Ham Radio - Free and open source remote operation of many Icom radios with wfview

[@loughkb]

I've had a couple of inquiries, so I did a quick google search. Here is instructions for setting up the IC-7300 for remote over USB. www.ab4oj.com/icom/ic7300/rs_ba1v2_dc4ku.pdf

[@1337flite]

Thanks heaps - talking to my MBP in about 3 mins - and open source. This is awesome. Great find. Actually while I'm here thanks for all your videos. Cheers from vk5unx. PS - this may drive my long suffereing partner crazy - now I can play radio in bed!! :-)

[@Linas_LY2H]

Big thanks and respect to the guys who do free open source projects and you Kevin who share it with us on your channel! As it comes to the IC-705 specifically, I have yet to find out why would I need a remote control of this portable radio :). I like to carry it on with me wherever I go and I like it's superb display, decent speaker sound and all the buttons much more than its replica on my laptop screen I would see remote. But I might definetely try this cool software with my IC-7300 which is more like a desktop radio. Thanks! 73! Linas LY2H.

[@billquailes7882]

WOW - I missed this last year, I am glad I see it now. This gives me something to do for a while.

[@BosssyBear]

@16:57 If you found the tone for the repeater from scanning using "Tone Squelch", then the repeater is transmitting a tone. You didn't need to do anything else (no need to revert to "Transmit tone only") since the transmitter tone would have been set to the same tone you found.

[@ve6kk]

Thanks so much for this Kevin! I had missed the "Network Control>ON" to make it work. It indeed is an amazing piece of software. I also used VK3FS's video "Operating WSJT-X wirelessly.." to set up a virtual COM port. Now I have a purely wireless connection to the IC-705 for N1MM or DX Labs logging. Awesome. 73 Peter

[@RobDTom]

Cool. I’m part of that group that you were talking to on 144.250. Sorry I missed you.

[@signalscout6020]

😂 I found this video with no recollection of ever having started to watch it, but it had a partial progress bar. Odd, BC I’ve viewed most of your Linux stuff more than once. I must have run away at the part where you said “don’t run away” 😂 I was about to go ahead and run the build script when I found it in the Mint repo.

[@johncooper6894]

Very nice! Thanks for the great demo Kevin. I have Icom's RS-BA ver1 that I use with my 7610. I was very disappointed when I discovered it would not work with my 705 also. Linux and Mac versions to boot! Many thanks to the development team at WFview and for your excellent presentation.

[@GreggK6EGG]

great stuff! I just downloaded for my mac, I couldn't get my mic to work but ill give it a try later

[@torbenpetersen1570]

I have seen your nice program on KZbin and think i will test it. Thank´s for your effort to make it possible !

[@peters6601]

I have been looking into software options for the ic705. On ebay there is a guy in Romania selling the Icom software only for 29 GBP.

[@ve6hdh992]

Good afternoon, Kevin. Greetings from sunny Alberta.

[@Siskiyous6]

You were reading my mind! Great content as always Kevin.

[@VP2EIHonAnguillaIsland]

Great Video and many thanks For a great review.. We're currently using this as our Remote software now. 73

[@joemanion7376]

I am looking for my first HF transceiver. This is making me lean towards an ICOM 705. I am looking for a budget radio and this is beating out the xiegu g90

[@ffp1974]

The 705 is only 10 watts. You really need a 100 watt radio for your first hf. Qrp can be frustrating at times.

[@CZghost]

This is pretty interesting. Not what I expected, I thought it is essentially receive only SDR, but not disappointed at all. This is quite useful information for me, and that is that one could simply transmit from anywhere as long as your connection is secured and your transmitter stays in its place. If that is allowed, I do not know (pretty sure doubt it though), but it would certainly be possible. I do realize that it was merely just designed to work over LAN, so you do not have to be physically present at the transmitter and transfer from anywhere at the house. Definitely worth of trying if you have the chance :)

[@GreggK6EGG]

FYI I was the guy were talking about that does the live streams.

[@dschirpke]

Great video, I am also a ham who only uses Linux so videos like are a great resource.

[@DonDegidio]

Hi Kevin, That was a fine demo. Stay safe. 73 WJ3U

[@catalinalb1722]

Hi Kevin, at first I thought you managed to catch the QO-100 sattelite. If you ever go to the east coast maybe you have a chance since it is GEO over Europe but it covers a tiny bit of Brazil.

[@joeblow8593]

Excellent, thanks from the Midwest

[@stridermt2k]

This is omething to look into! Much thanks de N2NLQ!!

[@flexairz]

The install packages for Windows and MacOS include all the required libraries (bits and pieces) you need to install separately with Linux. Hence the difference in download file sizes of wfview. Plus compiling and building is not needed with Win or Mac.

[@charlesschindler1971]

Cold&wet@the fort. “Dennis the Cat”just lying by the fire today. ✌️👋

[@loughkb]

Mid 80's and sunny here.

[@richardtwyning]

Excellent video Kevin 👍🏻 It's criminal that Icom charges $150 for theirs. Really won't give it time of day when I get my 705. Really impressed with this, it was over cellular network to 👍🏻 73 M7GTX

[@cuban9splat]

This is awesome! Great video Kevin. Thank you 73 de K7RMJ Frank

[@EnochianBorg]

I have used this and found it to be awesome. I also use RCFORB server as well the client which does windows and android clients. I can remote to my own or others stations while at work or in range of cellular. As well use my bluetooth headphones to run my Icom 7300 via remote when at work or at the grocery store. I only wish that WFVIEW had an Android app as you mentioned. Very nice otherwise. RCFORB does not have the same waterfall intigration but is very useful. N7MWH

[@DK-vx1zc]

Excellent demo! thanks for sharing Kevin

[@BoB4jjjjs]

That was interesting and a good find.

[@pieterfourie2651]

Hi Kevin trust you well on the remote radio what interphase is used please help we struggle to get the software going thanks

[@tommh44]

Excellent! Very clear and complete. BUT, it did not work at first. After a while, I remembered that I had changed my 705 ci-v of 94 for some software that supported the 7300 and not 705. Changed 705 back to A4 and all is OK. I am sure I am not the only one.

[@loughkb]

I actually have my 705 also set with 94h as it's ID. Wfview finds it anyway and works. One of the authors replied somewhere, on the forum I think, that wfview queries with a trigger that causes the radio to respond with it's current address. So it must have been something else.

[@tommh44]

Interesting. Anyway it works great.

[@N8IBW-Jeff]

The volume on the laptop is very low. Do you have to turn the volume complete on the radio to get good volume on the laptop. In lan the later version controls Volume on laptop and radio.

[@JT-py9lv]

Hello from Mesa, AZ

[@ve6hdh992]

Another great how-to video. Thanks.

[@w4mkh]

Thanks Kevin. Are you aware of any other remote radio sources that do 2 meter?

[@hawkeyeCH53E]

Man wish these guys had an offering for the Kenwood TS-2000.

[@chrisbjohannsen]

this is a great find. I've been struggling with running JTDX/WSJX on my Ubuntu 20.04 machine and I am hoping I can use this as an intermediary/sound card input for FT8. Have you played around with doing this at all?

[@johng7rwf419]

That's a very nice piece of software... That was a n excellent video, I enjoyed it immensely... J

[@8du]

Just watched your repair video on a Icom 751. In that vid you referenced a couple other video's but I could not find them. Maybe you could start numbering the titles of future uploads 73

[@loughkb]

That's an idea, thanks. When you're on the channel page, the search bar at the top will only search my channel. Put a keyword in there that would apply to the video you're looking for and it should come up. That was quite awhile ago, do you recall what I was referencing?

[@ffp1974]

can you still use your logging software that reflects the radios frequency while using the wfview?

[@gastello1977]

Great. Thank You, Kevin

[@kj-cn1dh]

Great video Kevin. What is your tuner and antenna setup that you using for the IC705 for this video?

[@loughkb]

An LDG Z11 pro tuner and a doublet cut for 80 meters up as an inverted V on the 30 foot MGS mast.

[@blomidon]

I was hoping to use this for WSJT, but I guess I’ll have to wait a bit for that. Meanwhile I’m trying to get Happangang working. I don’t recall if you’ve done a video on that. VO1OK

[@loughkb]

Happang was the project I was referring to when I said it kind of worked. I emailed the author with a suggestion on making it a simple GUI app to make it more user friendly. I haven't heard back.

[@blomidon]

@@loughkb I’ll stand by and wait until you get it going and then follow your advice. I’m always able to follow your instructions. Thanks. VO1OK

[@kylefreemason]

Kevin, do you use this and wsjt-x wireless? I set up these 3 programs and am able to connect to my Ic 705 wireless from my laptop. I then downloaded wsjt-x and set it up. Wsjt-x will send my radio into tx mode but I don’t think I am getting any transmit. Psk reporter says noone heard me. I went into the icom 795 menu then clicked on ft8. I loaded the ft8 settings. But still was not heard. Any ideas?

[@loughkb]

Make sure the radio is in USB-D data mode, it's set to accept audio from the computer interface instead of the microphone, and that your computer has a low but not zero volume setting for the sound device going to the radio.

[@awregisb]

I need you to talk about the remote control

[@arniep740]

Thanks for another great video. Can you provide some details as to how you connected to the remote radio at the end of the video? tnx es 73 de Arnie W8DU

[@loughkb]

The same way I connected to my IC-705, just using the network address and login info of the remote radio as provided by it's owner. On his end, he needed to forward the TCP ports used through his router to his radio's IP address.

[@n1kkri]

Will this work with older radios like a IC-746 using a SignaLink USB to convert TX and RX audio to USB? Also a dedicated CIV cable to control the radio.

[@loughkb]

Technically that should be possible, but they'd need to include that particular radio's CI-V command structure in the software I'd think. I'm pretty sure the software is written to support the radios that have built in USB or network connectivity.

[@n1kkri]

currently, is this for only the latest ICOM radios? When they say Remote, are they speaking of over the internet out side the home or a computer in the shack? I played with RigPi and even though that worked it requires the RigPi program as well as a separately running program to handle the audio. Thanks for your video.

[@loughkb]

@@n1kkri They list the radio's support over on their site. It can control a radio over USB or networking. Network control can work over your own network or over the internet if you forward a couple of ports through your router.

[@n1kkri]

@@loughkb I did go to their site but it was a little vague the supported radios. I only noticed a few ICOM radios. I am good with opening ports. I ran a Internet Station for years using Ham Radio Deluxe and programs like Teamviewer. Looking for something now that does it all with a single program so I don't need to run a second program for the audio. Thanks,

[@loughkb]

@@n1kkri This program is designed to take the place of Icom's RS-BA1 software and work with the more modern radios it supports. You're kind of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole with the older radios.

[@giancarlobrilli1629]

Grazie!!!👍🏻👍🏻

[@glendonblount6556]

Kevin, which flavor of Linux are you using? Thanks for a great video, and also, a BIG THANKS for all you do for Ham Radio! KG5WXU 73

[@loughkb]

I'm running Pop! OS, System76's variant of Ubuntu 20.04. It came on the laptop and is fully integrated with the hardware. You probably haven't seen my video on the laptop.

[@3oo3tube2020]

@@loughkb actually I did, I just forgot. Seems the older I get, they more I forget, plus being over 65, and working 40+ hours a week doesn't give much time for sleep ;( Again, thanks for your content, and thanks for the reply.

[@julianmassimo]

Very impressive ! Thank you very much ! Vy 73 OE6IMG

[@submarineradioman5535]

CW possible?

[@loughkb]

With slight latency across the internet I can't see how the timing could be preserved well enough. You might be sending perfect CW, but at the other end spacing could end up weird, element length might vary. etc.

[@shinesystems]

We are investigating options for this, maybe in release 2 (or 3). Icom have CI-V commands for sending CW but that isn't practical for hand sent. Would also need some sort of hardware controller.

[@loughkb]

In another thread, it was mentioned that if it were audio, it could be sent that way. Maybe an option would be a keyer in the software that just generates the audio tone and sends it. I don't know how you'd hook up a key or paddles though. I guess you could use an external keyer or oscillator and feed it's audio into the computers mic jack.

[@loughkb]

@@traveller-nl Modulated CW is frowned upon by old timers simply because they think of the old style of MCW the old boat anchors used to generate, which was almost as wide as AM being double sideband modulation. These days, with SSB modulation and a pure sine wave, it's not much wider than CW at all. In fact, the ARRL had a lab test they'd done and they determined it was absolutely fine to use. I ran across that during research for a video awhile ago. The signal produced in their tests was just a few Hz wider than a pure CW signal.

[@W8ASA]

Need to tune the SSB signal for better clarity/quality.

[@lustrup]

Will this work for a Icom-7100?

[@loughkb]

I don't know, you'd have to ask the authors.

[@kevinkc3onohelijeepworld953]

Very cool Kevin sounds much clearer then when I hear others on icom sw. wonder if they will do a cat control for Yaesu ??

[@loughkb]

There's several programs for 'cat' control. FLrig is one that's available on all platforms.

[@porkyfedwell]

Haven't yet found a remote setup that will allow me to send CW with a key. I'm not going to send with a keyboard.

[@loughkb]

I'm not sure how that could be done cleanly. There is latency across the internet. A small delay that varies moment to moment. You could be sending perfect and clean CW with proper element spacing, etc. But due to the varying time the packets arrive at the destination, it could be very sloppy by the time it keys the radio. Just speculation on my part, I don't know if anyone's tried to do it. I can imagine having a bit of software on each end. On the sending end, the key or paddle is read and decoded into dots, spaces and dashes, then sent across as symbols. At the other end, the software would have to take the stream of symbols and calculate the sending speed based on the duration of the space symbols before keying the radio like a keyer would. Again, just speculation.

[@MattHeere]

@@loughkb It works acceptably if your keyer is local and you're actually sending the audio stream to the remote rig, which is set to TX on SSB. Some will complain that it's not "real" CW, but it seems to be good enough to get the QSO done in most cases. There's latency in the stream just like a voice QSO, but it's a constant latency. The stream decode compensates for the packet to packet variation which keeps the spacing right.

[@loughkb]

@@MattHeere Well, yeah, sending it as audio would work fine. That's probably the solution porkeyfedwell is looking for.

[@AaronHuber]

Not open source but I'm using a dxmate device made by RHR to use a paddle or straight key when opening remotely. Works very well with no noticeable lag.

[@charlesholzschuh5551]

Please make a Bobtail Curtain antenna for 20 meters. Just one more video idea.

[@loughkb]

I'd need three masts, I only have two. I can't afford the space in the RV to carry any more kit.

[@W4TRI_Ronny]

Tried installing the Windows version. Initial install after unzip netted me a crash naming 4 DLL files not available. Will try one more time later then will go build a new Linux box. This looks great! BTW The Xiegu G1M uses the IC-7000 profile. I'll test this once I get it build.

[@loughkb]

There's a visualC runtime installer in the zip file, run that first

[@W4TRI_Ronny]

@@loughkb Missed that. Thanks! Works right out of the box now. I guess there is no rig type selection just what responds works and others don't Thanks for the help! Hope you are doing good out there. Come on by if you ever decide to come to TN. K4RJJ good on QRZ.

[@loughkb]

@@W4TRI_Ronny Yeah, I think it queries the radio while stepping through the CI-V addresses until it gets a response. I smiled at that auto detection. It's little touches like that which will tell you how much thought was put into the program. And usually means the whole thing is going to be pretty good.

[@shinesystems]

@@loughkb The trick is CI-V transceive. This allows you to send a rig ID request (command 0x19) to address 0x00. All Icom rigs should respond with their default CI-V address! Just annoying that it gets disabled by Hamlib and others.

[@THEBossSound]

How about CW?

[@loughkb]

You could use a keyer and just inject the audio.

[@THEBossSound]

@@loughkb Thats too bad. I really like the preset CW messages. I was all ready to move over to this

[@Mr_Meowingtons]

This program is nice but it is still so buggy as all heck its all most impassable to use some times but shows promises. It took me an hour to get the remote control working just on my local network. Turns out the program on the host PC was locking up. If you close down the remote Computer or have any internet interruption the host program locks up and will not reconnect till you close it down and restart it. so when I had any interruption in the internet you need to close the Host Program and the remote. Run the Hose then restart the remote. this is running on my IC-7100

[@loughkb]

Something else is going on. I can't duplicate the lock up, the program recovers fine from a lost connection for me. I've used it quite a bit and haven't had any problems at all.

[@jwpereira]

Raspberry Pi 4 an option?

[@loughkb]

Works fine on the pi.

[@radioboyable]

But they don't make a remote for a Kenwood 440

[@loughkb]

The old 440 just had very basic rig control, *if* you install the two chip serial port add on. FLRig works fine for the old radio.

[@jeffreyeide7363]

Yo Kevin!: This might be EXACTLY what I'm looking for! PLEASE please tell me it works for the IC-735! Whot say ye?? & thanks for a great video!! 73's & carry on!! de seeker/Jeff. WA7LFP

[@loughkb]

They list the radios it talks to on their site.

[@MusiciansDad]

How can I contact you? The good news: I have a portable A/C new in the box I will give you for free. Bad news: I'm in Houston and not headed your way.

[@loughkb]

Thanks for the offer, I have picked out a specific 8000 btu model for it's power consumption being low enough to not draw too many amps across this RV's plastic power outlets. If you're a ham, my public email is listed on qrz.com when you look up my call sign.

[@richardpalmer4471]

nine er ? Come on old man. Stay true.

[@JohnTarbox]

Excellent video! DE WA1KLI

[@josephlimposa2746]

will this work with Icom-7610??

[@loughkb]

You'll have to go to their website and check their documentation.