Wifi to serial converter to link KAT500 & Acom 700S?

VK3ICM
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Wifi to serial converter to link KAT500 & Acom 700S?

Postby VK3ICM » Wed Apr 15, 2020 2:44 pm

I have a KAT500 tuner kit on the way, and am also interested in the new Acom 700S. They both seem to support Kenwood CAT commands via RS-232. My PC is about 15m away from the gear, so was thinking about trying an Ethernet/WiFi to serial converter. Thinking it through, I have two questions:

With the IP-to-serial converters, on the PC end do people typically use the provided serial port drivers from the manufacturer, or do something using VSPE to create a com port and route it to the remote IP address?

Secondly - could I build a Y cable following the required pin outs for the tuner and the amp and run a single CAT entry in Thetis (as Kenwood TS-2000), or is it preferable to use separate cables and define a second CAT+ entry in Thetis? I guess this would necessitate a dual port serial server (have only seen wifi versions with a single serial port).

Cheers - Chris
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w-u-2-o
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Re: Wifi to serial converter to link KAT500 & Acom 700S?

Postby w-u-2-o » Wed Apr 15, 2020 6:43 pm

ag5rr wrote:I have a KAT500 tuner kit on the way,

Not a question you asked, but be aware that the KAT500 does not support a very wide range of antenna impedances. You need to have antennas that are already close to being 50 Ohms.

With the IP-to-serial converters, on the PC end do people typically use the provided serial port drivers from the manufacturer, or do something using VSPE to create a com port and route it to the remote IP address?

You have to use the serial port drivers from the manufacturer. They will create their own virtual ports. After that you might need to use VSPE to connect those ports to other virtual ports, but the drivers and the ports they create are a prerequisite.

My entire station lives in a rack in the basement and I operate from a second floor studio/office (see my qrz page). I use a Moxa NPort 5450 in the rack to control a PLC, KPA500 and a GPSDO. It works fabulously well.

Secondly - could I build a Y cable following the required pin outs for the tuner and the amp and run a single CAT entry in Thetis (as Kenwood TS-2000), or is it preferable to use separate cables and define a second CAT+ entry in Thetis? I guess this would necessitate a dual port serial server (have only seen wifi versions with a single serial port).

It would be so much better if you supported two separate ports. That way you could use the KAT500 remote utility and the ACOM remote software to remotely control everything from your PC.

I did a google search for "4 port wireless device server" and got a lot of hits. Can't speak to anything except Moxa, though, in terms of quality.
VK3ICM
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Re: Wifi to serial converter to link KAT500 & Acom 700S?

Postby VK3ICM » Wed Apr 15, 2020 8:22 pm

Thanks Scott - I had seen your sweet setup which got me onto the serial server idea.

It would be so much better if you supported two separate ports. That way you could use the KAT500 remote utility and the ACOM remote software to remotely control everything from your PC


I thought I could make that work with a single port, Y cable and VSPE but will do what you suggest.
w9mdb
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Re: Wifi to serial converter to link KAT500 & Acom 700S?

Postby w9mdb » Wed Apr 15, 2020 9:46 pm

I just recently made modifications to hamlib to use these Serial-over-IP devices like this one

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07C1 ... UTF8&psc=1

https://www.usriot.com/download/M4/USR- ... 1.1.02.pdf

You would need one per device for this model (two in your case) and you can either use hamlib to connect to it or use their USR-VCOM software to set up a local com port.
Next question is how you get your audio.

Or here's a 4-port -- I have one of these on order and can let you know how it works in a few days.
This will be the one I'll be using to hook up my devices.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01B7 ... UTF8&psc=1

de Mike W9MDB
Mike W9MDB
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w-u-2-o
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Re: Wifi to serial converter to link KAT500 & Acom 700S?

Postby w-u-2-o » Thu Apr 16, 2020 6:56 pm

Mike,

How/why are you using the hamlib interface? I'm just curious because with Thetis and PowerSDR already have CAT interfaces.

73,

Scott
VK3ICM
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Re: Wifi to serial converter to link KAT500 & Acom 700S?

Postby VK3ICM » Fri Apr 17, 2020 12:03 pm

I have a 2 port wireless Lantronix unit on the way.

Occurs to me that to have both Thetis and the tuner or amp software talk to/control the device at the same time, I will need to use VSPE to share the com port created by the lantronix s/w - sound right? Maybe that is what you meant earlier Scott:

After that you might need to use VSPE to connect those ports to other virtual ports
w9mdb
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Re: Wifi to serial converter to link KAT500 & Acom 700S?

Postby w9mdb » Fri Apr 17, 2020 12:54 pm

The VSPE doesn't "share" a com port. It creates a virtual com port to talk to the wireless port.

So, to your computer, it appears to be a com port just like the hardware was sitting next to you with a USB/Serial adapter.

de Mike W9MDB
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Re: Wifi to serial converter to link KAT500 & Acom 700S?

Postby VK3ICM » Fri Apr 17, 2020 1:47 pm

That's clear Mike.

I'll have two apps on the PC (Thetis and the Tuner control s/w) that both need to talk to the same wireless port. I'm assuming that both apps cannot access the (vendors) serial device virtual com port concurrently, so would either need to create two virtual ports on the PC that talk to the same wireless port, or use a VSPE splitter to in effect share the single virtual com port between apps.

Poking around with the s/w, it does look like virtual ports can be opened by multiple apps concurrently, so i think I'm good.

Cheers
w9mdb
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Re: Wifi to serial converter to link KAT500 & Acom 700S?

Postby w9mdb » Fri Apr 17, 2020 2:45 pm

There will be two comm ports...one for each serial port on the wireless unit.
They sit on two different network ports that you will pick through their setup.
Then the VSPE software needs to know which ports to use.
Hopefully the ports are labeled to make it a bit easier to figure out who's who.
I just got my 4-port wireless but am in the process of reconfiguring my shack so won't be hooking it up for a day or two.
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Re: Wifi to serial converter to link KAT500 & Acom 700S?

Postby w-u-2-o » Fri Apr 17, 2020 6:36 pm

ag5rr wrote:I'll have two apps on the PC (Thetis and the Tuner control s/w) that both need to talk to the same wireless port. I'm assuming that both apps cannot access the (vendors) serial device virtual com port concurrently, so would either need to create two virtual ports on the PC that talk to the same wireless port, or use a VSPE splitter to in effect share the single virtual com port between apps.
Not all software and hardware is well behaved enough to allow two app's to simultaneously control a single device. However I have successfully used a VSPE splitter device to allow DDUtil and the Electraft KPA500 Remote app to both control my KPA500 amp simultaneously. So I'd say you are on the right track to use a VSPE splitter device in your configuration.
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Re: Wifi to serial converter to link KAT500 & Acom 700S?

Postby VK3ICM » Sat Apr 25, 2020 2:28 am

I assembled the KAT500, and have Thetis and the KAT500 utility working with the tuner at the same time using The Lantronix virtual port and a VSPE splitter. All good so far. I had to tick Setup > Cat Control > Allow Kenwood AI command - I guess that makes sense as I assume the option is telling Thetis to 'push' band/freq info to the CAT connected device. Does that sound right?

I've not been able to get CAT over serial working with the Acom 700S. From the manual I think a straight through serial should cable work, and it looks like Acom Director Plus connects and I can see PS temp and band, but it and the amp shows 'CAT error' and I don't have any control. On the amp config I'm using RS232, 9600 baud, command set 5/Kenwood, in case anyone with an Acom could verify.

Cheers - Chris
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Re: Wifi to serial converter to link KAT500 & Acom 700S?

Postby VK3ICM » Sat Apr 25, 2020 4:29 am

Think I now understand the RS232 port on the 700S is for Acom's proprietary protocol (as used by Acom Director) and for Kenwood CAT control i need to use the 15 pin CAT/AUX port on the amp. Tried to make up a cable, based on a doc for the 600S but no joy yet.

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