Copy Assist — Speech to Speech Overview

Copy Assist provides real-time speech-to-text transcription for the active slice, powered by whisper.cpp. It decodes received voice audio into a scrolling, color-coded transcript, helping you capture and review QSO content without relying on notes.

Before you start

• A FLEX-8600 radio must be connected and active.
• The whisper.cpp engine requires a model file; on first use, it will download the selected model automatically.
• GPU acceleration requires a compatible NVIDIA GPU with sufficient VRAM (GPU mode) or a CPU-only fallback (CPU mode).

How it works

1. Open the Copy Assist panel via View > Copy Assist or press Ctrl+Shift+T.
2. Enable transcription by clicking the Enable / Disable toggle button. The engine state indicator will show "Downloading model" (first use) → "Loading model" → "Listening".
3. Monitor the transcript in real time as decoded text scrolls in the read-only Transcript field. Text is color-coded:
4. Green – high confidence
5. Yellow – medium confidence
6. Red – low confidence
7. Track pipeline health using the Backlog indicator — shows seconds of audio not yet transcribed. The indicator color escalates from amber to red as backlog grows.
8. Fine-tune performance by clicking the Settings button (gear icon) to open the modeless Copy Assist settings dialog, where you can adjust:
9. Model tier – choose tiny, base, small, or medium (larger = more accurate but slower/heavier)
10. Compute device – select GPU (CUDA/Metal) for faster inference with GPU or CPU for universal compatibility
11. Clear the buffer at any time by clicking the Clear button.

What each control does

Control	Type	Default	Behavior
Enable / Disable	toggle button	Disabled	Starts or stops the whisper.cpp engine on the active slice's audio.
Transcript	read-only text field	—	Scrolling text display of decoded speech. Color-coded by confidence (green/yellow/red). Contains a Clear button to empty the buffer.
Model tier	combo box	tiny	Selects whisper model size. Valid settings: tiny, base, small, medium.
Compute device	combo box	GPU (CUDA/Metal)	Selects inference device. Valid settings: GPU or CPU.
Backlog indicator	status indicator	0.0s	Shows seconds of audio in the pipeline not yet transcribed. Color escalates amber → red as backlog grows.
Settings button	push button	—	Opens the modeless Copy Assist settings dialog for model tier, compute device, and engine configuration.
Clear	push button	—	Clears the current transcript buffer.

Tips

• Start with the tiny model for lowest latency and minimal resource usage. Switch to base or small if accuracy is insufficient and your system can handle the load.
• GPU mode is significantly faster but requires a compatible GPU. If you experience high backlog times, try switching to GPU (if available) or reducing model size.

Related

• Enable speech-to-text transcription on a slice
• Change the whisper model tier for accuracy vs speed
• Choose GPU or CPU for speech recognition
• Read the live transcript with confidence-colored text
• Clear the transcript buffer