Control an amateur radio that is compatible with hamlib.

This script allows me to automate a good deal of things on my radio, particularly the ability to quickly go to a frequency that I'm interested in, such as DX Spot or a calling frequency I use, or to scan the bands. Often I just use it in automatic mode and let it tell me what my manual tuner settings are for the given frequency, as well as make sure I'm within my band privileges.

This has been tested on Linux using hamlib 3.0.1 and a Yaesu FT-450AT. As far as I know everything in this script should apply to nearly any radio with hamlib support. The only exceptions I can think of is if your radio does not have a B VFO or does not adjust the frequency based on the mode. This script tries to automate as much as possible without interfering with usage but it might still have quirks or behave differently than you expect. Suggestions, bug reports, or pull requests are welcome!

This script has the US Band Plan preconfigured as of 12/2015, but I do not have plans to input any other country band plans into the script. I will be happy to take patches or pull requests to add this information, so if you're interested in adding the band plan for your country please let me know if you have any questions on how to add the information and how to send me patches or pull requests so it can get added into the repository.

• Prompt that shows frequency, signal strength, mode, VFO, lock status
• Switch frequency and/or modes using tools' command prompt
• Automatically select CW, USB or LSB based on frequency
• Warn if out of band for the configured US Amateur License (US-only at this time)
• Perform a software-lock on frequency/mode (changes mode/freq back if changed on radio)
• Scan a range of frequencies in Manual mode
• Does a scan of the current band limits in Automatic mode
• Automatic mode which shows prompt, information text, and adjusts LSB/USB in real time
• Frequency adjustment and scan control via keyboard while in Automatic mode
• Tuner settings guide
• Set frequency to specific VFO, change VFO's, revert to previous frequency to make spotting fast

The prompt is based on the mode (manual or automatic) and has some dynamic text associated for if out of band, in scan mode, etc.

(C 2.8 -2.8) (Auto mode) 14076.00/-29/USB/A/U

This indicates the radio is on 14.076mhz, signal strength is -29, USB, VFO A, and Unlocked. My tuner setting for this band is Inductor C, Antenna 2.8, Antenna -2.8 (yes, tuning 20m is goofy for me for right now). This information is updated about once a second, so if changing frequency all of this updates in basically real time, including if you go out of band it displays a warning, or if different tuner settings are set for a different part of the band, etc.

(10138.00/-30/USB/A/U) (G 2.8 4.0):

Manual mode basically has the same information, except it does not update in real time, instead it's accepting input to change settings. Each time you hit enter, it updates the prompt.

The default mode when launched is manual mode, which allows you to control the radio via simple commands. Each of these are input and you hit enter, like any command line.

• auto
• Switch to Automatic mode
• f####
• Switch to frequency in kHz, ie: f28450
• You can combine commands, such as f28450ub will set VFO B to Upper Side Band, frequency 28450.
• You may also just type 28450, but cannot combine this with any other commands
• If you want to input a sub-khz frequency, such as 28.2035Mhz, you must put a period in, such as 28.2035 or 28203.5
• chan name
• Switch to the named channel which is defined in %freqnames
• u/l
• Switch to Upper/Lower Side Band
• c
• Switch to CW
• am
• Switch to AM
• fm
• Switch to FM
• d/du/dl
• Switch to DATA mode, d/du are USB, dl is LSB
• a/b
• Switch to VFO A/B
• r
• Revert to last freq/mode
• q
• Exit
• power
• Set the power on the radio if possible
• lock
• Lock to current frequency and mode
• This is software lock; does not set Lock setting on radio, just keeps the radio at current settings
• unlock
• Unlock
• s####-####
• Scan a range of frequencies, ie: s7100-7300
• !
• Repeat last command
• ?
• Help
• ??
• Automatic mode help

When in automatic mode the prompt refreshes constantly to show the current frequency, signal strength, mode, VFO used, and lock status. As you change bands it will automatically switch the mode to LSB or USB based on the frequency, as well as warn you if you are out of band and will show your tuner settings for the current frequency range.

Automatic mode also has a number of key commands that will let you change the frequency or initiate scan mode so you can control your radio entirely from the keyboard.

You can control if the script automatically switches between CW and Phone modes or if it only controls LSB/USB switches or disable automatic modes altogether. This behavior can be controlled by setting variables at the top of the script.

Automatic mode shows in real-time your radio settings and extra information, but also adds keyboard commands to change frequency in various increments and allow allows band scans. These commands you just type the letter, such as l (lowercase L) and it immediately takes effect.

• l/u
• Lock/Unlock frequency/mode
• Cursor left/right
• Change frequency +/- 10hz
• Cursor up/down
• Change frequency +/- 1khz
• Page up/down
• Change frequency +/- 5khz
• Home up/down
• Change frequency +/- 10khz
• Insert/Delete
• Scan up/down
• q
• Exit back to Manual mode
• Q
• Exit script

When changing frequencies in manual mode, the script will automatically switch to LSB or USB if necessary. This happens without any interaction when in Automatic mode, such adjusting the VFO on the radio or changing frequency via the cursor or other navigation keys.

In manual mode, you may combine multiple commands into one, such as:

• f7188ub
• Move to 7188kHz USB on VFO B
• By default, it would set the current VFO to the given frequency but with the 'b' token this forces it to set VFO B
• Because the token 'u' was specified, it will use USB even though 7188 would normally be LSB

The script attempts to make a reasonable guess as to what frequency is intended based on input, such as 7200 or 7.200 or 7,200 are all assumed to be 7200kHz. In order to input sub-khz frequencies, you must input with a separator, such as 28.2033 or 28203.3 would both be assumed to be 28203.3kHz.

There are two variables in the script, $tune_bottom and $tune_top, which when set to your tuning limits can warn you when you attempt to tune out of the band limits of your radio. The script will still instruct the radio to tune to the input frequency and if it is out of band will likely just stay on the frequency it was already on. If you want to enforce the limits, set $enforce_tune_limit to 1 which will invalidate the input.

If %freqnames is defined and the frequency matches, it will add the known name of the frequency to the response.

You can also use the 'chan' command to change to a named channel, such as 'chan 60m ch1'. It does a case-insensitive substring match, so 'chan 60m' would find all channels with the text "60m" in them. The last known channel is stored and if there are multiple matches for your search, such as you have defined all of the 60M frequencies, 'chan 60m' will change to the next one in the list. You can use the ! (repeat) command to keep flipping them through to find the one you want.

When initiated from Manual mode, the scan mode scans from the bottom frequency given to the top frequency given and when it reaches the boundary it reverses and scans back to the bottom, scanning back and forth between the two boundaries. Example: s7100-7300 will scan from 7100kHz to 7300kHz, starting at 7100kHz.

When initiated from Automatic mode it will scan from the current frequency until it reaches the band edge for your privileges, at which time the scan direction will reverse. If the scan is initiated outside of your allowed band allocation, the scan will continue until stopped. This allows for scanning on other non-amateur bands.

Both modes scan until they are interrupted by pressing any key which provides input to the script, such as the space bar.

By using VFO A and B as well as the Revert command, you can flip between different frequencies fast.

The revert command will let you flip between the current and previous frequency, such as in this example.

You're on 28450kHz and you see a DX spot on 28400, you can type f28400 (or just 28400) and listen. If you want to return to your previous frequency, you can just type r to revert back. You may flip back and forth this way as much as you like.

The ! command in Manual mode will repeat the last command, most useful for if you're scanning and you want to stop to check out a possible signal, then after that keep scanning. Only scanning and frequency changing commands are remembered for repeating.

If your rig can accept power changing over hamlib you can set the $powerdivider setting in the module to the appropriate value so you can type "power 15" for example to set your output power to 15w. You'll need to experiment to see what value your radio is if the default 250 isn't setting your radio to the right output power.

If you want to capture a comment or note about the current frequency you can do that in manual mode with note Note to self and it will store it, by default, in $HOME/rigtoolnotes.txt and if you prefer you can change the path or filename in the module.

The script uses the band privileges configuration to determine when to switch to CW or phone modes, as well as when to show warnings when out of band privileges.

The script is configured for the US Amateur Band Allocations as of 12/2015 and you may configure your license in the script.

The variables which define the band privileges were designed so that the base privileges (ie: Novice) are configured first, then any modifications to those privileges are added all the way up to the Extra class, to reduce duplication of every band and allocation. The script also has conditionals around the country in use so that additional privileges for other countries can be easily added. If you would like to add the band plan for your country please send me a pull request or patch.

The script can show you suggested settings for your tuner if you use a manual tuner. You may add as many sections to the %tuneinfo variable as you like, depending upon your specific tuner and antenna configuration. If you do not need this information at all you can disable it.

If you want to define bands to show so you can quickly glance to what band you're on, configure them in rigtool.pm and enable $showbandinfo

The variables which control the script defaults and initialization are in rigtool.pm and are self-documented and will not be repeated here. Please modify the config to match your license and other tweaks you might want to change. If you do a lot of CW mode, you might want to enable the allmodeset variable to switch between CW and Phone modes automatically.

Every terminal seems to have slightyly different keyboard scancodes, so the ones I have pre-set might not be appropriate for you, or perhaps you want to change them. Using the command showkey -a will show the input keycodes the script is looking for and you can update them in the module to match your keys. Note that the keys in the module are actually a regular expression, so for example the home key is [17H] which means it'll match a key input of 1, 7, or H. I did this because I've found the home/end seem to vary in urxvt, xfce terminal, in tmux, etc, but it also adds flexability for you to specify the keycode you want. Note that direct keys will work here too, ie: page up might be a keycode with 1, 7, or H in it, but just typing 1, 7, or H will also work. So you can map to any key on the keyboard you want.

You may specify auto as the first command line argument to go directly into Automatic mode.

• Scan mode signal detection
• Disable tx out of privs/band, etc (if possible in hamlib)
• Real radio lock mode, not software emulated mode (if possible in hamlib)
• Do something with data frequency allocation info
• Possibly able to switch to cw or data mode, even though these generally overlap
• Macros
• It would be nice if I could set PMS Lower 1 and PMS Upper 1 and start scanning PMS 1
• Load, modify, and save configuration
• Modifying would be limited to simple variables, not complex ones like band privileges.
• Handle FM a little better, right now mode change isn't made if >10mhz and radio mode is FM to fix FM memories getting flipped to USB.

• Still going +/- 700hz sometimes when manually spinning VFO across voice/cw modes
• Need to identify why, I've seen this a few times when $allmodeset is enabled
• Changing VFO a/b/memory in manual input mode sometimes doesn't know last mode since it hasn't read the radio since the last time enter was pressed.
• Manual mode doesn't read the radio info until enter is hit, so it can "miss" things, not sure what I can do here
• Need to figure out how to send more hamlib commands
• Arbitrary cat control which isn't directly in hamlib, maybe other things

• Perl Issues
• Check your dependencies
• Your distribution most likely packages the requirements, look for them there before going to CPAN or other repositories
• Command Not Found type errors when running the scripts
• Run script directly with perl, or set the script as executable.
• Note that the script might not be in your executable path, so even if set executable you may have to run it with the full or relative path
• Connection errors or the script exits automatically
• If there are too many failed attempts to communicate with rigctld the script will exit
• I've found rigctld sometimes exits for seemingly no reason; I personally have it in cron job so it stays running or restarts itself

• Radio which supports CAT control and is supported by hamlib

• rigctld

• rigctld must be running and configured to talk to your radio. If the host or port is different than default you must set this at the top of the script

• hamlib

• Specific version requirements unknown; I am using 3.0.1

• Perl modules

• Term::ReadKey

• Optional Perl modules

• Term::ANSIColor