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2.8.0.185 Lost CAT Control of Expert Amp

Posted: Fri Dec 18, 2020 10:33 am
by cwilli9068
I just installed version 2.8.0.185 and got an error message about a com port and rotor control. I don't use a rotor control and use com2 to support band changes for my Expert 1.5K-FA with a Flex-5000A. I see that the amplifier will no longer track the bands automatically with the new release. When I got out and back into PowerSDR, I did not get the error message again. I noticed that DDUtil was also set to com2. I have no idea if it had always been that way, so I changed it to none and it made no difference, so I set it back to com2. Any advise would be greatly appreciated. de WB9DZS Tom

Re: 2.8.0.185 Lost CAT Control of Expert Amp

Posted: Fri Dec 18, 2020 12:01 pm
by ke9ns
If your using DDUtil for your SPE amp (COM2 is real I assume) So you need 1 set of Virtual COM ports to link PowerSDR to DDUtil.

Just make sure the correct side of the virtual Pair is on the top CAT CONTROL COM port and checked ON (and all the others are checked OFF)
All the other CAT Control COM ports should say None (or try to select None).

You may need to try clearing up the COM ports and relaunching PowerSDR or rebooting your PC is there were COM port conflicts.

worst case would be to do a setup->factory defaults.

Darrin

Re: 2.8.0.185 Lost CAT Control of Expert Amp

Posted: Fri Dec 18, 2020 4:30 pm
by cwilli9068
I found a solution to my post. I had to disable the COM2 port on the PTT control and then enable the DDUtil COM2 that had been disabled at login due to a port conflict. I orginally set the PTT Control to COM2 in attempt
to use the PTT control to key my amplifier when I originally set up KE9NS PowerSDR over a year ago. I could never get it to work, so I used the RLY on the back of the Flex-5000A to key my amp and let the COM2 port set.
With DDUtil set to COM2 and PTT Control Port set to none, I can now again track the bands on my Expert 1.5K-FA amplifier. Sorry for the post. I should have continued to mess with it before posting, but maybe this information will still be valuable to someone else