[Premium-Rx] Racal A6A1 Board: Making Progress

[Guy Atkins]

Many thanks to Claus, Larry, Chuck, and all the others who responded to my
request for help with the Racal A6A1 board. The level of expertise and
enthusiasm on the Prem-RX list is excellent!

I now have the PC talking to the RA6790GM, but not the other way around. So,
at least there's progress to report.

The solution was to make sure all socketed chips on the A6A2 Processor Board
were fully seated when reinstalling the board. :^) Evidently I twisted the
board slightly, or bumped a socketed chip when unsoldering Link LK1. That
resulted in the "00.000000" in the freq display and lockup of all controls.
Claus and Larry had confirmed that LK1 needed to be removed, so I was
puzzled why removing it caused this major fault. It wasn't the link removal
but a poorly seated chip at an inopportune time that was the problem source.

I had recently given all accessible connectors and plugs a Caig ProGold R5
treatment, and also applied Caig CaiLube MCL to the IF & AF gain pots, but
hadn't given the socketed CPU chips the ProGold R5 treatment. Perhaps when I
get a proper IC puller I will give the pins & sockets a dose of the Caig
magic.

Just as others have indicated, the receiver doesn't seem too picky about the
exact serial protocol. I can remotely access BITE, change frequencies,
modes, AGC, etc. just fine with  8-N-1, 7-Even-2, and 7-N-2 settings which I
tried. It seems to work well with Hyperterminal running on WinXP. I did
download the terminal program CONEX for DOS, and I can send commands OK with
this program, too. (For what it's worth, I cannot get Vradio to operate with
the same settings.)

However, I cannot get the RA6790GM to *report back* any parameters through
either terminal software. For instance, sending S5 or S6 (after initializing
with receiver address) just results in a blinking cursor on the screen. I've
experimented with various settings but cannot get any response back.

I don't intend to use Vradio much (if I can get it to operate) but instead
run the Racal under ERGO, as John Fallows is adding RA6790GM support to his
excellent software. ERGO already supports a number of receivers including
some premium rigs.

Any thoughts on how to get the PC listening, and/or the Racal talking?

Thanks again,

Guy