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psk31lx

PSK31 in a terminal, with no desktop and no waterfall

What it does

Transmits and receives PSK31 through a sound card from a curses interface: a tuning indicator, a receive window, a transmit buffer and a set of programmable macros. No graphics, no window manager.

Why you would want it

It runs over SSH. A remote or headless station -- a Pi at the antenna, a machine in a shed, a field setup driven from a laptop over a link -- can work PSK31 with this and cannot with fldigi. It is also small enough to be comprehensible, which matters if you want to understand the mode rather than only operate it.

Before it will work

Sound card audio to and from the radio, and PTT -- serial line or VOX. Tuning is done from a text indicator rather than a waterfall, which takes more care than clicking a trace.

How it installs

  • apt: psk31lx

Known problems

Finding a signal without a waterfall is genuinely harder, and the usual approach is to tune with a graphical program first and then switch. See the upstream note below: the author's site is gone, so this is packaged software with no live upstream.

Keeping it current

  • probe: apt policy
  • strategy: apt_upgrade

Where to get help with the software itself

Ted Williams, WA0EIR -- the same author as twclock and twpsk, and the same outcome: the Homepage Debian declares, wa0eir.bcts.info, does not resolve (checked 2026-08-28). Three packages in this catalog share that dead domain. The distribution is the only support route.

Source: catalog/packages/psk31lx.yaml