The CAT Trace Facility

The Cat trace facility is activated by checking the Tracing item in activating the CAT facility. This initiates the recording of all CAT handshake data to a file named ...\CAT.TRC. The full path to this file is indicated in the CAT setup of the Devices menu. In addition to this there is a ...\CAT.LOG which contains internal port stati. The latter is for trouble shooting in difficult cases only. In case you run into problems you should send us both files for close inspection.

The following is a typical example ( recorded in ...\CAT.TRC ) for the communication between TurboLog 4 and a TS-950 from KENWOOD:

Transmit:

FA;

Receive:

FA00014040000;

Transmit:

IF;

Receive:

IF00014260010     +000000 8802100008 ;

Transmit:

IF;

Receive:

IF00014270010     +000000 8802100008 ;

Transmit:

IF;

Receive:

IF00021270140     +000000 8802100008 ;

Transmit refers to the command string sent by TurboLog 4 to the rig. Receive denotes the data string that was received from the rig. The example depicts the initialization of the handshake ( FA; ) while the VFO A was tuned to 14040.00 KHZ. The next communication results from polling the rig 3 times by Cursor+Dwn from the Call field while the frequency was changed to 14260,10   14270,10  and  21270,10 KHz. This example is nice since the interpretation of the command strings is rather straight forward. Unfortunately this may look much more cumbersome for other rigs.

In any case: The interpretation of the command strings is the whole secret of the CAT communication. This file tracing allows a careful investigation of all strings which is the basis for a correct setup of a CAT file. If you have trouble with the interpretation: Please contact us at our address for advice. We will normally require a copy of the trace file for individual test cases along with the rig's remote control documentation.

This topic was last edited on  Monday, 03-Jul-2023,  at  23:57