[Elecraft] Computer interface programming

[Mike Markowski]

Tom,

Tom Zeltwanger wrote:
> Can anybody recommend a source of any open source software or libraries 
> (preferably "C" language) for talking to my K2? I just build the KIO2 and am 
> looking at doing some custom interface programming.

It's easy enough that you might not even need any other libraries.  The real
work is to get the serial link going.  After that, all k2 commands and responses
are plain ascii with one exception.  The "DS" command that returns the state of
the display uses binary data.

You might want to check out http://hamlib.org and its open source C code.  Since
it's designed to talk to many rig types, though, there's probably more
abstraction than you're interested in, but it might be useful.  Also, the K2 is
only partially supported by hamlib.

I recently wrote some Java code (http://udel.edu/~mm/ham/elecraft/) for the K2
and W1 using the rxtx.org serial link support library and using rxtx and writing
the graphical portions were the hardest parts.  K2 control is mostly nice and
easy.  Since it wasn't designed to be 100% software controlled, the only thing I
find cumbersome is dealing with rig functions that don't have dedicated
commands.  For instance, take a look at what you need to do to turn on or off
the power amp.  :-)  All in all, though, I think you'll find it easy enough.

73,
Mike ab3ap