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Icom RC-28 tuning knob rotation sensitivity makes it difficult to land on a precise frequency, better snap to 1 kHz options #3841

Description

@wa2n-code

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What happened?

I am using an Icom RC-28 tuning knob by turning on the Enable HID encoders... check in Radio Setup Serial. With large tuning steps size, such as 500 Hz, the encoder rapidly changes frequency with a very small rotation of the knob making it difficult to land on a specific frequency. There is a Fine tuning button assignment which effectively overrides the native step size in the RX Controls window which partially solves this problem because it takes many encoder firings to cover a audibly different tuning. But that is too "fine", and still its' difficult to land on a specific frequency because the knob sensitivity is too touchy.

I have solved this in a Javascript project that writes to the flex api directly by making the event that changes the frequency require more than one encoder "step" or event. I have a slider control ladled sensitivity that requires up to 10 encoder pulses before the algorithm changes one frequency step. Thus when a large step size, such as 500 Hz or 1 kHz is chosen, the apparent sensitivity of the knob is reduced and more rotation is required to make a step change. I suggest adding a similar sensitivity slider control to the Icom RC-28 Button Mapping dialog box. Just using this instead of turning on the Enable HID encoder... is not a good option since it writes to the Flex api and there are other issues. The tuning knob should be read by AetherSDR, and not have the output sent directly to the radio api.

In addition to the above, when the "Snap to Nearest 1 kHz Button Assignment is chosen on F1 short button, the spectrum shifts such that the tuned frequency moves to the center of the spectrum display rather than just moving the tuning by the small step and leaving the tuning line close to where it was in the spectrum display. This is visually disturbing and makes it difficult to follow while tuning. I added a switch to my dialog that when enabled just waits for 0.6 seconds after the rotation stops and then it Snaps to the nearest 1 kHz (but does not recenter the spectrum around the tuned frequency). I added a switch for the user to turn on or off the Snap to Nearest 1kHz function.

My open source code is available for reference at https://github.com/wa2n-code/FlexRC-28.

What did you expect?

Ability to adjust the rotation sensitivity of the knob so it's not so "twitchy" with large step sizes.
Auto Snap to 1 kHz as an option after tuning knob rotation stops

Steps to reproduce

Enable the RC-28 serial option
Set a large step size in the RX Controls pane such as 500 Hz or 1 kHz.
Turn the knob slightly and the frequency rapidly changes

AetherSDR version

26.4.4

Radio model & firmware

Flex 6600 fw 4.2.20

Operating system

Windows

OS version and hardware

windows 11 pro 24h2

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    bugSomething isn't workingenhancementImprovement to existing featureexternal devicesFlexControl, MIDI, serial port, USB peripheralsmaintainer-reviewRequires maintainer review before any action is takenspectrumPanadapter and waterfall

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