[ct-user] CT & Kenwood radio Polling

[Bob Naumann - N5NJ]

Actually, Pete, in either case, using the FA, FB, or even the IF
commands, in certain situations, the radio acts as though it's
buffering the commands, or just ignoring them, while the dial is
turned and will not report until it's done doing whatever it's doing.
This seems to vary with the radio model quite a bit.  I did most of my
programming work on the TS-940 and it is slow compared to the 850 for
example.  Also, the lack of consistency in the Kenwood command set is
very frustrating to a programmer.

Using AI, it behaves exactly as I've described where it only will
report a change once the dial has stopped long enough for the radio to
feel that it's ready to send the data.  This delay is in many cases
longer and therefore it's most likely faster, as you say, to poll the
radio instead of waiting for the AI function to report.  The
parameters of these delays are not published that I know of.

I report all of this as a programmer observing what the Kenwood's seem
to do without intimate knowledge of the radio's internal software that
makes all of this happen.  If anyone has a 940, and would like a copy
of what I thought was a great DOS Packet Terminal / TS-940 program,
send me an email and I'll forward a copy to you.  I've given up
writing my own, and now use DX4Win for my general operating.

Robert E. Naumann
N5NJ / V26O
N5NJ@arrl.net
www.qsl.net/n5nj
Plano, TX  USA
ex KR2J, V26RN, W6V, WA2OVE
----- Original Message -----
From: "Pete Smith" <n4zr@contesting.com>
To: <ct-user@contesting.com>
Sent: Saturday, November 11, 2000 12:20
Subject: Re: [ct-user] CT & Kenwood radio Polling


>
> At 11:18 AM 11/11/00 -0000, Bob Naumann - N5NJ wrote:
> >
> >If it's a Kenwood rig, it's the radio that's not providing the
data.
> >The way the Kenwood appears to work is that it waits until the
> >frequency is stable, then it sends it out.
>
> From my limited experience, it doesn't work quite that way.  There
are
> hypothetically two ways to get frequency data faster.  The external
> software (e.g., CT) could be told to poll the transceiver more
often,
> sending it the FA and FB commands, which return the frequency of the
A and
> B VFOs.  Alternatively, sending the command AI2 at startup will
cause the
> radio to output changes in frequency and some other parameters "when
they
> change."
>
> This is from the command summary in the TS-570 manual on the Kenwood
web
> site, and there are some key points missing -- for example, how
quickly
> does a given radio respond to frequency queries, and how quickly
does the
> radio, on its own, decide to report that the frequency has changed.
There
> might be practical upper limits on how quickly a given radio will
respond.
>
> If anyone is interested in experimenting, because Kenwood uses a
simple
> ASCII command set you can use Hyperterminal to talk to the radio and
see
> how it responds.  You just set Hyperterminal to talk to the
appropriate COM
> port with the right parameters, and you and your radio can have a
nice chat.
>
> 73, Pete Smith N4ZR
>
> Contesting is ... Extreme Radio
>
> The World Contest Station Database
> is back up and running at
> http://www.qsl.net/n4zr
>
>
>
> --
> WWW:                      http://www.k1ea.com/
> Submissions:              ct-user@contesting.com
> Administrative requests:  ct-user-REQUEST@contesting.com
> Problems:                 owner-ct-user@contesting.com
>


--
WWW:                      http://www.k1ea.com/
Submissions:              ct-user@contesting.com
Administrative requests:  ct-user-REQUEST@contesting.com
Problems:                 owner-ct-user@contesting.com