok 27/04/2022 00:02:14 - N7TES> <LHR> 27/04/2022 00:02:31 - WD4KAV> Nothing..... 27/04/2022 00:03:49 - WD4KAV> Same issue now. I hear your tones, but nothing printing here. No "N7TES is typing" either. Think I will submit a bug report. 27/04/2022 00:04:24 - DISCONNECTED FROM N7TES LAST HEARD LOG 2022-04-26,BEACON,20m,22:50,W4HTP,500,-05 2022-04-26,BEACON,20m,22:51,W6VRF,500,-06 2022-04-26,CQ,20m,22:51,K5KWG,500,-21 2022-04-26,CQ,40m,23:26,N7TES,500,+01 2022-04-26,CQ,40m,23:27,N7TES,500,+02 2022-04-26,CQ,40m,23:27,N7TES,500,-0

Sorry for the confusion, Irad. The other station sent <.LHR> which printed on my screen. My station did not respond. The other station sent some additional text over the next few minutes, and nothing showed on my screen, but I heard VARA-HF ACKing the received data. (I always have the receiver volume up just high enough to hear traffic, including my transmitted signal. This was a habit I developed waaaay back in the days of HF Packet, HI). Text *I* sent to him appeared in the top window, as expected. ... Joe

Right you are ! Must have had a "Senior Monent"! Hi. ..Joe

Hi Irad. Yes, I can re-size the whole UI, as before, but what I want to do is shrink the width of the VARA log window, and COMMANDS window. I prefer to run VarAC full screen, and as you can see in my previous post, there is a ton of "blank space" on the right hand side of those windows. I'm not sure what the problem was when I was not able to shrink the UI by grabbing a corner, prior to my post above. It works now. 73, Joe

THANKS, Gary! Don't know how I missed that!

Here's another thing to try. Start VarAC, then, once you're at the VarAC screen, go to VARA-HF. Click on "Settings", then "Sound Card". Make sure you have USB AUDIO CODEC (or whatever your rig sound card is called) selected in both "Device Input" and "Device Output". After that, click on the "Test" button, and while your rig is keyed, move the slider to the right of "Test" toward the right. At some point, you should begin to hear audio (if you have our 7300 set up to monitor your transmitter) or see output. Adjust the audio till the ALC level is about 1/3 of the way up. Let me know how you do. 73

I FINALLY got the 7300 working, by copying Irad's settings. Attached is a screen shot of what works. If you have no luck with this, then there must be a "connector" setting in the 7300 that needs to be changed. Let me know how you do.

UPDATE: I took time just now to turn OFF USB SEND KEYING, and then duplicated your settings, and the 7300 still won't key, using either RTS/DTR or CAT control. I'm beginning to wonder if there might be something amiss with the USB cable, or perhaps the way the Imac handles the lines. (BUT, since OmniRig works FB, I don't see how this could be the case.) (Yes, in all my testing, I have done a "cold boot" of the radio, and made sure to exit VarAC and Log4OM (which also uses OmniRig) before doing my tests.) At this point, I'm just glad that OmniRg works, and will leave everything alone. 73, Joe

Thanks for the additional info, Gary. I've decided to put this issue on the back burner for now since, as you say, omnirig works fb. After thinking a bit, I think it's the UZ7HO packet software that requires that I have USB SEND KEYING "ON' to work properly. The only difference (not counting baud rate and COM port) that I see in the configuration screens is that my omnirig RTS setting as "handshake". I don't remember changing that setting, so maybe that was the way it was configured originally? I tried setting it to "HIGH" and the 7300 still did not key/unkey using CAT control. 73, Joe

Well, something is still amiss, as I haven't changed the default 7300 address, yet the rig does not key unless i use OmniRig.

Hi Gary. I don't see a place to enter the address for the 7300. If I missed where that is done, then it would explain why my rig won't key.

OK, Thanks Irad

will do. Thanks, Itad.

UPDATE: I read someplace (perhaps on the VarAC facebook group?) that other ops running SDR radios have had similar issues, and that they were solved by a Timeout value of 2000. I changed that setting here, and have not had a single occurrence of the slow T/R turnaround since doing that. Now, if I just fully understood WHY this helped, I'd be ahead of the game. I guess I need to go find docs on Vara-HF! 73, Joe WD4KAV

I've started to notice that the T/R cycle is sometimes not as fast as it needs to be. I've only seen this in the most recent VarAC. I leave the receive audio "up" a little during a QSO, to see what the other signal sounds like. Now, sometimes, the rig will not switch back to receive INSTANTLY, like usual. It seems to remain in XMIT (but with no VARA-HF tones being sent) for perhaps another second after the last packet goes out the door. Again, this is an occasional thing, not something with every xmit/rcv cycle. (My rig is an IC-7300, and i'm using OmniRig). This latest quirk does not happen when using other modes.) I've not been able to do a test yet with another station to see if this happens with the normal "pings" that happen when the circuit between the two stations is idle or not. Then again, this might be a wrinkle in VARA-HF ? 73, Joe

Yep, I'm using the latest Vara-HF. When this has happened, I don't hear the other station sending anything at all, and it's happened with different stations, on different bands (so I don't think it's an RF issue). I guess this might indicate that both sides have stopped checking the link ? I'll just try a re-connect the next time this occurs, and see what happens. ...Joe

All this has been explained multiple times in this thread. I will make no more comments.

I think a personal mailbox, NOT PMS or BBS, has continued utility. While file and data transfers are an important addition, especially when used for EMCOMM, don't forget that a large majority of people will be using VarAC as an everyday QSO tool. The ability to store more than a few sentences in a "mailbox" to be read later would be a real asset! The way things are now, once VarAC is exited, there is no easy way to review any information that was left for you, not to mention that you'd have to scroll back and back and back to make sure you didn't miss something that was left for you. 73, Joe