I use my Desktop Smart SDR for the Satellite station and my Maestro for the HF Station. ?Satellite tracking is from SatPC32 which provides doppler connected uplink (TX Radio Two) and downlink (RX Radio One). ?Also, SatPC32 can be controlled from the Flex Radio. ?All CAT work is done via the Kenwood formatted CAT messages.
One issue was, my Smart SDR, remained "tied" to SatPC32, and I could not disconnect the CAT from a remote position to allow the desktop slices to be re-purposed, while I waited for the next Satellite. ?I could not find any Flex API or FRStack commands to temporary disable Flex CAT or the SatPC32 CAT VFO mode.
So.....Node-Red to the rescue. ?I now have a "CAT Control" button on my dashboard. ?I can also control CAT status from other flows, to automatically set up / disable CAT depending on satellite position in the sky. ?Here is my Satellite Screen, with the new button:
The flow works by setting up Flex TCP CAT ports tied to Flex Slice A (downlink) and Slice B (uplink) (Thanks, Dave WO2X for suggesting this concept).
On the SatPC32 side, I select unique port numbers for each radio (radio one: downlink, radio two: uplink)
Next, using "VSPE Manager", set up a port pairs, to match those selected in SatPC32, and a TCP Server, connected to the opposite port pair and to send out the serial connection via TCP:
Node-Red is now set up to connect the two TCP streams of Kenwood commands, one to/from Flex CAT and the other to/from SatPC32. ?A "Gate" node is used to "switch" the stream on/off.
Alan. WA9WUD
