Relics: Visual Basic Programming: ICOM IC-R8500 remote control

ICOM IC-R8500 Communications Receiver remote control

RadioFrequency (Remote Control Application)

Raimund Forstmeier, a friend from Padova (Italy) has written a very useful program in VB.NET to send frequencies, modes, etc. to the ICOM and ELAD SW2 radio's via RS-232 (serial port). Frequencies, modes and associated descriptions are stored in a text file. Instructions are included in the ReadMe.txt file. You are welcome to download it. Thank you Raimund.

Latest version: 1.6.2 (10 May 2018)

This update includes:

• TCP View has a "Stop" Button
• Extended TCP procedure
• OmniRig has now a Rig1/Rig2 selection Box. Very useful
• The single ELAD SW2 Receiver RX2...4 can be selected and activated. RadioFrequency is comunicating with the RX receiver selected
• RadioFrequency is now Sizeable. Very useful
• Several enhancements + Help informations like the Connection Status View
• Please read the RadMe.txt File x a detailed information

Direct download: RadioFrequency_v1.6.2_Std_Edition.zip v1.6.2 (Standard Edition)

Direct download: RadioFrequency_v1.6.2_FW35_Edition.zip v1.6.2 (compiled for FrameWork 3.5)

Framework problems: Should you experience problems check that FrameWork is installed, perhaps you need an update. Download ReadFrameWork located on Raimund's home page here.

Note:

• Should you not be able to extract the files from the .zip please try using WinRAR or the like.
• Should you experience difficulties running the Standard Edition, download and try the version compiled for FrameWork 3.5.

Additional information: http://www.intrasystem.it/Frequency/Frequency.html

RadioFrequency (Remote Control Application) by Raimund Forstmeier (click image for larger version)

Remote control example

Control you IC-R8500 remotely using the Visual Basic Version 5 MSComm Control and your PC's Serial Port.

Following is an example I wrote using the Visual Basic Version 5 MSComm Control which sets the IC-R8500 frequency to 1,234,567,890 Hz:

The ICOM range of communications receivers use variable length binary command sets, that is, ASCII text commands cannot be sent to the equipment using a text-based terminal such as Windows Terminal. It is therefore important to convert the control command set to a format the equipment recognises.

A typical binary command set is FEFE4AE0dataFD
In this example the data field contains the Set Frequency Command and the desired frequency in Hz i.e.
05 is the Set Frequency Command and 9078563412 is the desired frequency. For a complete Listing of Control Command Sets refer to your ICOM Instruction Manual.

Convert the HEX values to Decimal values for each Byte in the binary command set i.e.
FE=254, FE=254, 4A=74, E0=224, 05=5, 90=144, 78=120, 56=86, 34=52, 12=18, FD=253

Thereafter pass the ASCII character of each Byte above to the MSComm Control.

Note: The MSComm Control is named RS232 in this example:

Dim entry As Variant
entry = Chr(254) + Chr(254) + Chr(74) + Chr(224) + Chr(5) + Chr(144) + Chr(120) + Chr(86) + Chr(52) + Chr(18) + Chr(253)
RS232.Handshaking = comNone
RS232.RTSEnable = False
RS232.DTREnable = False
RS232.EOFEnable = False
RS232.Settings = "9600,N,8,1"
RS232.CommPort = 2
RS232.PortOpen = True
RS232.Output = entry
RS232.PortOpen = False