I have been reading the messages about people having problems but I finally got around to installing version 1.61 tonight.
Everything worked great first time it started. It took a bit of looking around to find the right place turn on the RC-28 but after that it worked fine.
Over all I’m very happy with the way things are progressing. In time I will play around more with the color setting to customize the look a bit. Hi…
That said, there is one change that is needed for those of us that use remote tuners. Please make it possible to use the tune button to send a 10w carrier for our tuners to tune up! This tune function is available in win4IcomSuite using a macro. Yes it can be done by turning down the power and switching to CW or RTTY but simplifying it would really be appreciated!
No major change to the interface needed. How about a drop down box on the Tune button, like Preamp, that gives an option to set what the button does.
I also have an antenna tuner made by MFJ. It is separate and remote from my ICOM radio. Too much power, and the tuner will not tune. Too little power, and the tuner will not tune. The optimal amount of power varies somewhat by band, but generally is about 20 watts, not 10 watts.
I would love to have a button to do this. Note that I turn on or observe SWR to determine when tuning has completed.
In wfview: I reduce the power to about 20W. I turn off the ICOM ATU. I switch the mode to RTTY. I turn on the SWR meter rather than TX audio or whatever. I turn on Transmit and observe the SWR drop to its final value, generally between 1:1 and 1:3. I turn off Transmit. I then return everything back to its previous setting. Note, if I felt the SWR was too high I hit the Wfview tune button to turn on the ATU while still in transmit above and watch the SWR drop closer to 1:1.
If I want to run the ICOM PW1 amplifier, I leave it off and tune the antenna above. I turn off the exciter’s ATU if it is on. (Must be off to drive the PW1). If that particular band has a higher SWR like 1:3 to 1, I turn on the ICOM amplifier’s Tune button but NOT the amplifier amplifying and turn on Transmit again, thus to use the Amplifyer’s Antenna controller to reduce the SWR it sees. The Amp will tune to the antenna using just the exciter’s power. I reduce the xciter power to about 16 Watts depending on the band. I then turn on the amplifier amplifying. Note: I never run the Amp over 500 Watts although it is capable of 1000 Watts. If I wanted to run more power, I probably would need to run higher power from the exciter.
If you use the SOTABEAMS Click2Tune circuit to ‘convince’ the radio that there is a tuner connected, you should be able to press the ‘Tune’ button on wfview and that sends the start tune command to the radio.
Are you sure that little device wouldn’t work? It seems to me that once that device is installed, you can press the “TUNE” button inside wfview and trigger the normal tuning cycle, which includes a 10W carrier.
It works fine but only when you are in the shack by the radio. It is of no use when operating remote.
We are talking about activating the tuner when operating remote away from the shack or for others who have remote tuners that do not use the Icom tune connection.
Wouldn’t the 10W output activate the tuner? It seems like it would to me. But maybe I do not understand. When you put the little dongle in the radio, the radio thinks you have an icom ATU connected. And when you then press the tune button on the radio (or inside wfview), the radio sends out a 10W tuning carrier.
Some of those little Icom tune dongles let you specify the length of time for which the 10W would be emitted.
It’s my understanding that you wanted a button which would switch to RTTY and emit 10W. I don’t see how this is really any different. Either way the tuner activates at 10W and attempts to tune the antenna. I assume you would watch the SWR meter on the radio (or within wfview) to see if it was successful.
Does that make sense? Let me know if I’m off base here.
The difference is that the Icom tune dongles only allow you to send a 10w carrier to your tuner when you are in your shack to push the tune button. It can not be activated remotely.
A 10 watt RTTY carrier works fine for me. I do this now by reducing the output power, changing mode to RTTY, then changing to required mod and turning the power back to 100W. (when I don’t forget - hi…)
And, yes I am watching the SWR meter on wfview to verify the tuner worked.
What I am suggesting would allow the user to send a carrier remotely when operating away from your station.
This option could let the user to select what the current “TUNE” button does, so no major change to the user interface.
Another user mentioned he need 20W carrier, so maybe the power output level could be adjustable.
This new TUNE function will do the following:
Set the output power and switch to RTTY when the TUNE button is pressed. When the TUNE button is pressed again, change the output power and mode back the previous settings.
This will simplify tuning with RF activated tuners and could help for tuning an amplifier.
so you have the interface pushed in the connector, right?
Do you push a switch attached to your interface or do you push the tune button on the rig?
I also would opt for “transmitting a carrier” instead of “use CW, RTTY” for this. You have a functional question that maybe needs to be fixed. The technical implementation is up to the s/w makers.
So the question that we have is, as we do not use this function this way:
do you need to use a button on the interface you have put in your ah4 connector or are you using the tune button?
Have you verified this? If that is so, then no person that uses an Icom external tuner can remotely operate it since the tune button from wfview will not trigger the behavior.
Have you actually tested this? It seems like a very poor design decision on Icom’s behalf to implement external ATU connections and an ATU button and an ATU command, and have the ATU command only work for the internal ATU.
I’m not trying to disagree with you, it just seems quite odd. If I have time this weekend I will test it out here.
Sorry for confussing the situation. The tune interface attached to the Icom AH4 antenna connector has nothing to do with the Tune button request and has taken this off course! It was only mentioned as an example of now the Icom tune function works.
As to the Icom design, it is obvious that they never intended for users to connect any tuner other than theirs. They have never documented how the tune works and do not answer requests for information. They could fix this but choose not to.
This comes from many years of use and experience.
The Icom tune dongles interfaces only allowed me to send a 10w carrier to the tuner when I am in the shack, by the radio, to push the tune button.
The one I have has a local button and can not be used remotely.
It is not activated by the Tune button on the radio.*
The function I have suggested will allow using the Tune button on Wfview to send a carrier that will allow a remote tuner to do it’s tune cycle. It makes no difference as to what mode is used, only that a lower power carrier is transmitted.
To repeat…
What I am suggesting would allow the user to send a carrier remotely when operating away from your station.
This option could let the user to select what the current “TUNE” button does, so no major change to the user interface.
Another user mentioned he need 20W carrier, so maybe the power output level could be adjustable.
This new TUNE function will do the following:
Set the output power and switch to RTTY (CW) when the TUNE button is pressed. A carrier is transmitted at the reduced power level.*
When the TUNE button is pressed again, the tune cycle ends, the output power and mod is changed back the previous settings.
This will simplify tuning with RF activated tuners and could help for tuning an amplifier.
We will consider the feature. Fldigi has a similar “tune” button which just sends a sine wave (presumably over SSB) for the purpose of tuning. I think wsjt-x has it as well.
RTTY at low power could be a macro-like feature.
I still plan to investigate the built in tune features. But I also understand how much more agile it could be in software.
Purely by coincidence, my dad (W3RX) made his own dongle this weekend and indeed, the Tune button inside wfview does work with an external tuner. The dongle is very simple, it is merely a capacitor and a resistor. Once installed, the radio thinks it has an external tuner, and it will transmit 10W until the external ATU indicates it is tuned. The trick with this dongle is that it uses a capacitor-resistor circuit as a timer, and you can adjust how long you want the tuning cycle to be by adjusting the RC values.
Just to be clear, using this circuit, the Tune button in wfview will emit a 10W carrier for some period of time. You do not have to be at the radio. You can use the button in wfview.
It’s apparent from this experiment that if you take it a step further and build a proper interface for your ATU, you should be good to go! For example, I have an LDG tuner in my vehicle for HF, and it wasn’t too hard for me to build a cable to connect to my Icom IC-706. I’ve also seen ATU adapters on ebay for many models, you may want to check for yours. The ATU interface is well documented in many Icom manuals and service manuals and has not changed in decades. There are several third-party vendors of ham radio equipment that have build compatible tuners using this interface.
I like your idea though, and I still think we should implement a macro-style tune feature within wfview, because it will be nice to be able to set the exact power level and duration within software. But if you need a workaround, it can be done very simple as described. From our little experiment, the tune button in wfview functions exactly as the tune button on the radio. We were unable to detect or create any difference in operation.
One caveat, wfview does not currently recognize “tuning” as a transmit event, and thus, the power and SWR meter do not change over from their receive positions. We can fix that pretty easily though as we basically already monitor the ATU status during a tune event. Look for this in a future source code commit.
