I did something similar. But this was with my K2.
I wanted to control my homebrew kilowatt linear with the K2 by sending
the linear Yaesu
"BCD" band codes. It's four wires. Each one can be high ( +5V ) or low
( 0V ).
You are thus given a choice of 16 possible bands. 0001 = 160M, 0010 =
80M...etc.
The linear does not have a bandswitch. I did that on purpose, to avoid
breaking it
by choosing the wrong band.
The K2 does not have any band output. I'm guessing it was designed
before such
things were common.
It does have a thing called "Aux Bus", which is brought out on the back
panel. It's the
internal serial bus that pieces of the radio use to talk to each other,
to minimize wiring
inside the radio.
The aux bus is proprietary and undocumented. And it's critical to the
internal workings
of the radio, and Not to Be Messed With.
But you can sniff it.
I stuck a logic analyzer on the aux bus connector and started changing
bands - and powering
the radio up & down. I did not decode the entire aux bus message, but
did manage to decode a piece
of it that always appeared when changing bands.
I made up a card with IIRC a raspberry Pi Pico that listens to the aux
bus and reports the current
band to my linear.
Works really well.
BTW, Elecraft does market a box that does this, but what's the fun in
that?
I put a CAT interface on my card, so it can control the K2. What I'd
like to have it do - is to
crank down the K2 power to 20W or so when the linear is on line and
enabled. Then if I turn the linear
off, it would set the K2 back to whatever I had set it to previously.
- Jerry,
______________________________________________________________
Elecraft mailing list
Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net
This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
