SkyCat 9700 Transcieve

[Ingomar Otter]

Good day, I am trying to get into LEO SAT and I am struggeling with many things at once -and found SkyRoof approachable :) thank you.

I use an IC-9700.

I have an prbolem with Sky-Cat, that is that Sky CAT disables CI-V Transcieve on the 9700. This is causing an issue since it basically disables remote access via LAN (wfview and others) which require Transceive to work. I had the same issue with OmniRig, where I changed the definition of the rig. I could do the same for SkyCat (and perhaps issue a PR) but I wanted to ask first whether there really is an issue for Transcieve and SkyCat? 

73 de Ingomar DL9ET

[Alex VE3NEA]

The Transceive mode IS an issue, both for OmniRig and for SkyCAT, it should be always turned off. These two programs are based on the request-response protocol, any messages that were not requested disrupt the data flow, resulting in failed commands and occasional frequency jumps. This is especially harmful for SkyRoof + SkyCAT, where Doppler correction is time-sensitive. Please explain why you want to run WfView in parallel with SkyRoof, maybe SkyRoof needs some functionality added?

[Ingomar Otter]

Alex,

the problem I am trying to solve is twofold:

a) I am struggling "finding myself on the (linear) sats". I am actually unsure of the best procedure, especially since the time to do it is very limited and 

I tried the SDR route (I have a SDRPlay DUO and an sdrswitch and splitter but now I also need a bias T for the mast preamp, all very complicated). So I thought maybe I use the waterfall from the 9700 on the wfView screen (not the tiny one on the device) to locate me whistling. 

b) I want to be able to use the IC-9700 remotely (when not using SkyRoof). If I forget to re-enable Transcieve after a SkyRoof session, this does not work.

I understand that this the problem with Transcieve is  perhaps caused by the less-than-ideal phyiscal design of being half-duplex on a single wire without any collision detection.

This is not a problem when using CI-V over the network.

Dear Santa, If I have three wishes, I wish for

- SkyCat to restore Transcieve to the previous value on exit (if disable can' t be avoided). Looking at CI-V I am not sure whether the current state can be read, I might be able to work around this myself.

- some pointers (in the docs?) how to manage the "find yourself" frequency alignment

- us the 9700 waterfall within SkyRoof? (this perhaps would require to talk to the LAN interface which is undocumented but reversed by wfView)

and

- SkyCat to be embedded or automatically start/stop with SkyRoof. SkyRoof is such an elegant program, having to launch / stop a seperate CLI app feels clunky.

[Alex VE3NEA]

Finding your own signal - try the procedure that I use when I work CW using RS-44, it is described in the Frequency Scale section of User's Guide. It is visual, mouse only, and takes seconds. Best of all, you need to do this only once, SkyRoof remembers your settings and uses them in the next pass. In the FT4 mode tuning is even easier, it is literally just one mouse click. I use SDRplay RSP1a that replaced my AirSpy MIni, it is connected to the antenna via PTRX-9700 so that I can receive while transmitting.

The waterfall in IC-9700 is much coarser than SkyRoof needs, it is just not usable. The requirements to the waterfall are discussed in the Waterfall Display section of User's Guide.

Auto start SkyCAT - someone is already working on this. In any case, this will be optional. SkyCAT is a separate app so that you can run it on another computer if you want remote operation. Remote SDR control is also available.

[Ingomar Otter]

Thank you Alex, I will try that