by As an offshoot of my project of writing an X11 logging program, I've decided
I'd like to tackle writing a generic radio control program for Unix-like
systems. My idea is something like this:
- A server process could be configured with information about what kind(s)
of radio(s) you have, what serial ports to use, etc.
- The server would accept connections from other processes that want
to interface with the radio.
- The server would communicate with the processes using some kind of
generic radio control protocol.
This way other programs can talk to a radio without having to know anything
about the details of communicating with it. They just talk to the server
in a generic language and the server handles the radio interactions.
This brings up the a few questions, and I'd like to solicit input and
opinions from the net before I dig into this:
- What kind of functions need to be defined in the generic language?
A few things that come to mind are things like 'get frequency',
'set frequency', 'get mode', 'set mode'. What other things might
a program want a radio to do (assuming of course that the radio
supports it.)
- Are there other things besides radios that might be controlled?
Antenna rotators? Antenna switches?
- At some point I'll need details for the various known controllable
things, like the command language for Icom, Yaesu, Kenwood, etc.
Maybe people on the net can help provide these things for me.
After getting lots of response to my earlier posting about the X11 logging
program I'm beginning to think there are lots of people running unix-like
systems (mostly Linux) in their ham shacks. I'm hoping that I can come
up with something that will serve the needs of a variety of interface
requirements so that people can start linking up their unix boxes with
their radios.
Chris Moore
N6IYS