HB9MTN "REMOTE"

YAESU FT-8X7 REMOTE CONTROL VIA LAN OR INTERNET

 

Thanks to Markus, HB9AZT, who recently gave a presentation at our local radio club on RemoteRig I wanted to give the system a try, despite the fact, that in my humble opinion an amateur transceiver has to have knobs and buttons rather than keyboard and mouse!

Have a look at the RemoteRig page of Mikael, SM2OAN and see for yourself how simple remote contolling of amateur radios can be!

 


 

The most elegant solution is a transceiver with a detachable control panel. In this case the extension cable is cut and each end is connected to one of the two control-boxes on the control and on the (remote) radio site. Between the control-boxes lays the internet.
In my case, the FT-8X7 has to be placed at the remote site and controlled by a control software on a PC. All the control software programs I know look to complicated to me (except the original YAESU rc software fo the FT-950 and FT-2000), so I decided to write my own program, implementing the OmniRig Engine by Alex, VE3NEA.
Here are the results:

 

The features of my Remote-Control-Software are:

  -  Lean software, file size less than 300 kB
  -  No registry entrys, one exe-file and one dll-file in installation folder, one subfolder with setup-files
  -  Skin of YAESU FT-897, but works with many rigs supported by OmniRig
  -  Direct Band and Mode entry
  -  1 kHz and 100 Hz - step control by arrow keys on keyboard
  -  Tune-Button, switches to AM mode, 25W and after release back to previous mode, previous power

 


Control Panel in normal mode
 

Control Panel in direct BAND- and MODE-entry mode with matching Volume Control
 

Control Panel in setup and experimental mode
 

 

RemoteRig offers one spare COM-Port [Remote-Rig "Com1"], wich can be used for rotor- or antenna switch-control etc. So far I have implemented 3 independently switchable channels to control 3 relays of an antenna selector switch at the remote end.

 



Local Control-Site with Eee-PC and RRC-1258 Mk II
 

Final "one-piece" setup assembled with Velcro fasteners
 

Remote Radio-Site with RRC-1258 Mk II (cover removed) and YAESU FT-897 D
 

 

This page is under construction, for more information contact: [email protected]

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