Background

PR #2578 fixed the per-second FPS-meter stutter by promoting the PAN/WF readouts from painter-drawn-into-overlay-QImage to two QLabel children of SpectrumWidget. As part of that change, drawFpsMeters() was kept in place but gated with an early-return when both labels exist:

void SpectrumWidget::drawFpsMeters(QPainter& p, const QRect& specRect, const QRect& wfRect)
{
    if (!m_showFpsMeters)
        return;
    if (m_panFpsMeterLabel && m_wfFpsMeterLabel) {
        return;   // ← always true after construction
    }
    // ... legacy painter implementation follows
}

The labels are unconditionally constructed in the SpectrumWidget constructor via createFpsMeterLabels(), so the painter path is unreachable in practice. It survives only as a defensive fallback against label-construction failure (which doesn't realistically happen — new QLabel(this) only fails on OOM, and at that point the app is in a much worse state).

Suggested cleanup

1. Delete the body of drawFpsMeters() and its declaration in SpectrumWidget.h.
2. Remove its call sites in the GPU and raster paint paths (renderGpuFrame() and paintEvent()).
3. Remove any related painter setup that's exclusive to this function (font save/restore, color picks).

Estimated diff: ~40 lines removed, no behavioral change since the painter path doesn't fire today.

Scope and risk

• Pure dead-code removal once verified
• The m_panadapterFps / m_waterfallFps members and m_fpsMeterTimer stay (they drive the labels)
• The recordPanadapterFrame() / recordWaterfallFrame() accumulators stay
• No protocol, persistence, or UX change

Context

• Surfaced during review of PR Avoid FPS meter overlay redraw stutter #2578 (b8c156b7)
• Follow-up housekeeping; not urgent, but tidy
• Per feedback_pr_stale_code_check.md discipline — flagged at merge time, deferred to a separate PR to keep Avoid FPS meter overlay redraw stutter #2578's diff focused on the actual fix

Anyone (including AetherClaude) can pick this up — small, well-scoped, mechanical.

73, Jeremy KK7GWY & Claude (AI dev partner)