Re: [Hamlib-developer] IC-821H patch

[Stephane F. <f4...@fr...>]

On Thu, Dec 20, 2001, Francois Retief wrote:
> I agree. The second rig is currently in use, tracking satellites.
> How do you change the baudrate with rigctl ?

ahem, just a sec...     alright, pass --serial-speed <bps>  argument.
 
> > > architecture.  My work have been primarily on antenna control
> > > (a 4.5m dish antenna and a Yaesu G-5400B rotator)
> > 
> > Ha! I'd love to integrate rotator control in Hamlib (even though I don't own
> > any yet). Are you interrested in ? I can help with the frontend work at least.
> > We would have to discuss the rotator capabilities too, and as for the radios,
> > there could be a RPC rotator backend.
> 
> Yes I am interested. This is where my interest is.  My antenna
> controller
> is based on the Easycom I protocol. Very simple. Good place to start.

What the Easycom protocol is like? Is it serial? Do you have already
an library and an API ? Some code, online manual or even the header
files would be a good starter to design the abstraction layer.
I may have time to kick start a rotator frontend framework in the
following days.

> > Anyway, thank you very much for the patch.
> > If you have a ham license on HF, we can arrange for a sked during vacations
> > if needed.
> 
> No HF here. Mostly UHF/VHF to passing satellites. ;-)

I never worked someone through a satellite, just heard R0MIR and decoding
telemetry from P3D when VHF was still alive. Should be cool though.

> ?-) Wel, I think it is 2 independent VFO's. As I said, I don't
> know to much about radio's. Quote from the manual:
> 
> "VFO description:
> The tranceiver has two VFOs for both bands, specially suited for 
> instant selection of 2 frequencies or split frequency operation.
> The VFOs are called VFO A and VFO B.  You can use a desired VFO
> to call up a frequency and operating mode for your operation."

Hmm, couple of questions:
* Is it possible to have VFO A on VHF and VFO B on VHF at the same time?
* Is it possible to listen on VFO A while you transmit on VFO A (full
  duplex)
* Do you need both VFO when you want to operate in split mode?

> There is no mention of the RIT and IFshift in the CIV command list.
> Only the basic stuff.  This radio is not particularly wel suited
> for software control.  The get frequency command (CIV Cn#3) is not
> supported. I will have to remove that feature from the caps.

ouch! Indeed, it's rather prehistoric CI-V. Anyway, could you send me
by e-mail a scanned copy of the "COMMAND TABLE" of the IC-812H manual ?
That'd help a lot since I don't have any documentation on this rig.

> > +chan_list: {
> > +                   {   1,  80, RIG_MTYPE_MEM,   0 },    /* FIXME: Each band
> > has 80 channels (2*80) */
> > 
> > is it like 2 banks?
> 
> Hmm. The manual is very confusing. No banks. UHF has 80 channels 
> and so has VHF.  Thus UHF can be on channel 2 and VHF on channel 4.
> But when the radio is in satellite mode, a channel consists of a 
> UHF/VHF frequency pair (UHF and VHF is always on the same channel)
> I will test this later. :-)

Do you mean that in satellite mode, if UHF is be on channel 2, VHF
would be on channel 2 also?

> > USA,Australia: region 2
> > Europe,Sweden: region 1 (Sweden version will need a rig_set_conf override)
> 
> I will fix the code when the patch is in the CVS.  

It's in!


Cheers,
Stephane