First let me say GREAT program, and works well for my needs, thanks.
In you quest to develop more features it would be great if there were options to control external relays for switching antennas and amps on/off. By external antennas I refer to radios like the IC-9700 which has only one antenna port for each band, in my case I need to be able to switch from horizontal to vertical antennas. The other option that would be great is rotator control; in my case I use the Alfa rotators (sometimes called Alfa Spid). The Alfa rotators will connect via USB or the older ones via Serial port. There is sample code on the alfaradio.ca site for control Index of /downloads/Rotators_Controllers/Computer_program_support
I do understand that this may be a problem as you only connect to the radio. There may have to be some sort of external interface. I would be willing to help with this should you need a testing location. I would be willing to set up a separate computer with Windows or Linux for remote access to the development team.
If the development team drops me a note I would be happy to phone. My email is ssc@andor.net
There are indeed a number of interesting peripherals that folks often want to remotely control. You can add amplifiers to the list, for example.
In my opinion, the field of these devices is quite diverse and it is rare that two hams have the same remote ideas. And there are so many approaches. I think many would simply use a Raspberry Pi with GPIO pins controlling mosfets or relays. And then there are devices with nice serial interfaces and commands, and for those devices, a remote serial port can do the trick (using netcat and socat). Or write your own python script for what you need and then ssh in to a local computer and run the script.
At this time, given options available to run these other devices, I think our time really is best spent on implementing more radio features into wfview.
With that said, I bet we can find a way for you to remotely send these commands. What kind of computer do you have available at the radio?
Thanks for the quick reply, I agree with all, for me I can run windows 10 pro, or Linux ( Debian 11 and 12 ) currently.
The local Club NARC see WWW.NARC.NET , runs a couple of remote stations at what we call the VE6LRN Site. Currently using an IC-9700 for VHF-UHF and a IC-7300 for HF.
The issue we have is we have more than 1 antenna for each band. and no way to easily control the switching with out a messy connections. Currently we are running the RCforbs remote, It does have some ability to control antenna switches, May have to make something up to do the antenna switching. I like the way the WFVIEW works so would be great if we could move to it. I need to remember when setting up the remote stuff that it needs to be “HAM PROOF” if that is possible hi hi
BTW if you want to see the VE6LRN site Youtube has several videos.
Thanks and if I can be of any assistance please drop me a note.
I also have available most ICOM equipment, Perks of working for an company that is an ICOM dealer.
If your application for H/V antenna switching is EME (as it is for me) then you might also pick off the external preamp signal that the IC-9700 generates (via a bias-tee) and include that in your switching logic. I don’t expect to use Wfview for any kind of relay switching, as such, but just making the point that when you control TX/RX through Wfview the rig does generate a signal that you may be able to use.