I have a Kenwood TM-642 (with modules for 2m, 6m and 220) which was obtained years ago for the purpose of setting up a remote base off a 440 repeater I had in Orlando FL. I realized when I looked at the schematic that all the funtions of the radio which could be controlled from the mic's keypad, including direct frequency entry, were sent to the radio as DTMF while PTT was NOT active..
All we had to do was program macros into the 7K to spit out DTMF streams with the PTT disabled, and use three logic outputs for "macro" buttons normally found on the mic, and we were almost there. The only part that was going to be tough was switching bands, which Kenwood did with a toggle that would require being forced into some known state, then bandswitched with the appropriate number of logic output pulses. We never got it done before I left town, and the guys who took over the repeater eventually built up a PIC into a very nice interface to convert DTMF (either directly entered by a user or spit from a macro) to Icom-speak. It's all about free time! 73, Paul, AE4KR ----- Original Message ----- From: Thomas Oliver To: [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, May 06, 2008 10:13 PM Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] Re: Still looking for an RBI-1; maybe I have to buil... I believe DTMF tones come out of the RBI-1 to control the kenwood radios. I don't remember for sure. tom ----- Original Message ----- From: To: [email protected] Sent: 5/7/2008 12:06:23 AM Subject: Re: [Repeater-Builder] Re: Still looking for an RBI-1; maybe I have to buil... Hi Guys, >Woohoo, the Doug Hall "Rosetta Stone"! Thanks, Skip. We need to go back a little deeper in history... I think the format you have is the data going from the controller to the RBI-1. Doug H based it on the dominant format at the time, which was the format used by ACC to drive their "frequency control" shift register boards (designed for thumbwheel HTs). Doug made his input format available to repeater controller manufacturers in his "generic" document so we all could make our controllers RBI-1-compatible. We added that feature to our 7K in V2.01. It's not that big a secret. The output format of the RBI-1, on the other rhand, is the format Kenwood used to control a group of radios in the trunk from a handset (was it called the RC-10? RC-20?) in the driver's compartment. His box was a protocol converter that took the 48- or 56-bit stream from the controller and make Kenwood-speak out of it. Wasn't trivial at the time. 73, Bob, WA9FBO S-COM, LLC ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wondering what's for Dinner Tonight? Get new twists on family favorites at AOL Food.
