How to Control Ham Radio Transceiver from Several Apps at a Time

How it works

One of the main tools of a Ham radio operator is a transceiver - a compact hardware device that connects to the computer via a standard RS-232 cable. In recent decades, a computer connected to the Internet has become an indispensable attribute of an amateur radio station.

The computer is used to not only keep track of connections and obtain operational information but also to control transceivers and antennas, and participate in signal processing (e.g. SDR-systems). The communication between computers and connected hardware is established via the RS-232 protocol for serial data transmission.

On the computer of a radio amateur, you can find various Ham radio apps which ensure greater control of the many-layered menu controls often used in modern equipment. The dedicated programs are particularly useful for part sighted operators which get the ability to change frequency, RF gain, notch filters, etc., with just a mouse click.

Ham radio software can be generally divided into two types – logging programs that allow the call sign, and control programs which if used with a DX cluster help quickly change frequency to the station we want to contact.

Probably the biggest difficulty faced by Ham radio operators is that Windows allows natively only one application to access a serial port at a time. To connect to the same physical COM port from several applications simultaneously, you’ll need to use a dedicated serial port splitter.

Running the transceiver

Wintest should be running first. Then RS-BA1 and the remote utility could be launched.

GPS users can also face a challenge when trying to share one NMEA (National Marine Electronics Association) information stream among multiple applications. To achieve this, they need to split a single data stream into several ones.

The simplest solution is Virtual Serial Port Driver PRO which can create an unlimited number of virtual copies of a GPS port. The navigation signal sent from a single NMEA interface can be routed to virtual ports of multiple serial applications so that all programs receive the same data simultaneously.

As you can see, Virtual Serial Port Driver PRO is one of the most effective serial port splitters available today. The software offers a host of advanced features that can help Ham radio operators solve a wide range of issues. With Virtual Serial Port Driver PRO, you’ll be able to:

• split a serial data stream into several ones;
• join serial data from multiple separate sources into one data flow;
• provide your system with an unlimited number of virtual COM ports;
• connect multiple programs to the same serial interface;
• merge several real and virtual COM ports so that multiple apps and hardware devices can exchange data at a time, etc.

Note: The ability to create pairs of virtual serial ports is available in both the Standard and the PRO editions of Virtual Serial Port Driver. The advanced features including port splitting, joining, redirecting, switching, sharing, merging, complex bundles, and loopback connections are supported by the PRO edition only. The features described in this article require the PRO edition.