WSJT-X User Guide

This guide includes many screen shots to illustrate user settings and program features. Keep in mind that WSJT-X is a multi-platform application; the detailed appearance of windows and user controls will be different in Windows, Linux, or macOS environments. The underlying functionality is the same on all operating systems, however. Where desirable we call special attention to important platform differences.

Most people access the WSJT-X User Guide primarily through a browser. Use the browser’s search function, generally invoked from the keyboard with the keys CTRL+F, to search the guide for help on a particular topic or keyword.

The names of WSJT-X windows, menus, and on-screen controls are displayed in this manual in boldface type, as in Wide Graph. File names and information entered via keyboard is shown in a monospace font, for example all.txt.

In this manual the following icons call attention to particular types of information:

The WSJT-X user interface (UI) is now available in many languages. When a translated UI is available for the computer’s default System Language, it will appear automatically on program startup. The UI language may be overridden if desired by starting WSJT-X with a command line option. For example, to start WSJT-X with its user interface in Spanish or Japanese, start a command-prompt window and enter one of these the commands:

wsjtx --language es

wsjtx --language ja

The top portion of the main window will then look like one of the following examples:

WSJT is an open-source project hosted at GitHub. If you have programming or documentation skills or would like to contribute to the project in other ways, please make your interests known to the development team. You can submit bug reports, suggestions for new features, and explicit pull requests at the GitHub site. We especially encourage those with translation skills to volunteer their help, either for this User Guide or for the program’s user interface.

WSJT-X, MAP65, and QMAP are free software intended for communication by Amateur Radio. Copyright © 2001-2026 by Joseph Taylor, K1JT, and the WSJT Development Team.

You can redistribute and/or modify these programs under the terms of Version 3 of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation. The programs are distributed in the hope that they 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.

For 64-bit Windows 10 and later: Download and execute the package file wsjtx-3.2.0-rc1-win64.exe. Install WSJT-X into its own directory, for example C:\WSJTX or C:\WSJT\WSJTX, rather than the conventional location
C:\Program Files …​\WSJTX. All program files relating to WSJT-X will be stored in the chosen installation directory and its subdirectories. Logs and other writeable files are normally found in the directory
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\WSJT-X.

If you installed WSJT-X from the official Windows installer, first try updating to the latest installer package. Reinstalling the same package may help if files in the local installation were removed or damaged. The OpenSSL DLLs must match the Qt libraries used to build the program and are normally installed with WSJT-X, so installing unrelated system-wide OpenSSL DLLs is not the recommended fix.

You can use WSJT-X on any 64-bit Linux system by downloading and executing the appropriate "AppImage" file from the WSJT Downloads Page. These packages contain all required dependencies for use of WSJT-X, but they do not provide access to MAP65, QMAP, or any of the related utility programs.

Complete installation packages are provided on the WSJT Downloads Page for 64-bit Debian-based and RedHat-based Linux systems. Be sure to fetch the package built for your machine’s architecture: it will have x86_64 in the file name for Intel/AMD machines, aarch64 for ARM.

You may also need to execute the following command in a terminal:

You may also need to execute the following command in a terminal:

For macOS installers are provided for x86_64 (Intel) systems and for ARM64 (Apple silicon) systems. Download the correct package for your system from the WSJT Downloads Page, double-click on the file name, and follow the on-screen prompts in the Installer app.

If you have already installed a previous version, you can retain it by changing its name in the Applications folder (such as from WSJT-X to WSJT-X_3.0). You can then proceed to the installation phase.

Take note also of the following:

This guide is for developers building WSJT-X, MAP65, or QMAP from source. To install and operate a released version instead, use the platform packages from the official GitHub Releases page.

This menu appears on the Macintosh only. Settings appears here, labeled as Preferences, rather than on the File menu. About WSJT-X appears here rather than on the Help menu.

Some users prefer to create and use entries on the Configurations menu for switching between modes. Simply Clone the Default entry, Rename it as desired, and then make all desired settings for that configuration. All settings will be restored whenever you select that configuration.

As well as switching between configurations while running WSJT-X, you can also start the application from the command line in any desired configuration. Use the command-line option --config <configuration-name>, or -c for short, as in these examples for configurations named FT8 and Echo:

Most items on the View menu can be clicked to display a specified window. Some are self-explanatory or described in detail elsewhere in this guide; additional details for others are included below.

Active Stations is a window with two distinct purposes. The first can help you work the most distant stations, in particular for the distance-scored ARRL International Digital Contest. You can set the maximum length of the list and the maximum “Age” of displayed decodes, measured in Rx sequences. You can request display of only ready-to-be-called stations: those whose most recent transmission is a CQ, RR73, or 73 message. For the ARRL International Digital Contest the window displays scoring Rate (points in the most recent hour), your total accumulated Score, and the number of Band Changes in the past hour.

When WSJT-X is used together with sister program QMAP, the Active Stations window displays the frequencies, SNRs, Q65 sub-modes, and Maidenhead locators for stations recently decoded by QMAP over its full 90 kHz bandwidth. Stations using a 30-second sub-mode of Q65 are highlighted in yellow. You can limit the displayed list by checking the Wanted only and/or CQ only boxes. The total number of QSOs found in wsjtx.log is shown, for example to follow your progress in an EME contest. Fo more details about using QMAP, see Section 9.9.

SWL Mode reduces the main window to show just the menus, decodes windows, and status bar. You may find this useful when running multiple instances of the application. The size and location of the main window are saved and recalled independently for this view.

A special messaging system can be used to invite your QSO partner to move to another band or mode (for example, during a contest), or to convey some short canned messages. There are two main parts, the Message Creator and the QSY Monitor. Received messages are displayed in popup windows.

Use the Message Creator to create and send these special messages with just a few clicks. When using this feature for the first time, make sure that your IARU Region has been set (upper right on the File | Settings | General tab). Activate the Message Creator window by checking its name on the View menu. Four tabs are available: HF, VHF, EME and General:

To send a message, select the appropriate tab and then the band, mode, and kHz part of frequency for a QSY request, or a canned message from the General tab. The actual message to be sent will be shown in the field labeled Message on each tab. Click Send Message to have this message conveyed in your next scheduled transmission. Enable Tx will be activated automatically, and your message will be sent to the callsign in the DX Call field of the main window. The example below shows the creation of a message to W3SZ asking him to QSY to 145.550 using FM.

To prepare for receiving special messages, check Enable Message Popups on the View menu. A screenshot showing the example message sent to W3SZ is shown below. As recipient, W3SZ can click Reply Yes or Reply No, and his reply message will be sent in the next Tx interval to the callsign present in the recipient’s DX callsign box.

You can view messages sent to other stations, as well as to yourself. To do so, check QSY Monitor on the View menu. An example showing a number of received messages is shown below.

Optional band select buttons can be switched on or off from the View menu. Two sets of buttons are available. Check Band Buttons to get an HF-oriented set for 160 m through 70 cm, and also VHF / UHF Buttons to display a set for 8 m through 24 GHz. Clicking on a band button switches the program to a mode-dependent default frequency selected from the frequency table for that band. In FT8 mode, right-clicking a band button will set dial frequency to the conventional DXpedition frequency (or on 6 m, to the intercontinental frequency). To define your own preferred default frequencies, check the relevant Pref boxes on the File | Settings | Frequencies tab.

Select Dark Style to switch to a dark-background theme for all windows. To make it effective you will probably want to redefine your color settings.

The Filters menu lets you control a wide variety of message-filtering options. Many of them are defined on the File | Settings | Filters tab. You can hide, ignore, or highlight stations worked before on the current band, worked today or yesterday, or those present in the Ignore List. A checkbox labelled BP on the main window (just left of the Log QSO button) allows all filtering options to be bypassed temporarily with a single click. This action can be used, for example, if you have filtered out your own continent to display only DX stations but now wish to monitor all band activity.

All WSJT-X modes offer Fast, Normal, and Deep decoding options. Deep usually provides the best sensitivity, at the cost of slower processing and a slightly higher probability of false decodes.

In FT8 mode you can select a multithreaded decoder with many additional options. You may wish to experiment with the various possibilities to obtain best overall performance in your setup. In general we find the multithreaded decoder yields a greater number of decodes on a busy band, while the single-threaded Deep setting is best for extreme weak signal work.

Full Duplex Mode can also be selected from the Decode menu. Audio input can be taken from a second local receiver or from a WebSDR on the internet. Duplex operation works for slow modes (FT8, FT4, Q65, … ) and fast modes like MSK144. Your own transmitted messages will be highlighted in the Band Activity window in the color you selected for "Transmitted message" on the File | Settings | Colors tab.

An additional option to disable mouse clicks on the waterfall, visible only when Q65 mode is selected, and VHF Features are enabled, can be selected to prevent inadvertent mouse clicks on the waterfall from changing the Rx and/or Tx offset frequencies. When selected, frequency changes can still be made using the mouse by holding down the ALT key.

You can control the types of information that _WSJT-X saves during an operating session, perhaps for future analysis or diagnostic purposes. For example, check Save decoded to save audio files for all receiving sequences producing at least one decode. The file ALL.TXT is a record of everything you have transmitted or received. You can choose to have it automatically split into smaller chunks by month or year, or to disable it entirely. Some diagnostic logging of events always takes place. Diagnostic mode lets you collect more data to troubleshoot problems with the program, or with its communication with your rig.

Select the General tab on the Settings window. Under Station Details enter your callsign, grid locator (preferably the 6-character locator) and IARU Region number. (Region 1 is Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Northern Asia; Region 2 the Americas; and Region 3 Southern Asia and the Pacific.) Meanings of remaining options on the General tab should be mostly self-explanatory after you have made some QSOs using WSJT-X. You can return to set these options to your preferences later.

WSJT-X offers CAT (Computer Aided Transceiver) control of relevant features of most modern transceivers. To configure the program for your radio, select the Radio tab.

When all required settings have been made, click Test CAT to test communication between WSJT-X and your radio. The button should turn green to indicate that proper communication has been established. Failure of the CAT-control test turns the button red and displays an error message. After a successful CAT test, toggle the Test PTT button to confirm that your selected method of T/R control is working properly, the button turns red if the rig has been successfully keyed. (If you selected VOX for PTT Method, you can test T/R switching later by using the Tune button on the main window.)

Select the Audio tab to configure your sound system.

Tx Macros are an aid for sending brief, frequently used free-text messages such as the example shown below.

Companion programs like JTAlert use the UDP Server feature to exchange information with WSJT-X. If you are using JTAlert to send requests to WSJT-X, be sure to check the box Accept UDP requests.

By default, the Working Frequencies table contains a list of frequencies conventionally used for specific modes. Conventions may change with time, or by user preference; you can modify the frequency table as desired.

Other more advanced maintenance operations are available on the right-click context popup menu.

Frequency Calibration: If you have calibrated your radio using WWV or other reliable frequency references, or perhaps with the technique described in Accurate Frequency Measurements with your WSPR Setup, enter the measured values for Intercept A and Slope B in the equation

where “Dial error” and A are in Hz, f is frequency in MHz, and B is in parts per million (ppm). Frequency values sent to the radio and received from it will then be adjusted so that frequencies displayed by WSJT-X are accurate.

Station Information: You can save Band, Offset and Antenna Description information for your station. The antenna information will be included in reception reports sent to PSK Reporter. By default the frequency offset for each band is zero. Nonzero offsets may be added if (for example) a transverter is in use.

Stations who are known to have uploaded their logs to the ARRL LoTW QSL matching service can be highlighted. The data used to determine this is available online.

Some users find an alternative color scheme with pastel-like colors easier on the eyes and more suitable for the dark style. You can select either the original WSJT-X or the alternative style. With the alternative style, stations uploading their logbook to LoTW will have black foreground color, others red. Stations worked-before are displayed with grey background.

It is still possible for you to customize the color scheme according to your own preferences. In addition, you can highlight individual callsigns, grids, prefixes, or directional CQ calls such as DX, POTA, and SOTA with an orange or blue background. Callsigns, grids, and directional calls are separated by commas and can be mixed (e.g. "K1JT, DG2YCB, JO33, DX, POTA, SOTA,"). Spaces after commas are allowed. Directional calls are matched as whole list items, so list order has no effect and no leading comma is needed. A single directional call does not need a comma. You must include a comma after each callsign or grid, and also at the end of the line. Prefixes must be followed by a semicolon (e.g. "VK;ZL;T88;"). The Wanted audible alert uses the same orange and blue entries.

Special Operating Activity

WSJT-X can be configured to issue audible alerts when messages with specified content are decoded. This feature requires computer access to at least two audio output devices: one for transmitted audio, and a different one for audible alerts. The device for transmitted audio is selected on the Audio tab; alerts are always played on the Default audio device, most commonly the loudspeaker of your computer. To activate audio alerts, check any desired boxes on the Alerts menu and click the button Enable Audio Alerts.

Categories above the line require checking the box Show DXCC, grid and worked before status in the Display section of the File | Settings | General tab. To identify what triggered one of these alerts, ensure that corresponding categories in the File | Settings | Colors tab are selected. Use the checkboxes Highlight DX Call in message and Highlight DX Grid in message in the Display section of File | Settings | General to help identify what triggered an alert for DX Call or DX Grid in message.

Filters provide a way to limit what is displayed in the Band Activity window. Define desired filtering categories using entry fields and checkboxes on the Filters tab. You can turn many filters on or off by checking lines on the main-window Filters menu.

You can specify up to four territories for which hiding messages can be switched on or off using options on the main window Filters menu. You can hide messages from a specific continent, or stations worked before on a band. There are entry fields for a Blacklist, a Whitelist, and an Always Pass list, and these can be used in combination. Blacklist might be used to suppress decodes from pirate stations, contest messages, or other messages with unwanted content. You can enter whole callsigns, parts of callsigns, or keywords. Whitelist can be used if you’re interested only in messages with certain grids, calls, or keywords. All other messages (except those allowed by the Always Pass list) will then be suppressed. Always Pass will enable display of decodes from specific stations even though the respective country or continent is hidden.

You can optionally apply filters only to callsigns of transmitting stations, or use the filters only for Wait and Pounce operation. In the latter case, all messages will be displayed in the Band Activity window, but Wait and Pounce will respond only to stations that meet the set filter criteria.

When any filter is active that limits display of some decodes, the status label at bottom left of the main window changes from green "Receiving" to cyan "Receiving, Filters on".

A click on the Ignore button (located on the main window below the DX Grid box) adds the callsign present in the DX Call box to your Ignore List. If you have also checked the box Ignore stations from the Ignore List on the main-window Filters menu, such stations are automatically ignored when you use one of the CQ: …​ options or Wait and Reply. The "Ignore List" will be created in your log directory the first time a station is added to it. You can erase the "Ignore List" from the File menu.

Select Keyboard shortcuts from the Help menu (or use function key F3) to display the following list of quick-action shortcuts:

Select Special Mouse Commands from the Help menu (or use function key F5) to display the following list of mouse commands:

Use Tab and Shift+Tab to move forward and backward among controls in the main window. Use the arrow keys to change the selection within grouped controls.

You can control the transmitted-message sequence without leaving the keyboard. On the Standard Messages page, the six radio buttons in the Next column act as a single Tab stop: Tab reaches the currently selected message, and the arrow keys choose which of Tx1 through Tx6 will be sent in the next transmission. Further Tab presses reach the Now buttons, which select the corresponding message and, during a transmission, switch to it immediately, followed by the editable message fields. When the vertical 1 / 2 / 3 message-page selector has focus, use the arrow keys or the keys 1, 2, and 3 to select a page.

The following steps will download sample audio Wave files that were originally recorded by WSJT-X. These files can be opened and processed at another time, to partially simulate real-time operation.

The WSJT-X Wide Graph window displays the frequency spectrum of received audio. Usually, the upper portion shows a waterfall plot of the frequency spectrum (a spectrogram) and a line plot of the current or average spectrum. Controls at the bottom of the window are used to set up the displayed audio frequency range, color palette, and scaling of the spectrum displays. A control Spec nn% at the bottom right lets you adjust the vertical fraction of the window occupied by the spectrum line plot. It is important to set appropriate lower and upper audio frequency limits for the Wide Graph because these limits define the FT8 decoder’s search window. For this tutorial, the limits will be set to cover 100-3300 Hz:

The Palette setting controls the color scheme used for the spectrogram:

When Flatten is checked, WSJT-X attempts to correct for slope or curvature in the receiver’s passband shape.

The line plot can be set to display the current (un-averaged) spectrum or the cumulative (averaged) spectrum:

The Spec nn% setting determines what fraction of the vertical extent of the Wide Graph will be used for the line plot of the spectrum. Setting Spec to 0 will eliminate the line plot and a setting of 100 will eliminate the spectrogram and show only the line plot:

Decoding takes place at the end of a receive sequence. With Decode set to Deep, three decoding passes will be done and the Decode button on the main window will illuminate three times, once for each pass. The first decoding attempt in each pass is done at the selected Rx frequency, indicated by the U-shaped green marker on the waterfall frequency scale. All decodes appear in the left (Band Activity) window. The right (Rx Frequency) text window displays any decodes obtained at the current Rx frequency along with any decodes addressed to My Call (K1JT in this case). The red marker on the waterfall scale indicates your Tx frequency.

Twenty-one FT8 signals are decoded from the example file. The number of decodes is shown in a box at the bottom of the main window. When this file was recorded HA5WA was finishing a QSO with K1JT, and his 73 message is shown in red because it is addressed to My Call (in this case K1JT). By default, lines containing CQ are highlighted in green, and lines with My Call (K1JT) in red. Notice that K1JT now has two additional callers; HA0DU and EA3AGB.

To gain some feeling for controls frequently used when making QSOs, try double-clicking with the mouse on the decoded text lines and on the waterfall spectral display. You should be able to confirm the following behavior:

FT4 is designed for contesting, particularly on the HF bands and 6 meters. Compared with FT8 it is 3.5 dB less sensitive and requires 1.6 times the bandwidth, but it offers the potential for twice the QSO rate.

The FT4 user interface includes a button labeled Best S+P.

Clicking Best S+P during an Rx cycle arms the program to examine all CQ messages decoded at the end of the Rx sequence. The program will select the best potential QSO partner (from a contesting perspective), and treat it as if you had double-clicked on that line of decoded text. Here "best potential QSO partner" means "New Multiplier" (1st priority) or "New Call on Band" (2nd priority). "New Multiplier" is currently interpreted to mean "New DXCC".

Best S+P is a useful feature only if you have defined what "best" is supposed to mean. This is done by configuring suitable options on the Settings | Colors tab. Selection and ordering of color-highlighting options determines what potential QSO partners will be chosen by the "Best S+P" feature. Optimum choices will be different for different contests. In a contest using FT Roundup rules we recommend activating My Call in message, New DXCC, New Call on Band, CQ in message and Transmitted message, reading from top to bottom.

Do not confuse FST4 with FT4, which has a very different purpose! FST4 is designed primarily for making weak-signal 2-way QSOs on the LF and MF bands. T/R periods from 15 s up to 1800 s are available. Longer sequences provide better sensitivity only if Tx and Rx frequency instability and channel Doppler spread are small enough that received signals will remain phase coherent over periods spanning several transmitted symbols. Generally speaking, Rx and Tx frequency changes during the transmission and channel Doppler spread should each be small compared to the symbol keying rate. (See Table 7 in the Protocol Specifications section.) For example, the keying rate for FST4-1800 is 0.089 Baud, so successful operation requires frequency stability to be better than (and Doppler Spread less than) around 0.05 Hz.

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:

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 File | Settings | General tab, you can further limit the decoding range to the setting of F Tol on either side of Rx Freq.

A noise blanker can be enabled by setting the NB percentage to a non-zero value. (This control is located just above the input level thermometer.) The NB 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.

FST4W is used in the same way as WSPR, but FST4W has significant advantages for use on the 2200 m and 630 m bands. By default the central Rx Freq is 1500 Hz and F Tol is 100 Hz, so the active decoding range is 1400 to 1600 Hz. However, for added flexibility you can select different center frequencies and F Tol values. A drop-down control below F Tol offers a round-robin mode for scheduling FST4W transmissions:

If three operators agree in advance to select the options 1/3, 2/3, and 3/3, for example, their FST4W transmissions will occur in a fixed sequence with no two stations transmitting simultaneously. Sequence 1 is the first sequence after 00:00 UTC. For WSPR-like scheduling behavior, you should select Random with this control.