Hamlib on LabVIEW

[Barionics]

Dear All,

  I am a radio ham and looking to control my radio with LabVIEW software via the Hamlib library available on GitHub.  Has anyone ever done this before, who could point me in the right direction to get started? Any demo code or LabVIEW drivers, would be especially appreciated. 

  Regards,

    Ian M0KUV

[JÞB]

Ok,

We are going to need help to help you.  I can't imagine exactly what gear you have. does it have a remote interface?  What kind?  What features do you want automated?  Freq, tuning, spectral sweep for a carrier?  Artificial intelligence for replies? 

Certainly 1 or more of us could rig something up but, "I want to control my ham radio  ".. .. that is vague. 

[RTSLVU]

This sounds like a fun project, I have thought of such things myself.

But I also found Hamlib to be very limited unless you have an extremely popular radio.

For instance my old Icom 706MKIIG, Hamlib only supports changing band, frequency, and VFO A or B.

Nothing else NOT EVEN PTT!!!!

[Barionics]

Yes I agree.It is worrying that so many radios supported by Hamlin are shown as coded but not tested. Understandable if people are coding it as a hobby but there is still potential to end up with a lot of extra work sorting it out. I may find it easier to go directly to the underlying protocol even if this means restricting my code to one radio.

[RTSLVU]

Not to mention the Linux Hamlib is far more stable than the Windows Hamlib. 

And I recall the Windows Hamlib having a problem with serial communications, which sucks when you use a serial to CAT adaptor. 

When I was using Hamlib for my radio (FT-8 remote control) I actually had to run the Linux Hamlib on a Raspberry Pi and connect that to the radio. Then Connect to the Pi over my network because the Windows version of FT-8 was better.

[Barionics]

OK you are convincing me. I might save Hamlib for when I get around to learning Python on the Pi.

[KB7ZUT]

Hi Ian,

I have HamLib and Labview working together in a rather simple setup.  I used the "System Exec" VI to make calls to the command line in Win10 to execute HAMLIB commands.  I can fetch or set most of the front panel controls on either my ICOM 7000 or KX3. Once the command is sent to HAMLIB the STDOUT data is captured by the VI for post processing.  

In my example, labview is sending "rigctl.exe -m 360 -r COM3 f" to the Win10 command line and getting back a string "14266800" which is the frequency in Hertz the icom is tuned to.  To break the command down a bit further:

"-m 360" is telling HAMLIB that my radio is the Icom 7000

"-r COM3" is telling HAMLIB to use COM port 3

"f" is asking HAMLIB to get the frequency of the active VFO from the IC-7000

You can find all the rigctl.exe command line options in the HAMLIB manual

http://hamlib.sourceforge.net/manuals/hamlib.html

I would like to find a method to incorporate the HAMLIB C API directly into LABVIEW, but that looks more complex and time consuming.

The screenshots are attached and hopefully self explanatory.  If not feel free to fire questions my way.

73,

-Andy