Steve,
Setting up the K2 is about the same as setting up any other transceiver.
One must route the transceiver audio output to the soundcard line in, and
The soundcard line-out must be routed to the microphone jack AF input
pin - there normally needs to be an attenuator in the line, usually 10:1
(a 100k in series and a 10k in parallel across the microphone side will do)
That setup will work with VOX all by itself.
If you want to add automatic PTT, you need a transistor (or
optoisolator) between the computer's serial port DTR or RTS signals and
the PTT input of the transceiver. Many circuits to accomplish that feat
have been published, and most all of them work fine.
So those are the principles involved. With that knowledge, you should
be able to trace through the schematic of most interface boxes to
connect the proper jumpers that will establish those paths required.
The 'magic' is in connecting to the correct pins through the interface
box. Which microphone pins you need to connect will depend on how you
have wired your K2 microphone configuration header.
I don't know the internals of every interface box out there, so you will
have to rely on the information provided by that box's manufacturer (or
the schematic) for those details.
If you follow Jim Brown's advice about bonding things together and using
twisted pair lines to carry the signals, you may not need an interface
box at all unless you want to switch from the soundcard connections to a
microphone without changing cables. To persue that, look at his
reflector posts dealing with audio interfacing.
73,
Don W3FPR
STEPHEN W BANKS wrote:
Hello everyone,
I need some help from anyone who might be able to steer me through the process
of setting up my K2/100/KAT100 rig so I can do occasional digital QSOs with it.
Several years ago I successfully interconnected a couple of previous K2s (not
simultaneously, of course) with my Rigblaster interface to work occasional
RTTY, PSK and MFSK digital QSOs at QRP. I was finishing up one of these K2s
for another ham who ran out of time to finish it. The second was my own QRP
K2, which I eventually sold to another ham. Both of those rigs ran digital
modes very well, and I enjoyed numerous digital QSOs at QRP (5W or less).
Seemed pretty easy to set up and interconnect with the interface, or so I
thought. Digipan, HRD, and MixW all ran just fine. The K2s ran well too, at
5W QRP settings.
Fast-forward several years to the present. My current K2/100/KAT100 has been a faithful workhorse rig for a couple of years. A few hams on the list know how devoted I am to that rig and how superbly its KAT100 tuner and 100W amplifier perform with both my antennas. An occasional SSB QSO offers a bit of diversion from CW, but CW is still my favorite mode.
I thought, why not try a little digital QSOing too? Digipan, HRD, MixW and
MMTTY are all present on this PC so why not dust them off, and put the
Rigblaster plus back to work too? At least that what I hoped anyway.
But so far I've been unable to interconnect things correctly, and my foggy memory (even a few written notes) have not helped. Is there a way to set up a K2/100/KAT100 rig for digital operation that any of you folks might recommend? With the rear panel 9-pin port on the K2 already connected to a PC COM Port and to the KAT100 via a Y-cable, I have my doubts about adding my Rigblaster Plus interface.
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