RA1792Control(1)              Linux User's Manual             RA1792Control(1)

NAME
       RA1792Control  -  a  program  to control the RACAL RA1792 receiver with
       look & feel similar to the receiver itself, with some enhancements.

SYNOPSIS
       RA1792Control

DESCRIPTION
       A full manual has been not written yet. Briefly and with apologies  for
       the bad English:
                 -------------------------------------------
                                  WARNING
                    THIS PROGRAM HAS BEEN WRITTEN FOR THE
                       PROLOGIX USB-to-GPIB INTERFACE
                 SEEN BY THE SYSTEM AS A VIRTUAL COM PORT!
                 -------------------------------------------
                                     NOTES
             ----------------------------------------------------
             Note 1. For those wanting to try using a different
                     GPIB interface, an option to disable the
                     specific Prologix commands has been provided.
                     In that case however You must set externally
                     the required parameters.
             NOTA 2. It is not possible to use this program
                     with the SCORE interface as its remote
                     commands are totally different.
             ----------------------------------------------------

       In  version 0.5 a TCP server compatible with hamlib net rigctl has been
       added, listening by default at the address 127.0.0.1:4538, whose imple‐
       mentation is currently only partial and approximate, a little more than
       the bare minimum needed to  make  it  work  with  WSJTX  2.5.4,  FLDIGI
       4.1.22,  GRIG  0.8.1,  XDX  2.5.0 and XLOG 2.0.24. Tests have been made
       mostly under Linux. When another application connects to the RA1792Con‐
       trol  server,  the  NET  label  in  the left display of the main window
       lights up, and then switches off when all  clients  have  disconnected.
       Please note that there are no authentication or encryption of any kind,
       as this server is designed only to connect other programs to RA1792Con‐
       trol, e.g. WSJTX, FLDIGI and XLOG, on the same machine.  Therefore, pay
       a lot of attention if you want to use this feature for what it was  not
       designed  for,  that  is  to  control a remote RA1792 via the internet.
       Some other minor additions have been also made. In  the  internal  file
       manager  the  commnds  "Move  to channel" and "Move to state" have been
       added. The Band Scan  Window  code  has  been  ported  from  SkantiCon‐
       trol  0.99, but bear in mind that the author's RA1792 does not have the
       TR command, so it was impossible to check the real  behaviour  of  that
       code, which may not work at all.

       In  version  0.4  all TButtons have been replaced by TJButtons from the
       jujibo package by Julio Jiménez Borreguero. These are customizable but‐
       tons that can have more than one line of text, a user-selectable colour
       regardless of system and window manager used, themed or  not,  and  the
       ability  to  resize the image, if any. So, if you want to recompile the
       sources, install first in Lazarus that library using the Online Package
       Manager available in Lazarus. These changes, while purely cosmetic, re‐
       quired an extensive overhaul of the source  code  of  the  program,  so
       please report any wrong behaviour. The main window resize code has been
       also revised and now the program should behave correctly,  resuming  at
       start  the size and the position with which it was closed. The interna‐
       tionalization of the program has also  been  made,  using  the  Lazarus
       built-in  i18n feature.  Only the default macaronic english and italian
       languages are available so far.

       The "REM" button starts  program  execution  and  connection  with  the
       RA1792.  Before clicking on it, be sure to select in the "Options" menu
       the correct receiver address. Actual address is shown in brackets after
       the  menu  entry  "Receiver  address". The chosen configuration will be
       saved automatically.  For serial ports other than  the  first  two,  or
       USB,  select  the "Custom" serial port option and write the name of the
       port. Please note that with the Prologix USB-to-GPIB interface the  se‐
       rial speed does not matter.

       Don't  forget  to  set  the  same  address on the receiver with the dip
       switches on the back. Check also that your user has serial port  access
       privileges;  under  Linux  usually it must be a member of the "dialout"
       group and the virtual serial port created by the Prologix interface  is
       no exception.

       When  you  start  the  program, the RX state (frequency, mode, filters,
       etc) will be read from RX itself. The state can also be  saved  to  and
       restored from a file. Default file name is <frequency>-<mode>.dat, e.g.
       10100.800-CW.dat.

       Option "Enable S-meter" starts polling the received signal level (using
       the  TR  command)  every  0.3s and display a bar-meter for the received
       signal strenght. During the command duration, other keys are  disabled,
       so  selecting this option slows down somewhat operations. Note that not
       all RA1792 have the TR command (e. g. mine, an old non-backlit version,
       has not).

       Frequency  can be changed by clicking on the RX display, with the mouse
       wheel, by writing the desired frequency in the spinedit at lower  right
       of the main window or by turning the tuning "knob", moving the mouse on
       it.  To enable tuning (indicator TUNE lit), press the "TUNE" button  or
       click on the tuning knob. Clicking a second time disables tuning.

       The  tuning  knob rate can be fixed (0.5, 1, 10 or 100 kHz per turn) or
       timed, as in the real receiver tuning knob:  turning  it  slowly  makes
       small frequency increments, downto 1 Hz, turning it faster makes bigger
       increments. Since it is difficult to  maintain  a  well-defined  tuning
       speed using the mouse, in the author's opinion it is wise to use one of
       the fixed tuning rates, so the initial default is  fixed  at  1kHz  per
       turn. Try and see yourself.

       Left-clicking  on  a figure in the RX frequency display decrements that
       figure by one, right-clicking increments that figure by one. This  only
       happens  if  the final frequency is in the range of the RX. Clicking on
       the decimal point the displayed frequency will be  rewritten.  Smallest
       increment/decrement available is 1 Hz.

       If  the mouse wheel is rotated with the pointer over one of the figures
       of the RX frequency, that figure is incremented  or  decremented.  This
       now works also under Windows.

       If  the  mouse  wheel  is  rotated  with the pointer over the frequency
       spinedit, the frequency is incremented/decremented by 1 Hz.

       Last, if the mouse wheel is rotated with the pointer anywhere else,  RX
       frequency is incremented or decremented by the tuning step in effect.

       The channels stored or recalled with the STORE, CHAN and CHAN SCAN keys
       are local to the program, which tries to mimic the  RX  behaviour,  but
       have  nothing  to do with the channels stored in the receiver, since no
       remote command is available to read or set these.

       In the CHAN and STORE functions the channel number can be selected  us‐
       ing  the  simulated  tuning  knob, as in the real receiver, but also by
       clicking with the left and right mouse buttons on the  channel  figures
       or  by rotating the mouse wheel as above (increment/decrement that fig‐
       ure) or anywhere else (increment/decrement channel number by 1).

       There are also some keyboard shortcuts:

                +: Tune up by the default tuning step in effect
                -: Tune down by the default tuning step in effect
                /: Change tune rate (cycles between 1, 10, 100 and 1000 Hz)
                *: Set receive frequency
                .: Enable/disable TUNE mode
             0..9: same as corresponding key (number or function)
            ENTER: same as ENTER button

       allowing basic control of the receiver using only the numerical keypad.

       These keyboard shortcuts are also accepted:

                U: Set USB mode
                L: Set LSB mode
                C: Set CW mode
                A: Set AM mode
                F: Set FM mode
                I: Set ISB mode (if ISB option fitted)

       The above commands can be issued either upper or lower case.  The  fre‐
       quency  value  for command * can be entered either with the keyboard or
       with the on-screen numeric keys.

OTHER COMMANDS & CONTROLS
       The message display shows informations about the command being executed
       or status/info/error messages. Double-clicking on it clears display.

       RX parameters (frequency, step, AGC, etc.) can be set also by selecting
       the desired value with the controls at the lower right of the main win‐
       dow.

       The  program  tries to disable illegal keys for the actual state (e. g.
       pressing the "F" key, only the numeric keys are active  and  all  other
       function keys are disabled. If this behaviour is not wanted, then check
       the "Option>Enable all controls" menu entry.

       The message display shows informations about the command being executed
       or status/info/error messages. Double-clicking on it clears display.

       RX parameters (frequency, step, AGC, etc.) can be set also by selecting
       the desired value with the controls at the lower right of the main win‐
       dow.

       The  program  tries to disable illegal keys for the actual state, e. g.
       pressing the "F" key, only the numeric keys are active  and  all  other
       function keys are disabled. If this behaviour is not wanted, then check
       the "Option>Enable all controls" menu entry.

NOTE ON CONFIGURATION AND STATE FILES.
       All configuration files are kept under Linux in the .RA1792Control  di‐
       rectory  of your home directory, under Windows in the RA1792Control di‐
       rectory, which now can be put in any location and renamed as you  like,
       as  long  as the executable file is contained in it and run from there.
       In case the program configuration has messed up, delete (or  move)  the
       "Config.dat" files and the program at next start will recreate it using
       the default configuration.

       The channels stored with the STORE are kept in the RXChan.dat file.

       The AUX configuration is kept in the file AUXconf.dat.  To  change  it,
       set  the wanted configuration (mode, bandwidth, AGC and BFO if applica‐
       ble, the other parameters are meaningless) and use the  "File  ->  Save
       state..."  menu  entry  to  save it with the name given above, possibly
       overwriting the existing file.

       Files saved in the Channels subdirectory (using the "File>Save Channel"
       menu  entry)  will be read at program startup and shown in the Channels
       menu entry and can be recalled using only one mouse click. To allow  to
       rename and delete the saved state files from within the program, a very
       minimal file manager is built in (menu entries "File>Manage states" and
       "File>Manage channels").

TODO.
       •  Check  the  correctness of the state machine dealing with the memory
         channel functions against the RX behaviour.

       • Check if the received signal level reading code works. My RA1792 does
         not have this command so I was unable to test it.

       • Write a full-blown manual.

0.5                               06/01/2023                  RA1792Control(1)
