Cat Control - Apache Labs ANDROMEDA ANAN-7000DLE MKII User Manual


Button Text: The text that will be shown on the Band Button.

LO Offset (MHz): The difference between the transverter low frequency and the IF
frequency. For example, on 2m, you might use 144‐28 MHz = 116.

LO Error (kHz): This setting allows the user to correct for any error in the transverter's
oscillator.

Begin Frequency (MHz): The lower frequency bound for the transverter.

End Frequency (MHz): The upper frequency bound for the transverter.

RX Gain (dB): Amount of gain to apply to the incoming signals to compensate for gain within
the transverter. Please note that this is still in development.

RX Only: If this box is checked, the radio will not transmit while in this configured band.

Power: Sets the Drive control on PowerSDR to this value whenever the VFO is within the
configured band.

XVTR RF TX:

Disable PA: Disables the internal 100W Power Amplifier. Low level RF is sent via the XVTR TX
SMA connector on back panel.

The user must make careful adjustments using the PA Gain By Band using the VHFxx
spinners and the Drive level to insure the transverter sees the proper level. With the PA Gain
by Band spinners set to their default value of 65.0 and the Drive slider to 100 the RF output
is approximately 10mW at the XVTR RF SMA connector.
8.3 CAT control
Computer Aided Transceiver (CAT) commands were created to allow PCs to control radios. They
allow most of the settings of a radio to be accessed using simple serial commands. Many different
kinds of program use them, and many external devices are available (e.g. auto tuners) that use
them.
THETIS supports CAT commands, and can have 4 connections open at any time. These are accessed
through the Setup form, CAT Control tab.
Establishing a connection is simple:
1. Connect an external device, if you have one.
2. If you are connecting to another program on the same PC, you will need a virtual COM port
program
3. Choose the CAT connection on THETIS (THETIS has one CAT connection on the primary tab,
and three more on the "CAT+" form. They are all the same).
4. Set the port to the port number of your device or VAC cable
5. Set the baud rate, parity, data and stop bits appropriately (there should be documentation
for the product you are connecting to)
6. Click Enable
7. And that's it – connection will be established.
The list of CAT commands used by THETIS and PowerSDR mrx ps can be downloaded from the TAPA
HPSDR github repository [5]. That document explains the format of the commands.
Take care if your remote device includes an "Arduino" based processor: NEVER open the connection
with the baud rate set to 1200. That will cause the device to erase its firmware, requiring it to be
reprogrammed.
ANDROMEDA Manual Page 44 of 56