Comment by genewitch

these days every radio has a USB port, and when plugged into a computer, shows up as a full duplex sound card plus a serial port in devices. The serial port can be used simply, or you can use the CAT interface over serial, which lets you change frequencies, modes, adjust output power, and so on. Some radios have additional interfaces for "remote waterfalls" or additional IQ "audio" for SDR software to handle the decoding, where your radio becomes just a dumb pipe and does no filtering at all.

It's all real slick, but apparently WSJT-X software (made by an academic, not meant as a slur) is slicker, and nearly everyone uses that now. It isn't designed for "rag-chewing", it's designed for propagation testing and "contesting"; it's real dull after you've made dozens of contacts really far away.

Lately when i actually transmit with fldigi, i will use a web SDR like kiwi to "listen" to myself. Since the radio has a soundcard, and my PC has a soundcard, i can route websdr to one "modem" and my radio to another, and decode my own transmissions.

that's also boring!