VFO Panel overview¶

The VFO Panel is a floating, per-slice control panel anchored to the VFO marker flag on the spectrum display. It gives you quick access to the most frequently used slice settings — mode, filter presets, antenna selection, audio controls, AGC, noise reduction, RIT/XIT, and DAX assignment — without leaving the spectrum view.

Before you start¶

AetherSDR must be connected to a FLEX-8600 radio.
At least one slice must be active on the panadapter.

How it works¶

Click the VFO marker flag on the spectrum display for any slice. The panel appears anchored to the left of the marker and flips right automatically if it would be clipped by the window edge.

The panel is divided into tabs — Mode, Audio, DSP, X/RIT, and DAX — plus a header row that is always visible. Controls in the header row apply regardless of which tab is active.

When collapsed, the panel shrinks to a compact frequency-only strip. Scroll-wheel tuning still works in collapsed mode. Click anywhere on the collapsed strip to expand it again, or click the TX badge to toggle the transmit slice assignment.

Header row¶

The header row sits above the tabs and is always visible.

Control	What it does
RX antenna button	Opens the antenna selection menu for the receive antenna of this slice.
TX antenna button	Opens the antenna selection menu for the transmit antenna of this slice.
Frequency display	Shows the current slice frequency. Click once to begin direct frequency entry; type a value in MHz and press Enter or Tab to apply. Scroll-wheel over the frequency display tunes by the current step size.
Filter width label	Shows the current filter bandwidth. Click to cycle through the filter preset buttons in the Mode tab.
TX badge	Shown in red when this slice is the active transmit slice. In collapsed mode, click the badge to toggle TX assignment.
SPLIT badge	Shown in amber when TX is assigned to a different slice than the active receive slice.

Mode tab¶

Control	Default	Valid values	Persisted key
Mode combo	USB	USB, LSB, CW, CWL, AM, SAM, DIGU, DIGL, FM, NFM, DFM, RTTY	—
Filter preset buttons	—	—	`FilterPresets`

Right-click a filter preset button to save the current filter width into that slot. Custom low and high filter edges can be saved per slot the same way.

Audio tab¶

Control	Default	Valid range	Persisted key
AF Gain slider	100	0–100	—
Pan slider	50	0–100	—
Mute button	off	—	—
Squelch button + slider	off	0–100	—
AGC combo	FAST	FAST, MED, SLOW, OFF	—

The Pan slider center position (50) is stereo centre. Double-click the Pan slider to reset it to centre. Audio controls reflect live radio state and are not persisted by AetherSDR.

DSP tab¶

The DSP tab contains buttons for noise reduction and filtering algorithms supplied directly by the radio. Client-side DSP modules (NR2, NR4, MNR, BNR, DFNR, and RN2) have been moved out of this panel; toggle them from the spectrum overlay menu or the AetherDSP applet.

Control	Default	Notes
NR / NB / ANF / APF / NRL / NRS / RNN / NRF / ANFL / ANFT buttons	off	Button availability depends on radio series and build. APF is only visible in CW mode.

DSP level slider¶

A shared level slider appears below the button grid. It targets whichever leveled DSP button was most recently enabled — NR, NB, ANF, NRL, NRS, NRF, or ANFL. The label to the left of the slider shows the name of the current target. The numeric value is shown to the right.

The slider row remains in the layout at all times. When no leveled DSP is active (or only RNN, ANFT, or APF are on), the row fades out and does not respond to interaction. It becomes fully visible again as soon as a leveled DSP is turned on.

X/RIT tab¶

Control	Default	Notes
RIT button + label	off	Enables receiver incremental tuning. The label shows the current offset. Scroll-wheel adjusts in 10 Hz steps.
XIT button + label	off	Enables transmitter incremental tuning. The label shows the current offset. Scroll-wheel adjusts in 10 Hz steps.

DAX tab¶

Control	Default	Valid values	Persisted key
DAX channel combo	Off	Off, 1–8	—

Display controls¶

These controls affect how the slice appears on the spectrum display. They are persisted individually per slice (where {N} is the slice number).

Control	Default	Valid values	Persisted key
Marker thickness button	1 px	Off, 1 px, 3 px	`Slice{N}_MarkerWidth`
Filter edges button	shown	shown / hidden	`Slice{N}_FilterEdgesHidden`
Collapse toggle	expanded	expanded / collapsed	`SliceFlagCollapsed_{N}`

Clicking the slice badge in the header row collapses the panel. Clicking anywhere on the collapsed strip expands it.

Tips¶

In collapsed mode, scroll-wheel anywhere over the strip tunes the slice by the current step size.
Momentum (inertial) scroll events on macOS are ignored to prevent unintended tuning after a trackpad gesture ends.
The panel flips to the right side of the marker automatically if displaying on the left would clip it at the window edge.
Client-side noise reduction algorithms (NR2, NR4, MNR, BNR, DFNR, RN2) are no longer in the DSP tab. Access them from the spectrum overlay menu or the AetherDSP applet.