WFView, CI-V & Omnirig

Usage Questions
1

I took my Chromebook to the pub for dinner tonight hoping to work digital modes remotely using only remote desktop (NoMachine). Unfortunately, I forgot to enable CI-V Tranceive on my Icom 7610 so here I sit crying in my beer…

Note that I have proven that I can access and use WFView this way.. but only if I remember to turn on CI-V Transceive before I leave!

WFView is installed and working on my home QTH PC. I use NoMachine to connect to my desktop. I do not run WFView on my remote computer. The reason for this is that I want to remotely access other programs in addition to WFView, especially digital mode utilities. For example, I use WSJT-x and VarAC utilities, and my general logger, Log4OM. By using NoMachine to access my desktop rather than installing all that software on my remote machine, I simplify my remote device considerably. And in this case, I can use a Chromebook! The only program to install is NoMachine. NoMachine is a great solution/

There are other desktop sharing applications, but NoMachine also includes the audio stream which is critical.

OK, all that is working. But here is my problem (in addition to being locked out since I did not enable CI-Vs Tranceive) ….WFView requires CI-V to be enabled, and many of my accessory programs use Omnirig for CAT control (including WSJT-x, VarAC, and my generally logger, Log4OM). But OmniRig does not like having CI-V Tranceive enabled! Thus the conundrum. I cannot use remote desktop to run WFView (connected locally) AND also run Omnirig at the same time. This prevents me from from using remote desktop as a full remote solution.

So, pending any suggestions from members or developers, I have an idea. Would it be possible to configure WFView to optionally use BOTH the TCP protocol AND OmniRig (or a USB direct protocol) for all CAT control functions?

Hmm… I just realized that CI-V Tranceive will still be turned on and could confuse OmniRig. Hmm… does anyone know if that will be an issue?

WFView is a great program, but at least in my case is seriously cobbled by problems integrating with one of the most popular CAT control tools in the Amateur community. Note that I’m not blaming WFView, its more of a problem with OmniRig, but I have no idea how to ping the developers of Omnirig.

Getting back to my actual issue tonight… is there any way to enable CI-V Tranceive remotely when it is not already enabled? (related…I have not seen any 3rd party software that can access the ICOM menu settings….).

2

Surely you mean “CI-V Transceive” ???

CI-V is always on with Icom radios.

3

Thanks, I fixed references to read “CI-V Tranceive”.

I have been running my 7610 for 3 years without CI-V Tranceive turned on, except when running WFView. Are you saying that I can leave it on all the time and there will be no problems with other utilities?

Here is a thread in this forum that does discuss this…

4

You may be able to get by with CI-V Transceive turned OFF if you manually define the CI-V address in wfview for the radio. But wfview will be less responsive to changes made at the radio, and you will have to be certain that you have the CI-V address entered correctly. We’ve had nothing but trouble with users that go this route, so YMMV.

Icom introduced the IC-735 in 1985 with a jumper to disable CI-V Transceive because the computers of the time were not tremendously fast, plus most hams were somewhat meager programmers using BASIC and could not be bothered to write a proper parser. What is CI-V Transceive? It’s a setting that allows the radio to emit data to the computer even if it has not been specifically asked for said data. It just sends current radio status data over the bus, and also responds to queries sent to the “0x00 broadcast” address – that’s how we automatically find radios with wfview. This also means we don’t have to hit the radio quite as hard with regular “polling” to find out if the user spun the dial, for example. The radio will just tell us.

For a program to be unable to cope with a few unexpected bytes in the year 2026 is inexcusable. Any application written that poorly should not be used. I really do mean this. It’s lazy. Tell the authors of those programs to get off their butts and write a proper CI-V parser. It’s been 40+ years of Icom having to support this ridiculous paradigm and people are still disabling CI-V Transceive, manually configuring their software, and polling the radio to death rather than using the nice automatic feature that Icom introduced in 1985. COME ON PEOPLE. Write better software and rid us of this nonsense. The CI-V bus is an absolute snail compared to modern high-speed communication. It’s very easy to write a parser for the data.

To me, the very existence of a setting to disable this excellent feature speaks volumes about the level of software quality people are willing to endure much less release.

–E
de W6EL

1 Like