mfsk-core

Pure-Rust library for WSJT-family digital amateur-radio modes — a single crate that implements FT8, FT4, FST4, WSPR, JT9, JT65 and Q65-30A decode / encode / synthesis on top of a small set of shared primitives (DSP, sync correlation, LLR, LDPC / convolutional / Reed-Solomon / QRA FEC, message codecs). The embedded-poc/m5stack-s3-app crate shipped with the source tree is a working M5StickS3 FT8 controller running the same library on Xtensa LX7 — LCD UI, BLE CI-V to IC-705, acoustic mic capture, QSO FSM. The image above is one of its decode slots.

Why this exists

WSJT-X is the reference implementation of these modes and will stay that way — it is battle-tested on the desktop, heavily optimised, and the source of truth for every protocol constant you will find in this crate. But it is also a mixed Fortran / C / Qt application built around a specific desktop workflow. That makes it a poor fit whenever you want to run the decoders somewhere else:

• in a browser as a WASM PWA,
• on Android or iOS for portable operation, where linking a Fortran runtime is a non-starter,
• in a headless Rust application (skimmer, monitoring station, remote SDR front end),
• on embedded MCUs (ESP32-S3 with esp-dsp, RP2350 with CMSIS-DSP, Cortex-M) via no_std + alloc — the M5Stack Core2 PoC decodes 3–7 FT8 results per 15 s cycle on Xtensa LX6 with the fixed-point hot path,
• or as the core of a new protocol experiment that reuses FT8's LDPC and sync machinery for a different modulation / FEC / message recipe.

The seven protocols share roughly 80 % of their signal path. In the Fortran codebase that commonality is expressed by copy-and-paste between per-mode source files; here it is expressed by traits.

The abstraction

         ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
         │   ft8   ft4   fst4   wspr   jt9   jt65   q65           │  per-protocol ZSTs
         │        (each implements Protocol + FrameLayout)         │  (feature-gated)
         └─────────────┬─────────────────┬────────────────────────┘
                       │                 │
              ┌────────▼─────────┐  ┌────▼─────────┐
              │       msg        │  │     fec      │  shared codecs
              │  Wsjt77 · Jt72   │  │ LDPC · RS    │  behind traits
              │  Wspr50  · Q65   │  │ ConvFano·QRA │
              │  · Hash table    │  │              │
              └────────┬─────────┘  └────┬─────────┘
                       │                 │
                   ┌───▼─────────────────▼───┐
                   │          core           │  Protocol trait, DSP
                   │ sync · llr · equalize · │  (resample / GFSK /
                   │  pipeline · tx · dsp    │   downsample / subtract)
                   └─────────────────────────┘

Each protocol declares its slot length, tone count, Gray map, Costas / sync pattern, FEC codec and message codec at compile time via the Protocol trait. The generic code in core — coarse sync, fine sync, LLR computation, LDPC / RS / convolutional decode, GFSK synthesis — works for any type that satisfies the trait. Dispatch is monomorphised, so the machine code is byte-identical to a hand- written per-protocol decoder.

Adding a new protocol is a trait impl on a ZST, not a cross-cutting refactor: FST4-60A joined the crate post-hoc without changing any shared pipeline code.

The receive path is a chain of free functions in core::sync → core::llr → core::equalize → core::pipeline (each generic over P: Protocol), not a Demodulator / Receiver trait. See docs/LIBRARY.md §4 for the data-flow diagram.

[dependencies]
mfsk-core = { version = "0.6", features = ["ft8", "ft4"] }

Attribution

Every algorithm in this crate is derived from WSJT-X (Joe Taylor K1JT and collaborators). Source files cite the corresponding upstream lib/ft8/*, lib/ft4/*, lib/fst4/*, lib/wsprd/*, lib/jt65_*, lib/jt9_*, lib/packjt.f90, etc. that they port from. This is a Rust re-implementation aimed at broadening the set of platforms (browser / WASM, Android, embedded) that can host the decoders — not a replacement for WSJT-X itself, which remains the reference implementation.

License matches upstream: GPL-3.0-or-later.

Protocols

Seven protocol families, eleven wired ZSTs in the registry: Q65 contributes one 30-s sub-mode (Q65-30A) plus five 60-s EME sub-modes (Q65-60A‥E) that share the FEC, message codec and sync layout but differ in NSPS / tone spacing. PROTOCOLS exposes one entry per wired ZST; uvpacket (when enabled) adds four more for its rate ladder.

Static set of protocols

PROTOCOLS is a const slice — the set of supported protocols is fixed at compile time by Cargo features. There is no runtime register_protocol() API by design: every wired ZST is verified by tests/protocol_invariants.rs to satisfy the trait surface, and that guarantee can't be extended to types unknown at compile time. UI / FFI consumers should iterate PROTOCOLS (or filter via by_id / by_name) at startup; if you need a new protocol, add the ZST + a protocol_meta! line and rebuild.

Applied example: uvpacket (experimental)

The uvpacket module (--features uvpacket, off by default) is an in-tree example showing the trait abstractions extend beyond WSJT-X — a π/4-DQPSK packet protocol for NFM / SSB voice channels that reuses the shared Ldpc240_101 codec. Experimental and its public API may change — pin to an exact version. See docs/UVPACKET.md (日本語) for the design narrative, modulation / equaliser / framing details and per-mode performance characterisation.

Modules

• mfsk_core::core — protocol traits, DSP (resample / downsample / GFSK / subtract), sync, LLR, equaliser, pipeline driver.
• mfsk_core::fec — Ldpc174_91 / Ldpc240_101 / ConvFano / ConvFano232 / Rs63_12 / qra::Q65Codec (with the qra15_65_64::QRA15_65_64_IRR_E23 code instance) for Q65.
• mfsk_core::msg — 77-bit (Wsjt77Message), 72-bit (Jt72Codec), 50-bit (Wspr50Message) and Q65 (Q65Message, 77-bit ↔ 13-symbol packing helpers) message codecs; callsign hash table.
• mfsk_core::{ft8, ft4, fst4, wspr, jt9, jt65, q65} — per-protocol ZSTs, decoders and synthesisers (each feature-gated). The q65 module exposes one ZST per wired sub-mode — Q65a30 for terrestrial work, plus Q65a60 / Q65b60 / Q65c60 / Q65d60 / Q65e60 for EME at 6 m through 10 GHz+ — with generic synthesize_standard_for<P> / decode_at_for<P> / decode_scan_for<P> helpers that pick the right NSPS and tone spacing from the type parameter.

Features

Quick example

use mfsk_core::ft8::{
    decode::{decode_frame, DecodeDepth},
    wave_gen::{message_to_tones, tones_to_i16},
};
use mfsk_core::msg::wsjt77::{pack77, unpack77};

// 1. Synthesise an FT8 frame and pad it into a 15-second slot.
let msg77 = pack77("CQ", "JA1ABC", "PM95").unwrap();
let tones = message_to_tones(&msg77);
let frame = tones_to_i16(&tones, /* freq */ 1500.0, /* amp */ 20_000);

let mut audio = vec![0i16; 180_000]; // 15 s @ 12 kHz
let start = (0.5 * 12_000.0) as usize;
for (i, &s) in frame.iter().enumerate() {
    if start + i < audio.len() { audio[start + i] = s; }
}

// 2. Decode it back.
for r in decode_frame(&audio, 100.0, 3_000.0, 1.0, None, DecodeDepth::BpAllOsd, 50) {
    if let Some(text) = unpack77(&r.message77) {
        println!("{:7.1} Hz  dt={:+.2} s  SNR={:+.0} dB  {}",
                 r.freq_hz, r.dt_sec, r.snr_db, text);
    }
}

Each protocol module documents its top-level entry points and carries its own Quick example:

• mfsk_core::ft8 — decode_frame + decode_sniper_ap (narrow-band "sniper" mode)
• mfsk_core::ft4 — decode_frame
• mfsk_core::fst4 — FST4-60A decode_frame
• mfsk_core::wspr — decode::decode_scan_default
• mfsk_core::jt9 — decode_scan_default
• mfsk_core::jt65 — decode_scan_default + decode_at_with_erasures (for low SNR)
• mfsk_core::q65 — decode_scan_default (Q65-30A); generic decode_scan_for<P> for any wired sub-mode including the Q65-60A‥E EME variants; decode_scan_with_ap / decode_scan_with_ap_for<P> for AP-hint decoding (~2 dB threshold gain when call signs are known); and decode_scan_fading_for<P> for the fast-fading metric (Gaussian / Lorentzian channel models) that recovers 5–8 dB on Doppler-spread channels — required for microwave EME at 5.7 / 10 / 24 GHz; and decode_scan_with_ap_list_for<P> (paired with standard_qso_codewords) for BP-free template matching against the full WSJT-X "AP list" of standard exchanges (~3 dB threshold gain when the callsign pair is known up-front)

C / C++ / Kotlin

The mfsk-ffi sibling crate in this repository builds a libmfsk.{so,a,dylib} + mfsk.h (via cbindgen) that exposes the same decoder and synthesiser surface through an opaque-handle C ABI. mfsk-ffi is not published to crates.io — consumers clone this repo and run:

cargo build -p mfsk-ffi --release

See mfsk-ffi/examples/cpp_smoke/ for an end-to-end driver test (including multi-threaded usage) and mfsk-ffi/examples/kotlin_jni/ for an Android/JNI skeleton.

Contributing

PRs welcome — recent forks have shipped FT4 SIC, FT4/FST4 depth + strictness controls, and the FT8 wide-band AP path. The local-fence

• CI gates are uniform across direct commits and fork PRs:

• Pre-commit hook: .githooks/pre-commit runs cargo fmt --check, cargo clippy --workspace --all-targets --features full -- -D warnings, and RUSTDOCFLAGS=-D warnings cargo doc -p mfsk-core --features full --no-deps (~10–20 s on a warm cache). Enable once per clone:

  git config core.hooksPath .githooks
  

  The hook deliberately skips the full cargo test suite (kept in CI to keep commits snappy); fmt / clippy / rustdoc each catch a failure mode that would otherwise trip CI after the push.

• CI gates (.github/workflows/ci.yml): same fmt + clippy fence, plus cargo test -p mfsk-core --features full --release -- --include-ignored (slow synthetic-SNR / AP / fast-fading sweeps enabled), a 13-cell feature matrix that builds every protocol in isolation + the embedded alloc + ft8 + fft-extern + fixed-point preset, the C++ driver against mfsk-ffi, rustdoc with -D warnings, and a cargo publish --dry-run for mfsk-core.

• Release: tag-driven (v0.6.x). Pushing a tag that matches mfsk-core/Cargo.toml::version and is reachable from main triggers release.yml, which publishes to crates.io and cuts a GitHub release with auto-generated notes. Embedded mfsk-ffi-ft8 binaries follow on the same tag.

For non-trivial changes, please open an issue first so the WSJT-X-source-faithfulness lineage of any DSP or FEC change is visible in review (every protocol constant in this crate cites the upstream lib/*.f90 it ports from — drift from that lineage tends to be the failure mode caught by the WSJT-X golden harnesses).

Architecture & ABI reference

For a deeper look at the design — trait hierarchy with worked examples, shared DSP / sync / LLR / pipeline primitives, the C ABI memory model, Kotlin/Android scaffolding — see the library reference:

• English: docs/LIBRARY.md
• 日本語: docs/LIBRARY.ja.md
• Embedded targets: English docs/EMBEDDED.md / 日本語 docs/EMBEDDED.ja.md — generic-scalar architecture (one codebase for f32 host and fixed-point embedded), feature-flag map, FFT-extern contract, Goertzel per-symbol DFT (zero-scratch, 0.6.4+) with BASIS deprecation, Q-format reference, full mfsk-ffi-ft8 C ABI tutorial (streaming + ESP-IDF component layout), performance benchmark, streaming RX pipeline, binary footprint.
• M5StickS3 FT8 controller manual: English docs/MANUAL_M5STICKS3.md / 日本語 docs/MANUAL_M5STICKS3.ja.md — build / flash / cfg.toml / BootMode cycle / UI / QSO workflow / troubleshooting.

Status

Current line: 0.6.x (latest tag v0.6.5, 2026-05-18) — API is deliberately not frozen. Breaking changes follow cargo-style minor bumps (0.5 → 0.6). See CHANGELOG.md for the per-release breakdown; the line history below explains what each series brought in. The 0.5.x line landed the embedded baseline (no_std + alloc, pluggable FFT backend, caller-buffer TX APIs) and the first end-to-end real-audio embedded port. The 0.6.x line consolidates the FT8 sync + per-candidate pipeline: host (decode_frame*) and embedded (decode_block) now share decode_block::coarse_sync (WSJT-X sync8.f90-faithful 16-bin allsum estimator) and a unified process_one_candidate_inner for the LLR / BP / OSD / AP staircase. 0.6.3 added WSJT-X-faithful OSD npre1/npre2 precoding (#63) and carved decode_block.rs into six stage submodules (ε refactor). 0.6.4 (Phase 1.7.7-Stick) replaced the BASIS Q15 dot-product per-symbol DFT with a Goertzel recursion that needs zero scratch — freeing 120 KB of internal DRAM on dual-core S3 (which unblocks M5StickS3 Qso-mode I2S bidirectional DMA) and improving SNR by +0.16..+0.63 dB on real-silicon decodes. See CHANGELOG.md for the full per-release breakdown.

Latest M5StickS3 (Xtensa LX7) ship config decodes 6 / 18 JTDX-golden FT8 callsigns + 1 bonus = 7 total on the WSJT-X-distributed busy-band reference (samples/FT8/210703_133430.wav) in ~1.19 s post-SlotEnd via the streaming pipeline (FFT overlapped with capture). (These embedded recall + wall-clock numbers were last formally measured during the 0.6.2 → 0.6.3 Q11i16 ship sweep — wav_sim re-run on 0.6.5 firmware is the right way to confirm whether 0.6.3's host-side OSD CRC-luck phantom drop applies to the embedded path. 0.6.3 CHANGELOG only re-verified the WSJT-X 8-entry golden at 7/8 on embedded.) The embedded LLR scalar settled on Q11i16 after a two-step path: 0.5.x's Phase 1 used Q3i8 (i8, ±16, ~1/8 LSB) and a 2026-05-04 host sweep initially read as Q3i8-equivalent. The wider real-silicon LX7 sweep done in 0.6.3 then showed Q3i8's ~0.875-LLR quantization step was the dominant recall ceiling on Xtensa — host fixed-point + rustfft hit 16/18 with f32 but only 9/18 with Q3i8 on this WAV. The Q11i16 widening (i16, ±16, ~1/2048 LSB, BP scratch doubled from ~6 KB to ~12 KB, still inside the S3 / Core2 internal-DRAM budget) removed the LLR-resolution bottleneck. The recovery is asymmetric: on host Q11i16 reaches f32-equivalent recall (16/18 ≈ 16/18, full gap close); on real-silicon embedded the gain is one entry (6/18 → 6/18 + 1 bonus = 7 total, XE2X HA2NP RR73), with the remaining headroom blocked by other parts of the embedded pipeline (NSTEP-half, coarse-sync simplifications, no fine_refine_pass1). Q3i8 is preserved in core::scalar for the comparison path. M5Stack Core2 (LX6) on the same WAV ~2.8 s. See docs/EMBEDDED.md for the integration contract, runtime BP / nstep-half tuning knobs, and the structural recall ceiling (no fine_refine_pass1 on Xtensa without 192k FFT — investigated and deferred); embedded-poc/m5stack-s3-app/ and embedded-poc/m5stack-core2-app/ are the production FT8 controller crates (LCD UI + QSO FSM + WiFi-UDP log streaming) — both consume the board-agnostic embedded-poc/mfsk-app-shared/ (carved out as part of #61, closed in 0.6.3). embedded-poc/m5stack-s3/ is the remaining decoder-only compute-bench crate for S3 timing-regression tracking; the matching Core2 bench was retired in #61 Phase 3 (M5Stack Core2 timing is now measured through m5stack-core2-app itself).

Host AP-on multipass recall on the same WAV is materially higher. After 0.6.2's host pipeline catch-up (cs-source unification + subtract_signal_lpf matching decode_block_multipass), decode_frame_subtract_with_ap produces 18 decodes including 5 / 6 of the JTDX AP-on extras (was 1 / 6 pre-0.6.2). The single remaining AP-on extra (K1BZM DK8NE -19 dB) needs a wider AP-list / callsign hash table — out of 0.6.x scope.

Algorithm correctness is covered by the workspace test suite: end-to-end synth → decode roundtrips for every protocol, an AWGN sensitivity sweep that confirms Q65-30A hits its WSJT-X-published −24 dB threshold, an AP-vs-plain comparison that shows the expected ~2 dB gain from a-priori call sign information, an AP-list (template matching) comparison that decodes 6/6 frames at SNR −25 dB where plain BP fails 0/6, a real 6 m EME recording (W7GJ exchanges from the WSJT-X reference set), and a real 10 GHz EME recording that the fast-fading metric is required to decode. The trait surface itself is pinned by tests/protocol_invariants.rs — a single generic <P: Protocol> checker run across every wired ZST. Run with --features full for the eleven-ZST coverage; the default features (ft8, ft4) only exercise the two default protocols.

Recall against the WSJT-X-distributed reference recordings (samples/{WSPR,FT4,JT9}/*.wav) is locked by golden harnesses in tests/{wspr,ft4,jt9}_wsjtx_samples.rs (run only when the WSJT-X tree is present at the expected sibling path):

Known limitations / quirks

• JT65 — decode_scan decodes synthesised JT65A frames cleanly via the Reed-Solomon(63, 12) FEC and the AP-list path lifts weak signals to within ~2 dB of WSJT-X. There's no golden WAV in this crate's regression set because the WSJT-X v3 reference samples themselves don't decode cleanly without the soft-symbol erasure metadata that lives in private WSJT-X branches. Tracked in #24.
• FST4 — only the FST4-60A long-period variant is wired (sample duration / Costas layout for FST4-15 / FST4W are out of scope of the 0.5.x line, still out of scope as of 0.6.x). Recall against samples/FST4/210115_0058.wav is not yet locked by a golden harness — tracked in #23.
• MSK144 — not implemented (out of scope of the 0.5.x line and still as of 0.6.x). The decode path needs a different correlator geometry from the rest of the FT/JT/Q-family decoders this crate is built around. Tracked in #25.

What's solid

• FT8 — synth → decode round-trip lib tests green, real WSJT-X reference (210703_133430.wav):
  • WSJT-X 8-entry golden: 7 / 8 (host decode_frame_with_ap and embedded decode_block both, post-0.6.0 sync consolidation + i_start as i32 fix).
  • JTDX 18-entry golden: 13 / 18 (decode_block). Peaked at 16/18 in 0.6.2; 0.6.3's WSJT-X-faithful OSD npre1/npre2 precoding + OSD_HARDERRORS_MAX = 22 ceiling identified 3 of those as CRC-luck phantoms and dropped them. The 13/18 is true positives only.
  • Host AP-on multipass JTDX-extras: 4 / 6 (was 1 / 6 pre-0.6.2, 5 / 6 in 0.6.2, 4 / 6 in 0.6.3 after the same phantom drop) via decode_frame_subtract_with_ap after the cs-source + subtract_signal_lpf unification.
  • Embedded S3 fixed-point: 6 / 18 + 1 bonus = 7 total in ~1.19 s post-SlotEnd (last formally measured during the 0.6.2 → 0.6.3 Q11i16 ship sweep — see Status above for re-measurement status). AP-hint biasing exposed on the narrow-band (decode_sniper_ap), wide-band single-pass (decode_frame_with_ap), multipass (decode_frame_subtract_with_ap) and embedded (decode_block_with_ap, new in 0.6.1) paths.
• WSPR — 8 / 8 WSJT-X golden, ~0.88 s end-to-end on a desktop build. Sub-bin demod + 2-pass subtract+re-coarse + OSD-2 fallback + Type-3 phantom filter.
• FT4 — 6 / 6 WSJT-X golden after the 0.5.9 multi-slice port of the WSJT-X demod path (Nuttall window, nsym = 4 LLR aggregation, sync4d 2-pass refine, rvec scrambler). Successive-interference cancellation primitives (subtract_signal*, refine_signal_freq) ported from lib/ft4_subtract.f90. WSJT-X Decode menu (Fast / Normal / Deep) exposed via decode_frame_with_options for FT4 and FST4-60A.
• JT9 — 5 / 5 WSJT-X golden on samples/JT9/130418_1742.wav via the full WSJT-X-faithful softsym pipeline (afc9 + chkss2
  • xx0 mettab + sync9 per-freq collapse). Closed #19.
• Q65 — fast-fading + AP-list paths exercise both the WSJT-X 6 m EME and the 10 GHz EME reference recordings.
• SNR (FT8) — xsnr2_db_simple calibration (0.5.7 + 0.5.8) lands reported SNR within ±3 dB of JTDX absolute on real silicon.