RPI 3 B+ to mate with mBitx rig

I had an original RPI B+ way back and now years later I acquired a new RPi 3 B+. Quite a difference in performance!

Goal is to run this as a digital interface for my soon-to-be-built mBitx (uBitx) which promises 3-30MHz capability. I see that 'in theory' I could run a GPS to the RPI for keeping time synced very well, and being able to run the mBitx on say, 20m while on a mountaintop for SOTA activations. Provided I can get this blasted thing to play nice.

So far the trial has been to get it mated to the ICOM 7100. Still trying on that front. I've got Fldigi loaded, WSJT-X loaded, and I'm still struggling to identify what port/soundcard settings to adjust, and to what. Tricky enough for me on the regular Win7 PC, but this Raspbian (Stretch?) is giving me a bit of a headache.

Any experience with the soundcard settings?

Usually I would just plug in the ICOM and it would load the driver. There is a sudo apt-get install ICOM (or whatever the syntax is). Did that. But partly its my familiarity with the system. Not plug and play like Win7 is. So I'm still stuck on this step.

Oddly, I can RECEIVE just fine on the waterfall (I think), or at least I see what looks reasonable. But beyond that, can't key it to tx.

(Please reply to this thread directly so I get the notifications on my email)

 

You may need to tweak some settings.

OPTIONAL ALSA OUTPUT PARAMETERS
device <dev>
This specifies the device to use for audio output. The default is "default".
mixer_type <hardware, software or none>
Specifies which mixer should be used for this audio output: the hardware mixer (available for ALSA, OSS and PulseAudio), the software mixer or no mixer ("none"). By default, the hardware mixer is used for devices which support it, and none for the others.
mixer_device <mixer dev>
This specifies which mixer to use. The default is "default". To use the second sound card in a system, use "hw:1".
mixer_control <mixer ctrl>
This specifies which mixer control to use (sometimes referred to as the "device"). The default is "PCM". Use "amixer scontrols" to see the list of possible controls.
mixer_index <mixer index>
A number identifying the index of the named mixer control. This is probably only useful if your alsa device has more than one identically-named mixer control. The default is "0". Use "amixer scontrols" to see the list of controls with their indexes.
use_mmap <yes or no>
Setting this allows you to use memory-mapped I/O. Certain hardware setups may benefit from this, but most do not. Most users do not need to set this. The default is to not use memory-mapped I/O.
auto_resample <yes or no>
Setting this to "no" disables ALSA's software resampling, if the hardware does not support a specific sample rate. This lets MPD do the resampling. "yes" is the default and allows ALSA to resample.
auto_channels <yes or no>
Setting this to "no" disables ALSA's channel conversion, if the hardware does not support a specific number of channels. Default: "yes".
auto_format <yes or no>
Setting this to "no" disables ALSA's sample format conversion, if the hardware does not support a specific sample format. Default: "yes".
buffer_time <time in microseconds>
This sets the length of the hardware sample buffer in microseconds. Increasing it may help to reduce or eliminate skipping on certain setups. Most users do not need to change this. The default is 500000 microseconds (0.5 seconds).
period_time <time in microseconds>
This sets the time between hardware sample transfers in microseconds. Increasing this can reduce CPU usage while lowering it can reduce underrun errors on bandwidth-limited devices. Some users have reported good results with this set to 50000, but not all devices support values this high. Most users do not need to change this. The default is 256000000 / sample_rate(kHz), or 5804 microseconds for CD-quality audio.