Brian: Thanks. The Flex-3000 has a "FlexWire" Bus jack on the back, whose pin-out table in the manual shows that it has a "line-in" (pin 2) and "line-out" (pin 9). (There is also a separate PTT jack on the back. But, I suspect your suggestion of making Airmail do PTT with a separate virtual com port to PowerSDR is better than sending it through the SCS modem as you said.) Do you think these FlexWire line-in/line-out pins are what I need for data-in and data-out for the modem? If so, that would work a lot easier than my suggestion. The manual doesn't offer a detailed description of the FlexWire Bus, but says specifications are available to home brewers. I wonder where they can be seen somewhere? Gary AI4IN
-----Original Message----- From: Brian Lloyd [mailto:brian-wb6...@lloyd.com] Sent: Saturday, June 20, 2009 12:24 PM To: Gary Strong Cc: flexradio@flex-radio.biz Subject: Re: [Flexradio] Flex-3000 and PACTOR-III? On Sat, Jun 20, 2009 at 8:30 AM, Gary Strong <gary.w.str...@comcast.net> wrote: > > I have had my Flex-3000 for a few weeks now and am extremely pleased > with it. No setup issues, and the new PowerSDR release 1.18.1 is > fantastic! Question: Has anyone successfully tried using PACTOR-III > with the Flex 3000 or 5000? I have an SCS PTC-IIex modem that I have > been using with an Icom 706mk2g, but I'd really like to use it with > the Flex-3000. Some time ago, I tried this with my SDR-1000, but > there was too much TX-RX turn-around latency, but I suspect it's time > to look again at trying to do PACTOR-III with the Flex, especially > after hearing from Gerard about the long expected life-times of the > relays. I too have a PactorIII controller (an SCS PTC-IIpro) that I have been meaning to connect to my Flex 5000 to try out. > Besides > latency, I'm wondering about the best way to connect the SCS to the > Flex-3000 for data in/out. VAC won't work because the SCS is a > physical modem, not a virtual one. I can't build a Serial > Port-to-modem connector and use VAC to that Serial Port because there > is only one serial port on this computer and it would be used for the > Airmail program to communicate with the SCS. I suspect I have to > build a cable between the MIC and Speaker Out jacks of the Flex-3000 > and the SCS to support data flow between the SCS and Flex-3000. For the Flex 3000 you are probably right. For the Flex 5000 you can make the connections to the line-out, line-in, and PTT jacks on the back. As for software interface, I would use a physical connection (serial or USB port) to the PTC-II so that AirMail can control the PTC-II. AirMail offers the option of controlling the rig using a second serial port instead of doing it through the PTC-II for rig control. In that case, set up com0com to let AirMail talk to PowerSDR for rig control. You can use ddutil so that you don't tie up the CAT port in PowerSDR. You just need to configure PowerSDR and AirMail to agree on a common set of CAT messages. The Kenwood 2000 ID is probably the best way to accomplish this. > Suggestions anyone, > and will the Flex-3000 support the required low turn-around latency? Well, the CW ops seem to think that QSK is working really well so I would suspect that it is. The only real answer is to try it and see. >I suspect the dataflow issues, however, are generic to anyone wanting >to use their Flex with an outboard, physical modem or TNC. I think you are correct. 73 de Brian, WB6RQN/J79BPL _______________________________________________ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kc.flex-radio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com/
