K2 Control Cable Question - Recap

[Jim Campbell]

A while back I asked a question about physically splitting the K2 serial
control cable so that I could have one half of the cable talk to CW
Skimmer and the other half talk to MixW. I got some good suggestions for
which I am thankful.

First it was suggested that I do an internet search for "virtual serial
port". I did so and found a number of solutions that led back to
www.eltima.com. A single license for that solution was almost $100. That
was quite a bit too pricey for me, so I searched further.

That led to my finding www.enterlogic.com. This appears to be a group of
Russian programmers. A single license for their solution is about $25.
This is still a little pricey but much better than eltima so I went for it.

Their solution is called a Virtual Serial Port Emulator. It has several
capabilities one of which is the virtual splitting of a serial port. The
input to the VSPE is the actual com port, in my case Com 4. The output
of the VSPE is a virtual port, in which case I specified Com 1 (which is
not an actual port on my computer).

In CW Skimmer, View>Settings>CAT tab, I specified Radio 1 and in its'
Settings I pointed to Com 1 and gave the com port the settings expected
by the K2's serial port.

In MixW3, Configure>TRCVR CAT/PTT I once again pointed to Com 1.

The results were disappointing. CW Skimmer worked OK, showing the
frequency correctly. The frequency display in MixW was random numbers,
changing frequently. Not at all what I desired.

I then switched to N1MM Logger. Configuring Com 1 as a radio type
"Elecraft K2" and giving com 1 the settings expected by the K2, N1MM
Logger showed the correct frequency.

So it is possible to have the K2 drive more than one program
simultaneously. I will try working with the Russian programmers to get
VSPE to talk to MixW.

Thanks again for all the help.

72,

Jim - W4BQP
K2 # 2268

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[Tony Estep]

Jim, you might try a virtual serial port program called Com0com. It is open
source and free. I have installed it and tried to get it to work, but
haven't fooled with it long enough to give it a full critique. It does
install and it does  create pairs of virtual serial ports. The ports do
appear in the port list of your software. That's all I can attest. I tried
briefly to send data out of one of the virtual ports and receive it on the
other, but it didn't work the first try, and I got distracted by a different
problem and never tried again.

Anyway, it's worth a try. Others report success with it. Plenty of info at:

http://com0com.sourceforge.net/

<http://com0com.sourceforge.net/>Good luck,
Tony KT0NY


On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 9:10 PM, Jim Campbell <[hidden email]> wrote:

> A while back I asked a question about physically splitting the K2 serial
> control cable.....
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[Jim Campbell]

Thanks, Tony. One of the components of Com0com is Hub4com and that would
probably do the same thing that VSP Emulator does. Having gotten VSPE
working I am too lazy to try and get Hub4com to work :-)

Anyone coming along later and needing something like this will benefit
from your suggestion.

72,

Jim - W4BQP
K2 #2268

On 4/30/2011 10:23 PM, Tony Estep wrote:

> Jim, you might try a virtual serial port program called Com0com. It is
> open source and free. I have installed it and tried to get it to work,
> but haven't fooled with it long enough to give it a full critique. It
> does install and it does  create pairs of virtual serial ports. The
> ports do appear in the port list of your software. That's all I can
> attest. I tried briefly to send data out of one of the virtual ports
> and receive it on the other, but it didn't work the first try, and I
> got distracted by a different problem and never tried again.
>
> Anyway, it's worth a try. Others report success with it. Plenty of
> info at:
>
> http://com0com.sourceforge.net/
>
> Good luck,
> Tony KT0NY
>
>
> On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 9:10 PM, Jim Campbell <[hidden email]
> <mailto:[hidden email]>> wrote:
>
>     A while back I asked a question about physically splitting the K2
>     serial
>     control cable.....
>

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