Rick, This is exactly what I do. Difficulty varies from completely trivial to impossible depending on how comfortable with computers you are :-)
Hardware and installation requirements: 1. CAT interface for your Icom. I use a Rigtalk. 2. Computer near your Icom. Any 1GHz Windows machine will do. The computer must be attached to your home LAN, of course. Put it on a fixed IP address so it never changes. For most home wireless routers this means give it an address in the .10 to .99 range. 3. Computer-sound interface for your Icom. I use a Signalink USB but for just listening you can get as low-tech as putting the PC microphone next to the Icom speaker. The number of commercial products and homebrew plans for hardware interfacing can be bewildering. If this is true for you I recommend starting very simple, i.e. Rigtalk and PC microphone (receive only) and then building from there. Control software and installation requirements: 1. Open the HRD documentation on your laptop and keep it handy. Follow the excellent directions therein for each step. 5 minutes. 2. Install HRD on the PC next to the Icom. Get it running locally with the CAT interface and radio. Should take all of 5 minutes. Use CAT PTT. 3. Within HRD install the HRD server service on the PC. Another 5 or 10 minutes. 4. Install HRD on your laptop. Configure it to attach to your HRD server on the radio PC. Again use CAT PTT. 5 more minutes. Once step 4 is done you are thinking "Man, this is really cool!" and can't wait to remote the sound. This is a bit more difficult because the documentation and stability of the sound software is not as good as HRD. 5. Install either IPSound (http://xoomer.virgilio.it/ham-radio-manuals/) or Skype on both computers and get it running in both places. I used IPSound because it is very lightweight but it is very poorly documented. Get sound moving between the PCs. You may have to do a little trial and error hacking here, especially with sound levels. That is the nice thing about something like a Signalink or a Rigblaster: just put all the PC volume controls at max. then set the level with the interface once at the radio and be done with it. I put IPSound in the startup folder on the radio "server" for convenience. 6. Start enjoying listening. Since the sound is moving to/from your laptop just install any digital mode software on the laptop and use it there. Once you get that far report back and we can chat about other subtleties such as calibration in a remotely operated setup. Keep us posted on your progress. With the radios you have I bet you have everything you need in your shack already :-) K*B*l*0*0*Q --- In digitalradio@yahoogroups.com, Rick W <mrf...@...> wrote: > > Years ago, I used to have a very light and small SW receiver (but of > rather low quality) that I had next to my bed and I could listen to SW > or ham communications. Today my equipment is much heavier and bigger and > the lightest I could come up with is to "borrow" one of my wife's ICOM > IC-7000 rigs. > > Is there a simple way to interface one of my ICOM rigs (756 Pro II and > III or 746 Pro) in such a way to at least tune the rig and listen to > audio using my home wireless router system? Of course it would be cool > to do more, such as talk on a mike or send digital data, but the main > thing would be to at least control the volume and tuning and hear the audio. > > 73, > > Rick, KV9U >
