Computer Control (of my TS-850 HF transceiver)

Computer Control

The Situation

* TS-850S/AT transceiver, with serial-adapter (equivalent to IF-232C), which performs voltage-translations and logic-inversion. This serial-adapter plugs into ACC1 (DIN6) on the back of the radio

* Computer, running Linux, with quad-serial-port card (providing 4x genuine 9-pin RS-232 ports)

The First Goals

* Operate digital modes, such as RTTY and PSK-31

* electronic Logging, with all the modern assists (Cluster, LoTW / eQSL, etc)

These First Goals imply - multiple clients for my one radio.

First - only one program can talk to my TS-850 at a time.

Generally, this can be EITHER rigctld OR flrig. The choice generally will depend on what subsequent communication is desired. Fldigi can talk to either rigctld or flrig.

Flrig brings a few small benefits:

it's fast
displays Signal Strength (receive) and Po (transmit power) meters
see / set Frequency, Mode and (receive filter) Bandwidth
use (and exchange) either VFO-A or VFO-B

Generally, Flrig performs well, especially by-itself (snappy, no stutters, no missed commands, etc).

Once Flrig is running, it can se-serve the rig to multiple clients using XML-RPC, on the localhost with port 12345:


$ netstat -alnp | grep rig
(Not all processes could be identified, non-owned process info
 will not be shown, you would have to be root to see it all.)
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:12345           0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      171756/flrig

The only known XML-RPC client I'm aware of is Fldigi.

Alternatively, rigctld can be fired-up and also re-serve the rig to multiple clients using a TCP/IP on localhost with port 4532:


$ sudo rigctld -m 2009 -r /dev/ttyS1 -s 4800 &          (formerly rig -m 209)

$ sudo netstat -alnp | grep rig
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:4532            0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      175545/rigctld

Fldigi can talk either to rigctld or flrig's XML-RPC, and it does both very well. If this were our destination, either radio-connection (flrig or rigctld) will work. Summary - we can talk to the '850 with either flrig or rigctld. I've had excellent (contest / multi-day) stability with rigctld.

But now - logging...

Fldigi incorporates a logger, and can also "talk" to various logging-programs. I haven't really looked at this, because I've considered Fldigi for digital-modes, and my logging is required for CW, SSB, events and contests, etc. Consequently, I don't see Fldigi always being present.

The Linux logging programs I'm aware of will all only talk to rigctld (hamlib). That suggests running rigctld directly, but there's one more trick:

rigctld can EITHER talk directly to the radio via serial-port, OR talk indirectly through Flrig! If rigctld is invoked with a radio-model 4, then it will "speak" XML-RPC from Flrig:


    $ sudo rigctld -m 4 -r 127.0.0.1:12345 &

This results in "daisy-chained" rig communication, with these ports:


$ sudo netstat  -nalp|grep rig
Password: 
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:4532            0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      175545/rigctld
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:12345           0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      181352/flrig
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:12345         127.0.0.1:45668         ESTABLISHED 181352/flrig
unix  3      [ ]         STREAM     CONNECTED     726783   181352/flrig
unix  3      [ ]         STREAM     CONNECTED     734603   181352/flrig

This gives us:


TS-850  <--serial-- flrig <--port 12345--> rigctld --> port 4532
  and either:
TS-850  <--serial-- flrig <--port 12345--> Fldigi
                         ^--port 12345--> rigctld --> port 4532

We can attach Fldigi to either port 12345 (best) or 4532 Alternatively, if we do not want Flrig in the mix:


TS-850	<--serial-- rigctld --> port 4532 <-- Fldigi
     and/or:
TS-850  <--serial-- rigctld --> port 4532 <-- Fldigi
                                         ^-- CQRlog
                                         ^-- GRig

Get It Working Locally

Then small-Remote over Home Lan

Lastly big-Remote over Internet

Preferred

Start FLRig
Verify rig-chirps, and FLRig sync's up to '850 display
Start CQRLog. CQRLog is configured to auto-start rigctld to talk to FLRig, and re-serve; see screenshot
OPTIONAL: Start FLDigi
OPTIONAL: Start GQRX

FLRig Communication settings for TS-850 — FLRig Communication Settings for my TS-850

FLRig Polling options for TS-850 — FLRig Polling Options for my TS-850

GQRX running, with gqrx-panadapter.py Tracking TS-850 Frequency — GQRX Running, with gqrx-panadapter.py Tracking TS-850 Frequency