Digital modes

Two ways to get FT8, FT4, RTTY and similar into the log: a live relay from WSJT-X or JTDX, or a bulk ADIF import after the fact.

Live relay from WSJT-X / JTDX

WSJT-X broadcasts every logged QSO over UDP. A small relay script listens for those and posts them to EzFD, so digital QSOs appear in the shared log without anyone retyping them.

Windows

The logger offers a prepared .bat file with your event details already filled in — click the DIG mode hint in the entry form, or the Import ADIF dialog. Download and run it.

macOS and Linux

Download wsjtx-bridge.cjs from the same place and run it with Node:

$ node wsjtx-bridge.cjs --event-id <uuid> --api-url https://your-server --operator W0AAA

If the server goes away

WSJT-X keeps logging whether or not EzFD is reachable, so the relay keeps a queue. A contact the server can't take is written to the spool file above and retried — after 5s, then 10s, 30s, 60s and 2 minutes — until it lands. The relay prints queued (N waiting) when that happens and Synced N queued contact(s) when they go through.

The spool is a file, not memory: closing the relay or rebooting the machine doesn't lose it, and the next start drains whatever is still there. So an EzFD restart, an nginx reload or a flaky field network delays digital contacts rather than dropping them.

The one thing it won't retry is a contact the server refuses on purpose — a 4xx, such as an event ID that doesn't exist. Retrying can't fix that, so the relay says rejected and moves on; the contact is still in WSJT-X's own wsjtx_log.adi and can be brought in with an ADIF import.

Queued contacts are stamped by the server when they finally arrive, not when they were made, so a long outage shifts their times. If exact times matter for a submission, import wsjtx_log.adi instead — ADIF carries the original.

Configuring WSJT-X

In Settings → Reporting, enable UDP Server on 127.0.0.1 port 2237 (the default) and tick "Accept UDP requests". The relay listens on that port.

Both WSJT-X and the relay must run on the same machine unless you point the UDP server at the relay's address deliberately.

ADIF import

Import ADIF, in the logger's ☰ menu under This event, accepts any .adi file — a WSJT-X log, an N1MM export, N3FJP, or a hand-built file.

Records are matched to bands by the BAND field, falling back to FREQ. Mode is mapped to the app's three buckets: CW stays CW, SSB/USB/LSB/FM/AM become phone, everything else becomes digital. The Field Day exchange is read from CLASS and ARRL_SECT, falling back to SRX_STRING.

Imports are idempotent. A record already in the log — matched on callsign, band, mode and a ±2 minute window — is skipped rather than inserted, so re-importing the same file or two operators importing overlapping exports can't double the log. The result reports four counts:

The ±2 minute window exists because ADIF only carries minute resolution and loggers round differently.

Which to use

The relay is better during an event: QSOs appear live for everyone, and the band conflict and checkout views stay accurate. Import is better for merging a log made offline — which for a distributed special event is a normal workflow. See Special event stations.