Advice needed: Remote Station Enhancement

[Dennis Ashworth-2]

My original post (below) morphed into a thread on standards, etc ... the discussion was insightful and useful in defining my solution to question #1 below. Thanks.

Question #2 remains. How do I remotely switch between 4 positions on an RX antenna switch (e.g. K9AY switch box) via some kind of Windows based UI. Ideas?

Thanks
Dennis, K7FL


Sent from my iPad

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Dennis Ashworth <[hidden email]>
> Date: February 24, 2018 at 2:23:20 PM EST
> To: "[hidden email]" <[hidden email]>
> Subject: Advice needed: Remote Station Enhancement
>
> I’ve been remoting my K3, KPA500, KAT500 station via the RemoteRig boxes and K3/0 mini for two years with solid results. Later this year, I want to make several enhancements, including the replacement of the KPA500 and KAT500 with a KPA1500. The amp/tuner should be a fairly straightforward hardware replacement, but it does necessitate a few station changes which I’m not certain how to implement. Let me explain and hopefully the masses have ideas/approaches for consideration.
>
> 1. I feed a HyTower vertical (optimized for 40M & 80M) on all bands. Where the driving impedance is close to 50 ohms on 40M & 80 (my bands of interest) there has been no attempt to match the HyTower on other bands. With the KAT500, matching was not a problem and I reduced mismatch losses on the feed line by using hardline from the in-shack tuner to the antenna.
>
> When I switch to the KPA1500, operation on the unmatched bands might prove problematic. To address this, I plan to provide switchable matching networks to transform the HyTower drive impedance on each band to something the KPA1500 can match. I can design the required impedance transformation networks, but not sure how to automatically select the various (relay based) impedance networks required for each band. Clearly, I need to grab band data from the K3, but what’s the best hardware to use for this task?
>
> BTW, I want to power the KPA1500 ON with the K3, which requires a Y-cable modification, or perhaps one of the N6TV boxes?
>
> 2. I want to interface a K9AY RX antenna 4 position switch to some sort of UI that I can access remotely. I can design an electrical interface to the K9AY switch, but controlling and monitoring remotely is the issue. Ideas?
>
> 3. I have a Windows computer available at each end of the radio circuit. The only other hardware is a SignalLink used for digital mods.
>
> 4. Configuring the station for future antenna enhancements (e.g. SteppIR if we live long enough to see sunspots return!) are great if they come without significant reliability impacts.
>
> Any ideas how to accomplish the required switching/monitoring?
>
> Thanks
> Dennis, K7FL
> Currently in Panama City, Florida
> Station in Battle Ground, WA
>
>
>
>
>
> Sent from my iPad

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[Yngvi (TF3Y)]

Hi Dennis.

Have you checked what is available here:
http://www.remoterig.com/wp/

73, Yngvi TF3Y

On Wed, Mar 7, 2018 at 1:30 AM, Dennis Ashworth <[hidden email]>
wrote:

> My original post (below) morphed into a thread on standards, etc ... the
> discussion was insightful and useful in defining my solution to question #1
> below. Thanks.
>
> Question #2 remains. How do I remotely switch between 4 positions on an RX
> antenna switch (e.g. K9AY switch box) via some kind of Windows based UI.
> Ideas?
>
> Thanks
> Dennis, K7FL
>
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> > From: Dennis Ashworth <[hidden email]>
> > Date: February 24, 2018 at 2:23:20 PM EST
> > To: "[hidden email]" <[hidden email]>
> > Subject: Advice needed: Remote Station Enhancement
> >
> > I’ve been remoting my K3, KPA500, KAT500 station via the RemoteRig boxes
> and K3/0 mini for two years with solid results. Later this year, I want to
> make several enhancements, including the replacement of the KPA500 and
> KAT500 with a KPA1500. The amp/tuner should be a fairly straightforward
> hardware replacement, but it does necessitate a few station changes which
> I’m not certain how to implement. Let me explain and hopefully the masses
> have ideas/approaches for consideration.
> >
> > 1. I feed a HyTower vertical (optimized for 40M & 80M) on all bands.
> Where the driving impedance is close to 50 ohms on 40M & 80 (my bands of
> interest) there has been no attempt to match the HyTower on other bands.
> With the KAT500, matching was not a problem and I reduced mismatch losses
> on the feed line by using hardline from the in-shack tuner to the antenna.
> >
> > When I switch to the KPA1500, operation on the unmatched bands might
> prove problematic. To address this, I plan to provide switchable matching
> networks to transform the HyTower drive impedance on each band to something
> the KPA1500 can match. I can design the required impedance transformation
> networks, but not sure how to automatically select the various (relay
> based) impedance networks required for each band. Clearly, I need to grab
> band data from the K3, but what’s the best hardware to use for this task?
> >
> > BTW, I want to power the KPA1500 ON with the K3, which requires a
> Y-cable modification, or perhaps one of the N6TV boxes?
> >
> > 2. I want to interface a K9AY RX antenna 4 position switch to some sort
> of UI that I can access remotely. I can design an electrical interface to
> the K9AY switch, but controlling and monitoring remotely is the issue.
> Ideas?
> >
> > 3. I have a Windows computer available at each end of the radio circuit.
> The only other hardware is a SignalLink used for digital mods.
> >
> > 4. Configuring the station for future antenna enhancements (e.g. SteppIR
> if we live long enough to see sunspots return!) are great if they come
> without significant reliability impacts.
> >
> > Any ideas how to accomplish the required switching/monitoring?
> >
> > Thanks
> > Dennis, K7FL
> > Currently in Panama City, Florida
> > Station in Battle Ground, WA
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Sent from my iPad
> ______________________________________________________________
> Elecraft mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> Post: mailto:[hidden email]
>
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
> Message delivered to [hidden email]

--
http://www.tf3y.net
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[Rick Tavan-2]

I do miscellaneous switching chores at my remote station with two devices:
a remotely-controlled AC power strip and a remotely-controlled DC relay
board. Either could be adapted to your requirements IF your switch has
digital inputs such as four independent control lines. I don't know if
either of these techniques is what you really want, but maybe they'll give
you some ideas.

My AC power strip is from Digital Loggers Inc. I found it at a surplus
store for a lot less than new boxes. It supports eight controllable AC
outlets from a Web page that's hosted inside the outlet strip itself.
Connect it to your remote LAN with a little well-documented, one-time
network magic and you're good to go. You can assign mnemonic names to each
outlet, subdivide them into "user" and "administrator" sets, monitor access
via a "heartbeat" on the Internet for restart sequencing, etc. Quite nice
but not exactly what you want as you would have to plug in wall warts or
external relays and you would have to activate the four lines manually, one
at a time. To change antennas you would probably have to turn one off and
another on which is kind of messy.

My DC relay board is from Velleman Projects. It has a local interface
program (Windows) that I access via a remote desktop app. It has eight SPDT
relays but only exposes the common and normally open contacts via a
terminal strip. I've considered tacking wires onto the normally closed
contacts and adding a second terminal strip to expose them, but so far
haven't had to do that. They probably have other models with different I/O
capabilities. Although this device, like the power strip, provides eight
independent, binary lines, its local interface program is written in Basic
and source code is available. I wanted to re-program it with mnemonic names
instead of just numbers 1-8 but when I saw the Gothic environment into
which Basic has devolved, I gave up. If you're handier with Basic, you
could use the supplied source code as education and write your own program
that turns on one and no more than one line at a time.

There are other vendors of similar devices. I believe there are also some
solutions involving remote serial ports but I have no experience with them.

Good luck & 73,

/Rick N6XI

--

Rick Tavan
Truckee, CA

On Tue, Mar 6, 2018 at 5:30 PM, Dennis Ashworth <[hidden email]>
wrote:

>
> Question #2 remains. How do I remotely switch between 4 positions on an RX
> antenna switch (e.g. K9AY switch box) via some kind of Windows based UI.
> Ideas?
>
______________________________________________________________
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Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
Post: mailto:[hidden email]

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Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
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