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wsjtx-improved

Community fork of WSJT-X with additional decoding and UI features

What it does

A fork of WSJT-X carrying decoding improvements, additional user-interface options, and features that have not been merged upstream.

Why you would want it

Operators chasing marginal decodes often prefer it. It coexists with stock WSJT-X rather than replacing it, so you can run either.

Before it will work

Same as WSJT-X — accurate clock, CAT control, audio routing.

How it installs

  • apt: wsjtx-improved — on kali
  • prebuilt deb from https://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/wsjt-x-improved/WSJT-X_v3.2.0/Linux/wsjtx_3.2.0_improved_PLUS_260818_amd64.deb — arch x86_64

This displaces the distribution's own wsjtx-data, wsjtx (D-022: coexist, disclose, never remove silently).

Known problems

Distributed as date-stamped SourceForge artifacts with no release feed, so updates must be found and re-pinned by hand. The 3.2.0 vendor .deb registers as dpkg package wsjtx and installs /usr/bin/wsjtx -- a source-built stock WSJT-X in /usr/local/bin shadows it on PATH, so run /usr/bin/wsjtx explicitly when both are present. Measured harder (2026-08-30, Parrot and the campaign box state): the deb ships /usr/share/pixmaps/wsjtx_icon.png without a Replaces header, so dpkg refuses it -- correctly -- on any machine where the distribution's wsjtx-data is installed, which jtdx depends on. The manifest declares that conflict, so the plan refuses by name both when wsjtx-data is already installed and when the same transaction would install it (the digital-modes profile carried both until 2026-09-02, and could never install whole); installing wsjtx-improved alongside jtdx means removing jtdx and wsjtx-data first, and the refusal says so. Kali rolling cannot install the 3.2.0 .deb at all (measured 2026-09-02): it depends on libboost-log1.83.0, and Kali's archive has moved past that boost, so apt refuses it with "none of the choices are installable". A vendor .deb is built against one release's libraries, and this is what that looks like on a rolling one, so on Kali this manifest installs the archive's own wsjtx-improved (3.1.0, measured 2026-09-07 from clean) instead. The archive package does not sit beside stock WSJT-X: it Breaks: wsjtx and its data package breaks wsjtx-data, so on a Kali machine with stock WSJT-X (or jtdx, which depends on wsjtx-data) installed, apt can only install it by removing them. The plan sees that and refuses, naming each package and version and the apt-get remove that takes them off deliberately; the engine never removes them for you (D-022). Parrot and Debian 13 also carry an archive wsjtx-improved (2.8.0, a year behind the vendor build); this manifest keeps the vendor .deb there, where it is measured working and newer.

Toolkit risk

  • qt5: unknown, checked 2026-08-25

Keeping it current

  • probe: none
  • strategy: manual
  • SourceForge releases with date-stamped filenames; no release API. Check manually and re-pin the sha256.

Source: catalog/packages/wsjtx-improved.yaml