Having gone through the trials and tribulation of online "shopping for answers" I thought I better write down how I got my amplifier to follow the band/frequency of my radio, an ICOM IC-7610.
Please note: Many ways lead to Rome, as well to a solution for the amplifier to follow the Radios frequency/band. This is only one of the many.
Since I've already control my radio from my PC via the logging program from DXLAB, it was quite easy to Setup the amplifier to follow the radios frequency/band after some very good information had been passed on from Martinus, CT1IQI.
I first configured the amplifier for network access. I tried using the WiFi Interface but that had intermittent hissifits so I connected it to my wired network using a STP patch cable (CAT6) and configured the Network interface of the RF2K-S through the menu system.
From the main screen select [MENU] :
and select [Network] [LAN] or [WiFi] :
The default will be DHCP however, I would advise to use a manual IP-Address. It does make it easier in finding the devices IP-address (YMMV). And should the DHCP reservation time out, it might assign a new IP-Address to the amplifier causing future connection issues.
NOTE: If you are using DHCP you'll have to search for the IP-address in your router/dhcp server address table. Make sure to have the address reserved, i.e. map the address as a static address. Consult your manual on how to do so (it would be nice it the amplifier would display its own LAN/WiFi MAC-Address, this would make finding the DHCP assigned IP-address a lot easier)
I've setup my router to act as a Name Server, as such I've also populated the [Name Server] field. (Again YMMV)
To test if the amplifier is reachable from your PC use the ping command.
hw@rapi4:~ $ ping -c 3 rf2k-s <-- use your amplifiers IP-address (ping 1.2.3.4)PING rf2k-s (192.168.1.11) 56(84) bytes of data.64 bytes from rf2k-s (192.168.1.11): icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.476 ms64 bytes from rf2k-s (192.168.1.11): icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.429 ms64 bytes from rf2k-s (192.168.1.11): icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.423 ms
--- rf2k-s ping statistics ---3 packets transmitted, 3 received, 0% packet loss, time 2004msrtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.423/0.442/0.476/0.023 ms
Having finished setting up the Network interface of the amplifier it's time the control Interface.
Select [Interface] and select UDP as the Default operational interface:
and check Listen to active radio.
Now onto the Radio Control Application. In my case that is Commander from the DXLAB suite of applications.
NOTE: I've been told that Log4OM is capable of the same feat however, I've not tried this.
In Commander open the Configuration Panel and select <Net Serv> from the [General] tab:
which brings us to the UDP Network Service window.
We add our amplifier IP Address and Port number as shown and enable the UDP Network Service. The New transceiver (Xcvr) Delay is set at 10, you might like to experiment here if you are using a WiFi connection.
That's it for the configuration. For operation you would make sure that you select UDP through the UNIV menu.
