Icom CI-V Arduino Control

Hi all,
I am wondering if it is at all possible to use an Arduino to control an Icom IC-718 Ham radio HF transceiver via the CI-V protocol. I have searched on Google to no avail. The two main things I need to know are: (1) How to wire up the jack on the radio to the Arduino and, (2) How to send the commands(Serial, I2C, etc) and what way to send them(hex, ascii, etc). Also, is it possible to tap the if of the receiver for use with an sdr dongle??? All help is appreciated!!!
Thanks and 73's
L

use an Arduino to control an Icom IC-718 Ham radio HF transceiver via the CI-V protocol

Yes.

I'm going to be rather busy today but will try to get some code and a circuit diagram posted fairly soon.

is it possible to tap the if of the receiver for use with an sdr dongle?

That I haven't done, but I believe (without references) it is possible.

Pete

Due to the receiver being a non direct conversion design I am ditching the if tapping...
Thanks,
L

One quick data point. Hooking up an ICOM, or other RS232 device, can be done with software Serial but is a lot easier if you get an Arduino (or a Teensy) which has an extra hardware serial port.

Pete

I am a litlle confused here. So you are saying that I need to manually wire up the rig to the arduino ftdi port instead of using softwareSerial. And also how do you turn on civ transcieve mode on the rig and what baud rate does it work on?
Thanks and 73's
L

The CI-V protocol requires that you be able to read and write a serial character at the same time because CI-V requires that when you write a byte, you also read it back to make sure it is what you sent (the CI-V hardware "reflects" the Tx back into the Rx). When you use softwareserial you can't read a character while you are writing one.
You could use the Arduino's hardware Serial port on pins 0 and 1 but that makes development/debugging difficult.
It's much easier if you have an Arduino which has at least two hardware serial ports. You can then have program uploading done on the Serial port as usual, and have the CI-V bus connected to Serial1.
If you have a Teensy, it is even easier because Teensys use native USB to upload code (i.e. they don't use the Serial port to upload) so you can get away with, for example a Teensy2 which has one Serial port and use that for the CI-V bus.

how do you turn on civ transcieve mode

what baud rate does it work on?

See pages 46 and 47 in the manual. You can choose whatever baud rate you like. Start with 9600 and if that seems to be too slow, bump it up to 19200 or even higher - if the rig can go higher.

Pete

so what arduinos have two hardware serial ports?
thanks,
L

http://arduino.cc/en/Products.Compare

But I use a Teensy2. It has one serial port but Teensy doesn't use the serial port for upload so it can be used exclusively for the CI-V bus.

Pete

Did this topic go anywhere? I'm looking to interface an Arduino with an Icom 7610.