I’m wondering if it’s possible to remotely operate in satellite mode on the IC-9799 using WFView? Our club has a nice HF remote station and some of us have been discussing the possibility of creating a remotely operated satellite station giving club members who can’t assemble their own satellite home station. It seems that RS-BA1 and Win4Icom will not handle the task. How about WFView?
Rick, W2JAZ
Hi Rick,
It’s close but not quite ready. For satellite mode you really need to see both VFOs and easily tune either one. We are close on this, version 2 may handle it.
You can see some videos of me working two satellites using wfview on YouTube. I am not an expert operator with satellites so don’t laugh! In my case I also used the radio’s co trips since I was sitting right there.
Keep an eye on our development and you may see it be ready soon.
—E
de W6EL
This would be fantastic. I read earlier threads on this development and they were from a year or so ago I I wanted to inquire if we were there yet. Remember that with an IC-9700 you could involve the use of the S.A.T controller that is a little box that controls everything even the rotor based on satellite selection. With it all you need to do is basically see the radio/VFO and tune the RIT control remotely I think. I’ll keep an eye on future developments.
It’s already a great tool and this will make it even better!
Tnx
73
Rick, W2JAZ
Yup same request here. We have a satellite station, and want to make it remoteable…I have played around with wfview and using the split menu to access the two tuners…but gpredict really doesn’t like the rigctl interface apparently…
Rigctl is the main reason for us persuing this software. (and the price)
Mike
Any software leveraging hamlib is going to suffer some issues with more modern radios.
Gpredict is unfortunately one such program.
The 9700 has commands for satellite mode but the way hamlib is written, the software alternates between the two VFOs (main/sub switching basically) and sends commands out when it switches. It makes it super annoying to manually tune when this is happening. You’ll experience this even if you go directly from gpredict to rigctld to the radio, without wfview.
I’m not really sure what the best solution is here but if someone wants to provide some guidance and ideas I am all ears. Maybe there is a way to accept the commands from gpredict and apply them in a special way with wfview to the 9700?
My satellite experience is so little (see my two satellite videos on YouTube under W6EL) that j am often fearful of making things worse. Please, rope me in and tell me how it should be :-).
—E
de W6EL
I am quite active on the sats, mostly on linear satellites. I’m currently using a Flex 6600M with Q5 transverters, but am quite interested in using an IC-9700 IF it can be operated remotely. All of my rigs are operated remotely through the LAN (or WAN) as they are mounted in racks in the basement. I tried Marcus Roskosch’s SDR-Control software but it could not operate satellites remotely. Is version 2.0 of WF View going to be able to do this? Most people with 9700’s are using the CSN Technologies S.A.T. controller which connects to the CI-V port of the radio for doppler control. If WF View is operating on the LAN port, I’m hoping it could be able to display the Panafall , and control the VFO. The SAT controller would do the rest.
73 de Charlie KB8CR
Hi Charlie,
You can operate the 9700 remotely, yes, with full speed waterfall (“Panafall”) support.
We do not yet have our act together with regards to satellite ops though. I think a better interface can be made later, and yes, we will. So right now, wfview program may get confused when you enter satellite mode, plus you will have to contend with whatever random things your satellite tracker decides to send to wfview, which we may not be ready for. Programs using the rigctld method may send several commands per second to flip the VFOs and program each individually and then flip back.
If you want to advise us on how to do all this, I’m all ears. I don’t understand, for example, how the 9700’s built-in Satellite Mode is supposed to interact with a program like Gpredict. Sat mode will make it so when you tune one VFO, the second VFO will also tune to match (inverted or not). But in my experience, the satellite tracker will also send commands to alter the tuning based on the doppler, and these two will basically fight each other. It is even worse with linear sats where you want to tune around in the passband and not have the program pushing you around.
If you can shed some light on how this is all “supposed” to be done, I’d appreciate it a lot. I’ve operated many sats but I always end up doing it with manual tuning (sat mode but not tracking with an external program).
–E
de W6EL
Dump any sat controller. WF-View should be calculating doppler itself from the relativistic equations, a set of TLEs for some of the well-known sats, the users location (QTH) and the precise date/time all loaded into WF-View. Not very hard. Q-LOG does this.
Then wait for acquisition start, and then start sending the frequencies to both VFO1 and VFO2
The algorithms are public
https://celestrak.org/publications/AIAA/2006-6753/
If you click on the “paper” link on this page, its a very long read but also has sample code for the Sat Tracking part of the math, from there you need to translate motion into a Doppler “correction factor” then apply the correction factor to the steady state Fc of the satellite
I prefer not to reinvent the wheel here. If there are other programs that can do this, then we should leverage that functionality.
Anyway, still looking for guidance on these things.
—E
de W6EL
Fair enough
What about getting WF-View to communicate with DDE (OLE) output stream from SAT32PC
"SatPC32 and Wisat32 steer the antennas and radio frequencies (CAT) for Doppler correction. Both programs allow multitasking with programs that provide data transfer with satellites like Wisp32. SatPC32 and Wisat32 then will take over the antenna- and frequency-control. The automatic switching on a satellite works synchronized with the data-program.
"
Further, the program provides a constantly active DDE interface, which allows third-party-programs to receive the antenna positions, frequencies and modes calculated by SatPC32. This interface -in example- can be used by CX6DD’s WispDDE. Thus all hardware supported by WispDDE can be controlled also by SatPC32.
So how are you supposed to tune while any other program is handling Doppler shift?
Sorry, late to this discussion.
Depending on the radio and the software you are using to CAT control the radio determines how you tune.
SatPC32 has a button to allow you to physically spin the knob for VFO adjustments…used for SSB operations. However overall there are internal software frequency corrections that can be set and stored…for example when you are fine tuning your uplink/downlink match on SSB…or if maybe you are a tiny bit off on FM (haven’t noticed that).
If for example operating remotely, there are some other buttons to adjust the frequency by step.
I would agree that there is already a ton of software that is capable of tracking the doppler changes.
Also think about use case. If I am in front of the radio, I don’t need radio software. So for me it is all about remote operation.
I think what dan_in_sd is saying is if you put those adjustments in the radio software, you don’t have to fight the virtual CAT port battle with additional software.
So there is that.
Mike
Dear all,
I am also sorry to be late with this post.
If anyone is interested in building a remote LEO satellite station with IC-9700, I have build one.
If I can use wfview the same way I am using Win4Icom, it could be even better.
SW being used and utilized for the remote operation:
Win4Icom
RS-BA1 (original ICOM Remote SW)
SatPC 32
Further SW handling polarization switching, rotator and USB over LAN:
WinRotor Plus
N-Button Pro
USB Network Gate
The coarse tuning (100Hz step) is done by a mouse wheel or by a mouse click. The fine tuning (10Hz step) is done by Icom RC-28 remote encoder. In paralel there is a running Doppler shift compensation running all the time in the background controlled by SatPC32. You can see the frequency changes in the Win4Icom window.
I am attaching a video with the practical operation. I am using this station since August 2022.
Best regards and 73
Martin
Hi Martin,
This is helpful. The more examples like this I can see the better.
–E
de W6EL
Question,
Your RC-28 is connected directly to what exactly?
When you rotate the RC-28 to change frequency, the radio frequency changes. And if you remain at a frequency for some seconds, SatPC32 will alter the frequency slightly to compensate for the doppler, yes?
Just trying to understand the workflow.
Thanks,
–E
de W6EL
Hello Elliot,
The RC-28 is connected to the PC in my shack.
The other small PC, ICOM 9700, rotator control box, rotator USB interface, relay switchboard for polarization switching is located in a garden house. I am attaching two pictures to better understand the setup.
And yes, you tune the SSB linear satellite by a mouse click, mouse wheel or by the RC-28 and if you stay on the frequency, the SAT-PC32 is further compensating the Doppler.
Moreover, you tune the downlink only!, the uplink tuning is handled by SatPC32 itself. You just calibrate the uplink by a short whistle at the beginning of the satellite pass. The sat operation is very convenient this way - you see the station in the waterfall, you click the mouse, you work the station.
You do not tune FM satellites at all. Everything is stored and handled by SatPC32. Obviously, you can also use a different satellite tracking program. If there is a new sat in the sky, you just put the frequencies into a text file of SatPC32.
73,
Martin
OK1YC
Hello Elliott,
I forgot one thing - the Icom RC28 wheel is supported by Win4Icom, therefore I am using it for tuning connected to the PC in my shack. I also use the RC-28 for PTT.
73,
Martin
Hi Martin,
Nice setup. I am not using a rotor here, I built an omni antenna with a “bulb” like pattern facing upwards, circular polarized and dual band. It removes one annoying aspect of satellite operation!
So the chain of things is:
User fingers → RC28 → Win2Icom → Radio
And then I assume SatPC32 also connects into Win2Icom?
And then SatPC32 must poll the radio for the current frequency and then modify it for doppler (but not WHILE you are rotating the RC28 because that would make tuning impossible), and also setting the radio’s transmit frequency per the dialed-in offset at the beginning?
I just want to understand how things are connected. I have tried programs with automatic doppler correction and it has usually resulted in a situation where I tune the radio and the program snaps the tuning back to where it thinks I should be tuned.
–E
de W6EL
Hi Elliott,
I must admit I have played with the setup quite a lot. Even the author of Win4Icom did not believe I can use it in the way I am actually using it. I have exchanged quite a few e-mails with him.
I can see more option how to configure everything now but I will describe the way how I have connected all the stuff now.
There are actually three ways to CAT control the 9700 (not considering wfview now:-):
Although Win4Icom supports interconnection with SatPC32 and is also able to bypass the SatPC32 CAT control over itself (although you need to create a virtual COM port pair in your PC to be able to use that) I do not use this configuration.
My setup now:
-Win4Icom use its own serial interface, which utilizes the virtual COM port created by Icom Remote Utility over LAN.
-SatPC32 use its own remote USB connection (by a third party USB over LAN utility) utilizing the ICOM’s Silicon Labs USB to UART interface. In the ideal case the COM port is set to 115200 bps.
The chain is:
User fingers → RC28 → Win4Icom → Radio (CAT tuning using Win4Icom interface serial channel) → RX (downlink) frequency change of 9700. What happens immediately after that is:
SatPC32 reads the new RX (downlink) frequency of Icom 9700 → SatPC32 calculates the TX (uplink) frequency → SatPC32 poll (CAT control) the Icom 9700 TX/uplink frequency.
This is how I see that.
BTW, for working QO-100 sat, I am also using the 9700 CI-V control in parallel of all the other CAT controls but let’s do not overcomplicate the topic now:-)
73
Martin
