KZ0C – Mike O’Connor

Phase One of the Internet remote-controlled transceiver is done! Woohoo! Here’s a thumbnail of a block diagram. Click on it to see the real deal.

Here’s the recipe;

I used PC Anywhere to get to my farm PC, but that’s only because of stupidly having built the PC with XP Home Edition rather than Pro (which would have allowed me to use the built-in Remote Desktop Protocol, MUCH newer/faster/better). I always start that “layer” first.

Once I’ve connected to the farm-PC desktop, I use a web browser to turn on the radio’s power supply by hitting the little web-site in front of the remote-controlled power strip at the farm. I can do this from either the farm-PC or the remote PC.

Then I launch TRX-Manager and turn on the radio. Now I have control over the radio — tuning, filters, logbook, push-to-talk on the mic, etc.

Finally, I initiate a Skype call from one PC and answer the call with other (doesn’t matter which way you start). Now I have 2-way sound. Most of the time, I’m using this link to listen the radio, but when I hit the push-to-talk button on TRX-Manager I can transmit whatever I say into the mic that’s attached to my local PC.

The Rigblaster is in the mix primarily to scale the line-level audio from the PC down to the mic-level audio that the transceiver is expecting. The Rigblaster can take care of the push-to-talk function as well, but it was simpler for me to just use it in VOX mode and do the push-to-talk stuff with TRX-Manager.

The web-controlled power switch is there to intervene if a couple things go wrong. Problem 1 – what if the farm-PC crashes while transmitting? That could leave the radio in an uncontrolled transmit state, something the FCC would complain about. With this gizmo, I can reboot the computer and turn off the radio. Both good things. Problem 2 – what if Internet connectivity is lost while transmitting? Similarly bad, and now I can’t get to the power switch. But this power switch is smart — it looks at the Internet every 15 seconds and if the Internet goes away for 30 seconds it will power off the radio.

I’m heading to the ICANN meetings in LA tomorrow morning, so I’ll have a perfect opportunity to try it out. I’ve already tested the sound quality on transmit and I think it sounds pretty good. I made a couple of contacts with it, and the folks on the other end thought so too.

Not quite the whole whizbang on-top-of-the-hill gizmo, but a huge step in the right direction.