N4PY Orion Control Program Version 2.00 Personal Computer This program is now a 32 bit program. Your personal computer is an integral part of the Orion radio transceiver. The minimum system requirements for your PC to operate Orion radio are a 486 processor running Windows 95. The Orion performs best when running on Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP or Vista, even Vista 64. It will work fine on a minimum system with a 486 processor running Windows 95. Screen resolution of at least 800 X 600 is recommended. PC to Orion Serial Connection Connect a 9 pin serial port cable between the Orion and an available COM port on your PC. If your PC has only a 25 pin COM port available you will need to acquire a 25 to 9 serial port adapter. When you start the Orion control program for the first time you may need to tell the program which COM port the radio will be using. The Orion control program looks for the radio on COM 1 by default. If needed, choose the appropriate COM port under the INTERFACE section of the SETTINGS panel. It is also possible to use a USB to SERIAL PORT adapter to operate the radio over a USB port. Please refer to the adapter documentation for information on using a USB port as a Serial Port. Some USB adapters do not work very well and others work great. The one most people are using is from www.keyspan.com. The single port model is USA-19HS at $39.95 and the 4 port model is USA-49WLC at $140.00. Basic Operation Turn on the Orion using the front panel switch. You must wait until the Orion is fully operating. The Orion must always be turned on first before the program is started. Start the N4PY Orion control program. The control program should connect to the Orion. If needed you may change the selected serial port in the INTERFACE section of the SETTINGS screen. When using the Orion with this control program, do not attempt to use the controls on the Orion. All the program settings are then sent to the Orion. I highly recommend getting the remote tuning pod. It enhances the use of the program a lot. It gives the user a programmable knob and 15 programmable buttons that can be configured in lot of ways to enhance control of the Orion from the program. Mouse Wheel Frequency tuning can be done using the mouse wheel as a tuning knob. The "FAST TUNING MULT" defined in "preferences2" is used as a multiplier for mouse wheel tuning. The tuning step size for the mouse wheel is the selected tuning step size multiplied by the FAST TUNING MULT. Remote Operation Some people enjoy running their equipment remotely. This can easily be done with this program, an audio program such as skype, and a remote access program such as VNC. See www.skype.com for obtaining skype. See www.vnc.com for obtaining VNC. VFO Receiver Assignment This Orion Control Program features a special mode called "Smart VFO". "Smart VFO" is an algorithm that dynamically assigns the best possible receiver to each VFO by analyzing the frequency of VFO A and VFO B. This analysis is done everytime either VFO is changed in frequency. When the VFO assignments change, they occur seamlessly with little or no awareness of this from the operator. This results is the most versatility and ease of operation possible from the Orion and RX340. The "Smart VFO" algorithm goes as follows: If the RX340 is not to be used with the Orion, VFO A and VFO B are assigned as follows: If VFO A frequency is within 10 khz of a ham band: VFO A - Orion main receiver VFO B - Orion sub-receiver If VFO A frequency is not within 10 khz of a ham band: VFO A - Orion sub-receiver if VFO B frequency is within 10 khz of a ham band VFO B - Orion Main receiver if VFO B frequency is not within 10 khz of a ham band VFO B - no assignment If the RX340 is used with the Orion, VFO A and VFO B are assigned as follows: If VFO A frequency is within 10 khz of a ham band: VFO A - Orion main receiver VFO B - Orion sub-receiver or RX340 (see Interface2) If VFO A frequency is not within 10 khz of a ham band: VFO A - RX340 if VFO B frequency is within 10 khz of a ham band VFO B - Orion Main receiver if VFO B frequency is not within 10 khz of a ham band VFO B - Orion sub-receiver The "Smart VFO" algorithm is in operation unless you manually override it with the "SmtVFO" button. If you click this button, then the receiver assignment steps through all the valid choices manually. The current receiver assignment can be seen just below the "SmtVFO" button. This will step through all valid combinations and finally return to "Smart VFO" being enabled again. This is indicated by the "SmtVFO" key showing the selected color. If at any time "Smart VFO" is not enabled and a frequency is selected that is not allowed on the main receiver, "Smart VFO" will be automatically reenabled. For all normal operation, the "SmtVFO" button should be highlited on. Only for very unusual situations such as frequency calibration should you click this button and go to manual receiver assignments. The current radio assigned to each VFO is shown in small letters just under the "SmtVFO" button. The first radio listed is for VFO A, and second radio listed is for VFO B. VFO Transmitter Assignment If "split" is turned off, the Orion transmitter is always tuned to VFO A. If "split" is turned on, the Orion transmitter is always tuned to VFO B. This is, of course, only true if the transmitter frequency is within 10 khz of a ham band. VFO Assignment Indicators There is a VFO assignment status indicator in the upper left side of the program radio panel. It will show "Main", "Sub", or "RX340" first for the receiver assigned to VFO A, and then show the receiver assigned to VFO B if there is one. Control Panel Buttons Special Right Click on Mode Button All the receive mode buttons (AM, LSB, USB, CW, FM, SAM, RTTY) have a special function if "DUAL" receive is turned on. If you right click the mode button, they will send the mode, default filter, and default AGC to the VFO B receiver instead of the VFO A receiver. Tx Ant (Transmit Antenna) This button controls which antenna the transmitter will use. It has two values. This key can only be used if the main receiver is using the receive only antenna. Otherwise, the transmit antenna is the same as the main receiver antenna. In the "Tx Ant1", setting, the transmitter uses antenna 1. In the "Tx Ant2", setting, the transmitter uses antenna 2. This setting is remembered in the band button settings. M Ant (Main Antenna) This button controls which antenna the main receiver uses. In the "M Ant1" setting, the main receiver is connected to antenna 1. In the "M Ant2" setting, the main receiver is connected to antenna 2. In the "M AntR" setting, the main receiver is connected to the receive only antenna. Left clicking this button will move the antenna selection from 1 to R to 2. Right clicking this button will move the antenna selection from 1 to 2 to R. This setting is remembered in the band button settings. There are two selections in "Preferences3" to skip antenna 2 or the receive only antenna selection if you do not have these antenna positions connected to the Orion. S Ant (Sub Antenna) This button controls which antenna the sub receiver uses. In the "S Ant1" setting, the sub receiver is connected to antenna 1. In the "S Ant2" setting, the sub receiver is connected to antenna 2. In the "S AntR" setting, the sub receiver is connected to the receive only antenna. Left clicking this button will move the antenna selection from 1 to R to 2. Right clicking this button will move the antenna selection from 1 to 2 to R. There are two selections in "Preferences3" to skip antenna 2 or the receive only antenna selection if you do not have these antenna positions connected to the Orion. This setting is remembered in the band button settings. BinRx (Binaural Receive) This button toggles the setting of Binaural receive in the receiver assigned to VFO A. DUAL This button controls the dual receive function. If this button is off the VFO B receiver will always be muted. With this button on, both the VFO A and VFO B receivers will be heard. Also, if this button is off, no data will be sent to the VFO B receiver until DUAL is turned on. Right clicking the "DUAL" button will turn on "A=B Frequency Tracking". This mode is indicated by a "DIV" showing up just above the DUAL button. With this mode on, VFO B will automatically follow VFO A in frequency. To turn off this mode, left click on the "DUAL" button. The purpose of this mode is for diversity reception from two receivers at the same time. For true diversity reception, the two receivers must have separate antennas. Please note that if "DUAL" is off, all updates to the VFO B receiver will be saved and not actually sent until "DUAL" is switched on. ManMD (Manual Mode) This button controls whether or not filter and step information automatically change when a new mode is selected. With this button off, when a new mode is selected, a new filter and step will automatically change according to the mode. With this button on, only the mode will change when a new mode is selected. Polling This buttons turns on Orion frequency polling. The program will send out frequency, mode, and filter requests for VFO A at 1 second intervals for version 2 and 2 second intervals for version 1. This allows the program to keep up with changes made directly on the Orion. Having "polling" turned on will cause some interference with the operation of the program front panel buttons. This is because the buttons cannot be read while a poll request is in progress. The recommended operation is to do all the control from the program front panel and have "polling" turned off. But, if you want to use the Orion controls directly, have "polling" turned on. This will allow logging programs to get and set information to and from the Orion by using the Pegasus "Ten-Tec File Interface". You must tell your logging program you are using a Pegasus. In this mode, you should never try to set any values to or from the Orion with the N4PY control program. If you turn on polling, any frequency correction values will be ignored while polling is going on. Also, with polling on, the remote tuning pod will not be under program control but will instead be under direct Orion control. AM Clicking this button will put the VFO A receiver in AM mode. Right clicking this button with DUAL on will put the VFO B receiver in AM mode. Note that on the Orion, while in AM mode, the true filter bandwidth is twice the indicated bandwidth. So a reading of 4000 for filter BW while in AM mode, is really a BW of 8000 for the Orion. LSB Clicking this button will put the VFO A receiver in LSB mode. Right clicking this button with DUAL on will put the VFO B receiver in LSB mode. If the rx340 is assigned to VFO A, right clicking this button with DUAL off will put the rx340 in ISB lower sideband mode. USB Clicking this button will put the VFO A receiver in USB mode. Right clicking this button with DUAL on will put the VFO B receiver in USB mode. If the rx340 is assigned to VFO A, right clicking this button with DUAL off will put the rx340 in ISB upper sideband mode. SAM (Synchronous AM) The mode "SAM" is for synchronous AM. It is not really sync AM, but the next best thing. This mode simply turns on the BFO and sets the step size to 1 Hz. You must carefully zero beat the AM carrier by slowly tuning for this mode to be effective. This mode is much more tolerant to AM signal fade. For the RX-340, if you click the SAM button while in another mode, you will first get SAMB which is SAM with both sidebands. If you left click again on the SAM button, you will get SAML which is SAM in lower sideband. If you then left click the SAM button again, you will get SAMU, which is SAM in upper sideband. CW Left clicking this button will put the VFO A receiver in LCW mode. Normal CW mode uses LCW which causes tones to increase as the frequency is increased. CWR mode uses UCW, which causes tones to decrease when the frequency is increased. You select CWR by right clicking on the "CW" button. An interesting side effect of this mode is you can tell when you are tuned directly onto a CW signal by swapping back and forth between CW and CWR mode. If the pitch of the signal does not change, you are perfectly tuned to the signal. If DUAL is on, right clicking this button will put the VFO B receiver in LCW mode. There is an option in Preferences4 to reverse the use of LCW and UCW. FM Clicking this button will put the VFO A receiver in FM mode. Right clicking this button with DUAL on will put the VFO B receiver in FM mode. For the RX-340, if DUAL is off and the RX340 is assigned to VFO A, right clicking the FM button will setup everything to receive DRM. This DRM setup will set the mode to USB, the filter to 16 kHz, the AGC to slow, PBT to +2000 and set the radio frequency down 12 khz from the GUI. RTTY This mode is used for any digital mode you may want to run. Its default setup is for RTTY. It sets a frequency offset of 2125 hertz and turns on the accessory input for transmit audio, and uses LSB mode. You can change the button name, frequency offset, and transmit mode through the "RTTY, KB Settings" window of the "settings" menu. You can also reverse the selected sideband. If you click on the RTTY mode button while RTTY mode is already selected, the selection for the RTTY sideband will be reversed. This is indicated by the color of the RTTY key changing from blue to red. The same also holds true for the second RTTY mode, which is selected by right clicking the RTTY button. If you want to use the Orion in true FSK mode, select FSK for the mode. The offset has no meaning in this mode and is ignored. If you store an RTTY mode station in a memory, there are actually 4 RTTY modes. They are named in the memories as follows: "RTTY" = RTTY mode 1 "RTTY2" = RTTY mode 2 "RTTYR" = RTTY mode 1 with reversed sideband "RTTY2R" = RTTY mode 2 with reversed sideband There is a way for logging programs to select RTTY mode 1 or RTTY mode 2 automatically. If a logging program set an SSB mode that is in the CW portion of a band, if RTTY 1 real mode matches matches the SSB mode, then RTTY mode 1 is selected. If RTTY mode 1 does not match, then RTTY real mode 2 is checked for a match. If it matches, then RTTY mode 2 is selected. In this way, logging programs can now select RTTY mode 1 or RTTY mode 2. If DUAL is on, right clicking this button will put the VFO B receiver in RTTY mode 1. Sto 1 (Store to Scratch Pad 1) This button stores the frequency, mode, and filter in temporary scratch pad memory 1 for later retrieval. Rcl 1 (Recall from Scratch Pad 1) This button first stores the frequency, mode, and filter in temporary scratch pad memory X and then retrieves the values of frequency, mode, and filter, last saved with the "Sto 1" button. Sto 2 (Store to Scratch Pad 2) This button stores the frequency, mode, and filter in temporary scratch pad memory 2 for later retrieval. Rcl 2 (Recall from Scratch Pad 2) This button first stores the frequency, mode, and filter in temporary scratch pad memory X and then retrieves the values of frequency, mode, and filter, last saved with the "Sto 2" button. Sto 3 (Store to Scratch Pad 3) This button stores the frequency, mode, and filter in temporary scratch pad memory 3 for later retrieval. Rcl 3 (Recall from Scratch Pad 3) This button first stores the frequency, mode, and filter in temporary scratch pad memory X and then retrieves the values of frequency, mode, and filter, last saved with the "Sto 3" button. Rcl X (Recall from Scratch Pad X) This button retrieves the values of frequency, mode, and filter, last saved in scratch pad X when Rcl 1, Rcl 2, or Rcl 3 was clicked. STORE STORE opens the Store Memory window and prompts you for station data. You can also add a PBT value to the saved memory. If you edit the memory window, you can add "PBT=" text to specify a PBT value to be set when the memory is recalled. For example, if you want a PBT value of 1000 hertz, anywhere in the "Notes" box add the following text: PBT=1000 For a minus 1000 hertz PBT add the following: PBT=-1000 Make sure not to have any spaces on either side of the "=". RECALL RECALL brings up the Recall Memory window and allows you to select stations. Scan Clicking the "Scan" key will cause the stored memory file to be scanned one frequency at a time, beginning at the current entry. The time spent on each memory is called the dwell time. The dwell time is specified in the preferences window. It must be between 1 and 99 seconds. The default dwell time is 2 seconds. All the memories in the loaded memory file will be scanned. When it gets to the last entry, it will start over at the first memory of the file. You will most likely make special memory files to use this scan feature. You can stop the memory scan by clicking again on the "Scan" button. If you add the word "skip" in lower case anywhere in the "notes" section of a memory, the memory will be skipped during the scan function. The memory scan will be stopped if you transmit while the scan is in progress. You can configure an automatic resume time. See the "Preferences4" section. VFO A Left clicking this button will cause the main VFO A frequency to go down by one step amount. Right clicking this button will cause the main VFO A frequency to go up one step amount. VFO B Left clicking this button will cause the alternate VFO B frequency to go down by one step amount. Right clicking this button will cause the alternate VFO B frequency to go up one step amount. You will not see the frequency change on the Orion unless DUAL and/or SPLIT is on. FAST A (Fast tuning for VFO A) Left clicking this button will cause the main VFO A frequency to go down by one step amount times the "Fast Tuning Mult". Right clicking this button will cause the main VFO A frequency to go up by one step amount times the "Fast Tuning Mult" amount. See "Fast Tuning Mult" below. FAST B (Fast Tuning for VFO B) Left clicking this button will cause the alternate VFO B frequency to go down by one step amount times the "Fast Tuning Mult". Right clicking this button will cause the alternate VFO B frequency to go up by one step amount times the "Fast Tuning Mult" amount. See "Fast Tuning Mult" below. FILTER A Left clicking this button will cause the main VFO A filter to go to the next wider filter. Right clicking this button will cause the main VFO A filter to go to the next narrower filter. FILTER B Left clicking this button will cause the alternate VFO B filter to go to the next wider filter. Right clicking this button will cause the alternate VFO B filter to go to the next narrower filter. The VFO B filter setting in displayed in the black area just to the right of the S meter. Here, there are three green indicators to show VFO B mode at the top, then VFO B filter just below mode, and finally VFO B step just below filter. LO CUT Left clicking this button will cause the next wider filter to be selected and move the pass band tuning to keep the high frequency cutoff constant causing the low frequency cutoff to move down by the change in filter bandwidth. Right clicking this button has exactly the opposite effect. The next narrower filter is selected and the passband tuning is moved to keep the high frequency cutoff constant causing the low frequency cutoff up by the change in filter bandwidth. This button is useful when QRM appears on the low side of the passband. It allows the low side of the passband to be tuned while keeping the high side of the passband constant. This button is only active in SSB mode. HI CUT Left clicking this button will cause the next narrower filter to be selected causing the high frequency cutoff to move down by the change in filter bandwidth and leaving the low frequency cutoff fixed (the default low frequency cutoff with PBT off is 200 hertz). Right clicking this button has exactly the opposite effect. The next wider filter is selected causing the high frequency cutoff to move up by the change in filter bandwidth. This button is useful when QRM appears on the high side of the passband. It allows the high side of the passband to be tuned while keeping the low side of the passband constant. This button is only active in SSB mode. PBT (Used with top drag window) Clicking this button on enables pass band tuning for the VFO A receiver. Dragging the scale to the right of the button controls the amount of PBT used. You can right click on the PBT scale to zero it. If DUAL is on, right clicking this button tunrs on PBT control for the VFO B receiver. The button will show "PBTb" indicating that the PBT drag window will now control PBT for the VFO B receiver. RIT (Used with lower drag window) Clicking this button on enables RIT for the VFO A receiver. Dragging the scale to the right of the button controls the amount of RIT used. You can right click on the RIT scale to zero it. XIT (Used with lower drag window) Clicking this button on enables XIT for the VFO A receiver. Dragging the scale to the right of the button controls the amount of XIT used. You can right click on the XIT scale to zero it. The XIT shares the same drag window as RIT. A / B Clicking this button causes the VFO A and VFO B contents to be swapped. This includes frequency, mode, filter, PBT, AGC, LOCK status, and antenna setting. You will not see the VFO B frequency change on the Orion unless DUAL and/or SPLIT is on. A = B Clicking this button causes the contents of VFO A to be copied into VFO B. This includes frequency, mode, filter, PBT, and AGC setting. You will not see the frequency change on the Orion unless DUAL and/or SPLIT is on. SPLIT (Receive on VFO A, Transmit on VFO B) Clicking this button causes the transmit frequency to shift from the VFO A frequency to the VFO B frequency. LOCK Clicking this button causes VFO A to be locked so that it does not change in frequency. FAST, MED, SLOW, Pgm1, Pgm2, AgcOff These buttons set the AGC speed. If "DUAL" is on, you can right click to set the AGC speed of the receiver assigned to VFO B. The AGC values for all 5 AGC settings are all adjustable. They each have sliders for setting decay and hang time in the settings menu. There also is a check box in each AGC settings window that if checked will use the Orion factory default AGC for that AGC value instead of the individual slider values. AccInp (Accessory Input - mic or soundcard) This button will switch the Orion MIC input between MIC and the Aux Input. The Aux Input is the white jack on the accessory cable. This is normally used for digital modes to bring audio in from the soundcard of the computer. In order for this button to work in Acc input position, the Orion SSB menu must have "Tx Audio Source" set to "BOTH". Note that this will not cause any audio to come in from the MIC, because when this is selected, the MIC gain is set to 0. The converse is also true. You should leave the Orion setting at "BOTH" all the time. Also, when one of the RTTY digital modes is selected from the program, the program will automatically turn on AccInp. Also note, the Mic gain slider actually changes function between Mic and Aux Input gain depending on which one is selected. Step Buttons These buttons set the frequency step size according to their value. They are user definable in the "Steps" window of the "settings" menu. If a step other the Orion supported steps is used, the Orion will be forced to a 1 hertz step. The program will use the step you have selected. Left clicking these buttons changes the VFO A step size. Right clicking these buttons changes the VFO B step size. Band Buttons These buttons are band register buttons. They return you to the last frequency and mode you were using on the appropriate band section. The column labelled "CW" is for the normal "CW" section of that band. Clicking these buttons will return you to the last frequency and mode you were using when in this section of the band. The column labelled "SSB" will return you to the last frequency and mode you were using when in this section of the band. The "SWL" column will return you to the last frequency and mode you were using when in this band. The "GEN" band button is a general band register that gets used if the frequency is not in any other band. The band buttons save the frequency, mode, filter, and antenna setting for each band. The "60" button under SSB, is a special button. In order to handle the unique requirements of this band, this button has a special click feature. Once you are on the band, you can toggle through the 5 band channels by left clicking to go down one channel or right clicking to go up one channel. Note that when going to the 60 meter band, your transmit bandwidth will be automatically lowered to 2400 hertz if it was more than this value. Your power output will be lowered to 50 watts if it was more than this. When you leave this band, your previous settings will be restored. Also, you can access the ham band buttons with the function keys. Shift F1 to Shift F9 corresponds to the 160 to 10 meter SSB band buttons and Ctrl F1 to Ctrl F9 corresponds to the 160 to 10 meter CW band buttons. You can look at the Orion keypad to remember which band each function key corresponds to. Also, remember "Shift" is for SSB, and "Ctrl" is for CW. AMTN (Amp Tune) The AMTN (AMP TUNE) button is to make tuning an amplifier easier. When you click the "AMTN" button, several steps happen automatically. They are 1) The current mode and frequency is save in the scratch pad memory. 2) The frequency is moved up 5 kHz. 3) CW mode is set. 4) A wide filter is selected. 5) The Step rate is set to 1 kHz. 6) The remote tuning knob is set to ALC to control power. 7) The Orion ALC (power) level is set to the previous saved value for this band and mode. While the "AMP TN" button is "RED", you should first make sure the frequency is clear. If it is not, tune to a clear frequency with the mouse by clicking the radio panel knob. Once a clear frequency is found, key your rig with your PTT or CW key and tune your amplifier. Use the remote tuning knob to set the Orion output power to correct drive level. When the AMP is tuned, click the "AMP TN" to exit this mode. The frequency, mode, and step will be restored to original values. The Orion power output value will be saved and used anytime "AMP TN" is again clicked. This value is kept separate by band and mode. Try this function out. It is a real time saver. The more you use it, the more you will like it. There is also an option to use amptune to just tune your tuner and not key the amplifier. See "AMPTUNE DISABLE KEYING LOOP" below. There is also a "pulse tune" method when using Amp Tune. This feature is enabled by setting "PTT Amp Tune Pulse" check box in the "preferences3" window of the "settings" menu. When "AmTn" is on, clicking the "PTT" button will cause a pulsing action to help tune an amplifier in a 50 percent duty cycle instead of 100 percent. TUNE The power when the "TUNE" button is clicked is remembered. When you click "TUNE", set the power to what you want the tune power to be with the Alc slider. When you click "TUNE" off, the power will be restored to the previous value. The next time you click "TUNE", it will remember the tune power value and set it to this value. Try it, it may save your finals! This option may be overridden with the "No Tune Save" option described in the "Preferences3" section. ID The ID button is to activate a 10 minute ID timer to assist in meeting the 10 minute FCC ID requirement. Clicking this button causes it to turn blue and start a 9 minute timer (The FCC requirement is 10 minutes, this gives you 1 minute to ID). When this timer expires, a sound is emitted and the button flashes between red and blue. The next time you transmit, the button goes back to blue. To turn the timer off, click the button again and it will go black, indicating the timer is now off. There is an option in "Preferences3" called "Auto Cw ID". Setting this check box on, will cause the ID timer to send your call sign in CW each time the timer expires if you have transmitted during the 10 minute interval. The call will be sent at a fixed speed of 20 words per minute. You must be in either LSB or USB mode, split must be off, and the CW keyboard keyer must be off for this to work. If you are transmitting at the time the ID timer expires, it will wait until you are finished transmitting before sending out the call sign. The 10 minute ID and auto CW ID are not available on the Argonaut V. If you right click the "ID" button and you are in SSB mode, it will send a CW ID immediately. Transmit Disable This key is used to enable and disable the transmitter. If the button red, the transmitter is disabled. This is useful for CW code practice or when leaving the station to prevent the transmitter from being accidentally keyed. Call This button brings up the call sign window. In order to use this feature, you must have the BuckMaster CDROM installed. Once you have installed the BuckMaster database on your hard drive, you can set the "HamCall Drive Letter or Path" in the "Preferences" window to "c:\ham0\" without the quotes. This will allow calls to be looked up without the BuckMaster CDROM in its drive. Calibrate This button is at the very top of the main radio window. This button allows automatic computation of the Orion's frequency correction factor. It must be used in the following way: 1) Make sure Polling is turned off. 2) Tune in WWV at 10 MHz on VFO A. 3) Swapping between USB and LSB, and a tune step of 1 hertz, with ManMD turned on, tune in WWV as precisely as possible. 4) Once it is properly tuned, click the "Calibrate" button. This will cause the display to change to 10.000.000 MHz and a new frequency correction factor will be saved. Please note that this function is not available while frequency polling is being used. The frequency error at 10 mhz is used to compute the error at all other frequencies. Additionally, after the calibrate has been done, if you wish to match the sub-receiver frequency precisely to the main receiver frequency, proceed as follows: 1) Make sure Polling is turned off. 2) Tune in WWV at 10 MHz on VFO A. 3) Set the step size to 1 hertz. 4) Set the mode to USB. 5) Right click on DUAL. 6) Tune VFO B until the flutter noise beating stops. 7) Once it is properly tuned, click the "Calibrate" button. 8) Select "No" for Calibrate. 9) Select "Yes" to match receivers. There is an additional calibrate procedure if the RX340 is attached that allows the Orion to be precisely matched to the RX340. This procedure should be performed on each band segment that you want precise matching. The assumption is the RX340 has been adjusted to be exactly on frequency and this procedure will match the Orion's frequency to the RX340. I use an old crystal calibrator signal as a comparison signal to match the two receivers. With the RX340 either assigned to VFO A or VFO B: 1) Make sure Polling is turned off. 2) Tune VFO A to a signal and then click A=B. 3) Now click "DUAL" receive on. 4) Now tune the Orion receiver until the received signal sounds exactly the same pitch in both receivers. Use a 1 hertz tuning step. 5) Click "Calibrate" and answer the message box question with a "Yes". Now the two receivers are exactly matched for that band segment. Note that this procedure must be repeated for each band segment you want perfect frequency matching between the RX340 and Orion. By band segment, this means you have to do this procedure once for the SSB band segment for each band, and again for the CW band segment for each band. In order for this procedure to operate, the two vfo's must be within one kHz of each other and you must be on a CW, SSB, or SWL band. Please note that this function is not available while frequency polling is being used. Also, once a frequency error is determined and being used, the step on the Orion will always be set to 1. Also, if frequency polling is used, the frequency calibrate value will be ignored while polling is going on. Speech This button turns the speech processor and off and on. When the speech processor is turned on, you will see the word "Sp xxx", where xxx is the level of speech processing, near the main frequency. The level of speech processing is set with a slider in the SSB settings menu. It has a range of 0 to 100 with 0 being no processing and 100 being maximum processing. TxLoop This button allows the Tx Loop enable line for your amplifier to be controlled from the front panel. A "TXL" indicator comes on to tell you when TxLoop is enabled. This is to allow easy access to the TxLoop control for amplifiers that do not have a standby mode. The TxLoop setting is remembered individually by antenna setting. If you have antenna 1 as the transmit antenna, the TxLoop setting corresponds to the Amp Key 1 line. If you have antenna 2 as the transmit antenna, the TxLoop setting corresponds to the Amp Key 2 line. Main Display Panel The main display area contains information about A and B VFO's, tuning steps, AGC selection and Local/UTC time. The Larger of the frequency displays is VFO-A; VFO-B the smaller. During key-down the Transmit VFO will change color. Mode Selection Select the mode for the current VFO using the mode buttons. To set the transmit mode in split mode select A/B, set the mode and press A/B again. In Simplex the current VFO's mode will be both the receive and transmit mode. PTT (Manual PTT) The PTT button provides manual PTT control. With Manual PTT control you can place the Orion into transmit mode from the radio panel. This is equivalent to pushing the PTT control on a microphone connected to the front panel. This control is useful for operating digital modes, such as PSK-31. Vox Toggle VOX operation ON and OFF. The button text will change color whenever VOX is turned ON. Mon The mon button allows you to hear your transmit audio. Use it when adjusting microphone or audio input levels. The Level control for the monitor is provided in the SETTINGS panel. Mute Used to temporarily silence the received audio. Noise Blanker The noise blanker slider is labelled "NB". This control operates the Orion DSP noise blanker. The noise blanker has values of 0 to 9. Value 0 turns off the noise blanker. Value 9 is for long pulse noises, value 1 for short pulse type noise. You should use the lowest value that gives you good results. The "NB" label is also a button. If DUAL is on or SWEEP is running, clicking the button will change its text to lower case and the slider will then control the VFO B receiver. HNB (Hardware Noise Blanker) The hardware noise blanker is turned on and off with the "HNB" button. This control operates the Orion hardware noise blanker. SQ (Squelch) This slider is labelled "SQ". It controls the squelch setting of the VFO A receiver. AGC TH (AGC Threshold Control) This slider is labelled "AGC TH". It sets the AGC threshold for the current band. It's value is remembered by band. This control will have no effect for slow, medium, or fast AGC if the box in the corresponding AGC settings window labelled "Use Orion *** AGC" is checked. By checking this box, you can defeat use of this control and use the Orion AGC controls directly. The slider label for this control is also a button that can toggle the control between AGC threshold and AGC decay. In the "AGC Dcy" position, this control will control the AGC deacy for the selected AGC speed. VA (Volume VFOA) This slider is labelled "VA". It controls the volume for the VFO A receiver unless the VFO A receiver is the RX340. The RX340 does not have a software control for volume. VB (Volume VFOB) This slider is labelled "VB". It controls the volume for the VFO B receiver unless the VFO B receiver is the RX340. The RX340 does not have a software control for volume. RF (RF Gain) This slider controls the RF gain for the VFO A receiver. The label for the slider is "RF". This "RF" label is also a button. If dual receive is on, clicking this button changes the RF gain control to control the RF gain for the VFO B receiver. The "RF" label changes to lower case "rf" to indicate the RF gain control is now controlling the VFO B receiver. Atn/Pre (Attenuator/Preamp, left click=attn, right click= Preamp) The Atn/Pre button activates the RF attenuator and preamp associated with the VFO A receiver. Left clicking this button controls the attenuator and right clicking this button controls the preamp. The RF attenuator actually has 4 positions. They are 6 db attenuation, 12 db attenuation, 18 db attenuation, and off. Off is indicated by just seeing the letters "Atn/Pre". The Orion sub-receiver does not have a control for the preamp. It is always on. The RX340 only has one attenuator position. It is 15 db. AtB/Pre (Attenuator/Preamp for VFOB, left click=attn, right click= Preamp) The AtB/Pre button activates the RF attenuator and preamp associated with the VFO B receiver. Left clicking this button controls the attenuator and right clicking this button controls the preamp. The RF attenuator actually has 4 positions. They are 6 db attenuation, 12 db attenuation, 18 db attenuation, and off. Off is indicated by just seeing the letters "AtB/Pre". The Orion sub-receiver does not have a control for the preamp. It is always on. The RX340 only has one attenuator position. It is 15 db. Filter Buttons The radio panel provides 12 buttons for quick access to the most often used filters. Each of these 12 buttons can be programmed with your choice of filters. To see the filter options right-click on any filter. Any of the 57 filter choices may be assigned to any filter button. Note that on the Orion in AM mode, the actual filter bandwidth is twice the indicated bandwidth. Thus, in AM mode, a 4000 hertz filter is actually 8000 hertz wide. AN (Auto Notch) The automatic notch depth is set with the "AN" slider. The range is 0 to 9 with 0 being the off position. It will seek out and null all constant carriers in the receiver passband. This notch works well for SSB mode but is not useful in CW as it tends to notch out the desired signal. The "AN" label is also a button. If DUAL is on or SWEEP is running, clicking the button will change its text to lower case and the slider will then control the VFO B receiver. NR (Noise Reduction) The DSP noise reduction is controlled with the "NR" slider. Its range is 0 to 9 with 0 being the off position and 9 being the most aggressive. This noise reduction system mathematically identifies desired signals and tracks them with a set of adaptive filters. The "NR" label is also a button. If DUAL is on or SWEEP is running, clicking the button will change its text to lower case and the slider will then control the VFO B receiver. MN (Manual Notch used with top drag window) This button controls turning on and off the manual notch. The PBT slider is shared with the manual notch slider. If you click the "MNotch" button, the PBT slider becomes a notch slider. There will be a little "N" that appears near the slider. If you then select "PBT" the slider returns to PBT mode, and a "P" appears near the slider. The manual notch width is controlled with the "NW" slider. 10 hertz notch width corresponds to the bottom of the "NW" slider, and 300 hertz notch width corresponds to the top of the "NW" slider. Special right click on "Split" key Right clicking on the "split" key is used as an automatic FM repeater split function. A repeater offset is automatically set in VFO B and "split" is turned on when you right click on the "split" key and you are in an FM repeater band and in FM mode. The split offsets are calculated according to receive frequency as follows: 29.6 to 29.7 MHz - Down 100 kHz 53 to 54 MHz - Down 1 MHz 144.9 to 147 MHz - Down 600 kHz 147 to 148 MHz - Up 600 kHz Tuning Selections When setting an "F" key on the remote pod to tuning selections, it will toggle between VFOA, VFOB, PBT, RIT, ALC, VOL, and RFG. VOL is for volume. Also, each key can be defined to expressly set one of the tuning knob functions. In addition to the functions that were already there you can directly define each function key to set the remote tuning knob to go to VFOA, VFOB, PBT, RIT, ALC, VOL, or RFG. This is done on the remote tuning pod configuration box. You can also make one of the function keys be a "PTT" key by selecting the "PTT" entry. There is also a "RF Gain" entry. When this is selected, the remote tuning knob will control the RF gain setting. Also, see the "Remote Pod Keyboard Definition" section. There are sliders on the main control panel for Transmit Power (TX), and Keyer Speed (KS). The keyer speed slider on the CW settings panel is a coarse adjustment. It has a range of 40 wpm. The KS slider on the front panel is a fine adjustment. It has a range of 15 wpm. The intended use is for you to set the speed on the CW panel one time to set the general range you want. When you do this, you should first set the front panel in the middle and then use the CW panel setting to get the middle of the range you want. You then use the KS slider on the front panel as a fine adjustment of 15 wpm of the coarse range set from the CW panel. This allows the setting of keyer speed to not be touchy. In addition, if the keyer is enabled, the keyer speed is digitally displayed below the keyer slider on the front panel. You can also change the keyer speed one word per minute at a time. If you left click the "KS" above the "KS" slider you will go down one word per minute. If you right click the "KS", you will go up one word per minute in keyer speed. The upper of the two front panel offset drag control is for PBT and Manual Notch setting. The tuning rate of both these drag controls may be user configured. The lower of the two front panel offset drag controls is for RIT and XIT. This controls a single offset in hertz that may be applied to RIT or XIT depending on which is turned on. This is similar to the implementation of the offset function in the OMNI VI. This allows you while listening to a DX station, to tune in the station he is working with the RIT control, and then switch to XIT to actually work the DX station. Note that RIT and XIT only apply to VFO A. Frequency Slider Bar The Frequency Slider displays a coarse view of the band. The displayed band width of the bar will depend on the selected tuning steps and the setting of "Variable Frequency Scale" in "Preferences3". The radio can be tuned using the Slider. Click and hold the left mouse button on the Slider Bar display and drag left or right. The frequency display will show the change and the radio will follow. Double click within the Slider Bar display to jump to a new frequency. If the area in the frequency bar has a blue background, that area is mainly for CW operation and SSB operation is not allowed. If it has a green background, that area is for SSB operation and all modes are allowed. If the area has a red background, then transmit is not allowed there. See the "License Class" feature for how to define these areas. S Meter There are two S meters that can display in the S meter area. If "DUAL" is on, there is a lower red meter bar that will come on to show the S meter reading the receiver assigned to VFO B. There is also an S meter compensation value that you can define to calibrate your S meter. See "S METER COMP" in the "Preferences4" section. This compensation affects the main and sub-receiver, and also the sweep sensitivity. Using the Spectrum Display The Spectrum Display or Sweep Window provides the operator with the ability to quickly scan the radio bands and produce a visual representation of station activity. Several user-selectable settings are available to control the width of the sweep, sweep center frequency and display features. Sweep Result Display While the radio is sweeping through the selected frequency range the display will change to show each new point as it is processed. When the sweep is complete the radio will return to normal operation and the result window will keep the last data displayed until a new sweep is performed or the program is restarted. The sweep result window provides several types of information. The left and right hand boundaries indicate the start and stop points for the sweep. The range is determined by the range setting. The vertical scale provides a relative comparison between different signals. The higher the point the bigger the signal. The display may be user selected as LOG or LINEAR. Display Format The sweep display format window control provides selections for displaying the sweep results in either LOG or LINEAR format. Display Style Sample points in the sweep display window can be displayed as solid lines or as dotted lines using this control. A change to this selection will be reflected immediately in the display if the sweep window currently contains a sweep result. Sweep Pulse Width This box is used to select how many pixels wide each plotted sweep pulse is. Wide pulses yield a fast sweep time but low resolution. Narrow pulses yield high resolution but slow sweep times. The first selection is called "Default Pulse Width" and lets the program decide the width. This box has no effect if "High Resolution" is checked since that size uses a fixed 1 pixel width size. Sweep Center Frequency The operator may choose to let the sweep center frequency be the same as the receiver tuned frequency with the TRACK_RECEIVER option or select MANUAL and enter the center frequency in the box provided. The MANUAL operation allows for the sweep of frequencies removed from where the radio is tuned. There is also an option called "Band Center". This option puts the center of the band you are currently tuned to in the center of the sweep window and automatically adjusts the width to match the band segment. Sweep Range The amount of spectrum covered in each sweep can be set using the Sweep Range control. The default range is 300 kHz. Starting and Stopping a Sweep Pressing the SWEEP button will begin the sweep acquisition of data for the sweep display. The process involves tuning the receiver to each frequency and getting a signal strength reading. The display is updated with each new point as it is gathered. To stop a sweep in progress press STOP at any time. There is a selection for spectrum sweep called "MaxHold". When this is selected, only signals that are stronger than what is already displayed at that location will be changed. This allows the presence of strong signals that come and go to remain on the sweep screen. There is a selection for spectrum sweep called "Integrate". When this is selected, the sweep display is integrated over several passes with the formula: Displayed Value = Previous Value - Previous Value/4 + New Value/4 Thanks to KH7T for this formula. There is also a "High Resolution" check box on the spectrum sweep. Selecting it causes the sweep display to show a large increase in resolution. However, the sweep speed is significantly slowed down when this is on. You can decide between speed and resolution with this setting. There is a "Wide Sweep" check box on the spectrum sweep. Selecting it causes the sweep display width to double. A program restart is required for the sweep panel to change size. There is a "Use Main Receiver" check box. Checking this will cause the sweep to be performed using the main receiver instead of the sub-receiver. The audio will be muted while this sweep is running. Use of the main receiver can produce a greater dynamic range than the sub-receiver. Main Window Title The VFO A frequency is displayed on the main window title. This allows the frequency to be seen when the radio control panel window is minimized. This is very useful as it allows you to tune with the remote tuning knob and see the frequency while minimized. License Class You can define your license class and have your transmit privileges displayed on the frequency scale. You define your license class in the "preferences" section of the settings menu. You can also decide to have your transmitter follow your license class with a check box in this same area. When you define your license class, the background of the frequency scale will be blue for CW and digital mode only operation, green for phone operation, and burgundy for operation not allowed. If you select to have your transmitter follow your license class selection, transmit will be blocked when your transmit frequency is tuned to a non-authorized frequency for your class. When you select your license class, the last selection is called "foreign". This selection is for foreign countries that have different operating privileges than the U.S. It allows you to define your operating privileges via an ASCII file called "foreign.dat". Each line of this file defines a band segment you are authorized to operate in. There are 3 entries in each line. The first entry should be either "cw" or "phone". If "cw" is specified, it means the band is restricted to CW or digital modes. If "phone" is specified, it means the band has no bandwidth restrictions. The second entry defines the starting frequency for the band segment in MHz. The third entry defines the band segment end in MHz. There is a limit of 29 entries for the entire "foreign.dat" file. The supplied "foreign.dat" is an example of how one would define a file for a foreign country that had privileges identical to a U.S. general class license. There are also entries in the orion.ini file to control the point that the band button segments for the 160, 80, 40, 20, 15, and 10 meter bands switch from CW to SSB. There is also one entry to control the switchover point between 40 SSB and the 41 meter SWL band. These entries are as follows with defaults as shown: 160 meter line=1.840 80 meter line=3.750 40 meter line=7.150 4041 meter line=7.300 20 meter line=14.150 15 meter line=21.200 10 meter line=28.300 You can change these values to the appropriate value for your countries usage in these bands. There is also a "SSBRTTY.DAT" file that can be used to define the frequencies you want RTTY or SSB mode selected automatically when doing direct frequency entry. This file can have up to 28 lines for RTTY and 28 lines for SSB. Each line for RTTY must start with "RTTY", and each line for SSB must start with "SSB". Follow the mode name with a comma, followed by the starting frequency in mhz, followed by the ending frequency for the mode in mhz. This file can be edited with notepad or any ASCII text editor. Examining the file will show the exact format. The USA SSB and CW band limits are built into the program. This file is used to override those values. CW Keyboard Keyer There is a CW keyboard keyer. It is turned on with the "Alt-K" key sequence. When the keyboard keyer is enabled, the letters "Cw Kb" will appear to the right of the frequency scale. Pressing "Alt-K" again will turn off the keyboard keyer. Some buttons may cause the keyboard focus to move from the main radio panel causing the keyboard keys to not send CW. When this happens, either click on the radio front panel with the mouse or do Alt-K twice to restore the keyboard focus. Using the CW Keyboard will force the Orion internal keyer to be enabled. If you accidently press the "enter" key while using the CW keyboard, it will put you into "direct frequency entry" mode. Press the "Esc" key to get back to CW keyboard mode or key in a frequency and press "enter" again. The keyed characters will not be sent until a full word is typed. The space bar is necessary to define the end of a word. This allows words to be transmitted smoothly and also gives you an opportunity to correct a keying error before the word is transmitted. This full word feature can be turned off by un-checking the check box labelled "Transmit full words only" located in the "CW Keyboard" window. The F12 key will toggle the CW Keyboard buffer between pause and transmitting. This key will allow you to type ahead while you are receiving. If the buffer is stopped, the "Cw Kb" will appear RED. If the buffer is transmitting, it will be black. The speed and weight of the keyboard keyer are controlled with CW keyer speed and weight controls. Typing at the keyboard will cause the appropriate character to be transmitted in CW. Special CW characters are as follows: BT is sent with the "-". SK is sent with the "$". AR is sent with the "+". KN is sent with the "^". AA for traffic handling is sent with the "*". The above special character keys can be redefined with orion.ini parameters. To redefine these keys, with the program not running, find the following lines: BT CHAR=(-) SK CHAR=($) AR CHAR=(+) KN CHAR=(^) AA CHAR=(*) You can then change the key value that is in parentheses to change the key for the special character. The "escape" key will immediately end sending and empty the CW internal keyboard buffer. There is a CW Keyboard window for showing the contents of the CW keyboard buffer. This window is visible when the CW Keyboard is turned on. It may be hidden by clicking the "X" in the upper right hand corner of the window. You can make the window visible again by doing Alt-K twice. The keyboard buffer is 500 characters long. There are 5 memories that can be used with the keyboard keyer. The memories are loaded with the edit boxes on the "CW Keyboard" window. The memories are transmitted by pressing F1 for memory 1, F2 for memory 2, F3 for memory 3, F4 for memory 4, and F5 for memory 5. There are also 5 mouse buttons at the bottom of the radio panel labelled "M1" to "M5" to transmit the memories. There are also 5 CW Memory Tag edit boxes located in the "RTTY, KN Settings" window. These edit boxes will change the labels on the M1 through M5 memory buttons. You can use these tags to help remember what is in each memory. They are limited to 3 characters. The special character "#" followed by a number from 1 to 5 can be placed in a memory to cause the contents of the memory number to be sent in place of the "#" character. This is useful to increase the size of a memory for a longer message. The special character " (double quote) can be placed at the beginning of a memory to send a file instead of the text in the memory. When you start a memory with a " (double quote), you directly follow the " with the name of the file you want to send text from. The internal CW keyboard buffer is limited to 511 characters so the file cannot be larger than 511 characters. You can never be more than 511 characters ahead of what is being transmitted. The file must be built with an ascii text editor such as notepad. If you build the file with notepad, the actual name of the file will have a ".txt" added to it. The basic name itself must be 8 characters or less and not have spaces or special characters in it. The file must be located in the c:\n4py folder or wherever you have the program installed. The special character "%" followed by a number from 1 to 9 can be placed at the end of a memory to cause a delayed repeat of the memory. The number 1 to 9 is the delay in seconds before the memory is resent. When the repeat function is active, a capital "R" will show in the keyboard display buffer. The repeat function is cancelled when any new character is added to the keyboard buffer or a new memory is selected with the F keys. K1EL Keyer The program has full support for the K1EL Winkey keyer version 4 or later. Information on getting this keyer can be found at www.k1el.com. There is a check box in the CW settings window labelled "K1EL Keyer". Checking this box causes all the CW setting controls to change to the K1EL settings controls. Using this keyer allows the keying to be much smoother, especially for Windows XP, NT, and 2000. The controls are as follows: Additionally, if you are using the Winkey 2 keyer, the 4 buttons on top of the keyer will run the program memories 1 to 4. "Key Spd" - This slider sets the minimum range for the K1EL speed pot. The speed pot low end is set to this value and the high end is set to this value plus 15. Thus the range of the speed pot is always 15 wpm. Note that the actual keying speed of the K1EL is always set with the speed pot on the keyer itself. The "KS" slider on the program front panel will show the current speed but the "KS" slider cannot be used to change the K1EL keyer speed. If you do not have a speed pot on your keyer, check the "No Speed Pot" box and the KS slider will control the keyer speed. "Wgt" - This slider controls the keyer weighting. A value of 50 is no weighting. "Ptt Lead" - This slider controls the lead time the PTT line is energized before keying begins. The values are in 10 millisecond increments. This is useful to control an amplifier to ensure the amplifier relay comes up before RF is applied. "Ptt Tail" - This slider controls how long PTT stays energized after keying stops. The value is in 10 millisecond increments. "Key Comp" - This slider controls the amount of keying compensation applied to all keying elements. It is in milliseconds and adds a fixed amount of milliseconds to all character elements. "Dit Dah" - This slider controls the dit/dah ratio and allows you to change it from the standard 1:3 ratio. A value of 50 corresponds to the normal 1:3 ratio. The range of the control is 33 to 66, with 33 being a 1:2 ratio and 66 being a 1:4 ratio. "AutoSpace" - This check box enables or disables the keyer's autospace function. "CT Spacing" - This check box enables or disables the keyer's contest spacing option. "No Speed Pot" - Turn this check box on if you do not have or do not wish to use the speed pot on your WinKey keyer. "Reverse Paddle" - This check box allows you to use a paddle with the dit and dah connections reversed. "Iambic B" - This list box selects between Iambic B, Iambic A, Ultimatic, and Bug operation. "COM setting box" - This box allows you to define the correct comport the K1EL keyer is connected to. Consult the K1EL manual for more explanation of these controls. If you have the CW Keyboard turned on, you will get character echos from the paddle in the CW Keyboard window. This will show you what you the last 20 characters you have sent with the paddles. Using direct entry from the keyboard Keyboard frequency entry is always active while on the main radio panel unless the CW keyboard is active. If the CW keyboard is active, you should first press the "enter" key to get into direct frequency mode. Entry works by simply typing in the frequency. You may also click inside the frequency display to edit the frequency as in a normal text box. If you enter a frequency that is above 1000, the program assumes you have entered the frequency in kHz. If the value is below 1000, the program assumes you have entered the frequency in MHz. If you begin the entry with a ".", the program assumes you are only entering the kHz portion of the current MHz you are tuned to. To enter a frequency below 1 MHz, start the entry with a "0" followed by the "." and then the kHz value. To enter 680 kHz, key in "0.680". Remote Pod Keyboard Definition All the keys on the remote pod are programmable. There are three entries in the settings window to define the keys. The entry "Remote Pod" is used to define the three function keys. The entry "Remote Pod 4-9" is used to define the 4 through 9 keys. The entry "Remote Pod 0-3" is used to define the 0 through 3 keys and the period key. Most of the values you can select are self-explanatory. An entry labelled "5" would be for the "5 key" to define it just for direct frequency entry. An entry labelled "up 5" would be for the "5 key" to define it to turn on split and make VFO B be up 5 from VFO A. The entry marked "Band Bottom" takes you to the bottom of the band. The entry labelled "AccInp Xmit" is a special one for slow-scan TV users. Clicking this button will cause the mike input to switch to accessory input, the Orion to go into transmit mode, and the monitor audio to come on. Clicking this again, will switch AccInp back to mike input, turn off transmit, and turn off monitor audio. This is extremely useful during slow scan TV sessions when you are changing from sending pictures to SSB to describe them. Also, when in this mode, the main program title adds additional text to note you are transmitting. If you have the pod in RIT tune mode and RIT is on, if you press the pod RIT button again, it will set the RIT value to zero. If you have the pod in PBT tune mode and PBT is on, if you press the pod PBT button again, it will set the PBT value to zero. The entry marked "Up Numeric" causes that key to set "up numeric mode". When you follow this key with a numeric key it sets VFO B equal to VFO A plus the numeric value of the key and then turns on "split". Note that the zero key causes you to go up 10. This allows you have have a "quick split" ability of 1 to 10 kHz without having to use all your numeric key definitions for this feature. There is a selection for SPOT for the remote tuning pod. This button will swap you between CW and CWR each time you press it. The idea is to tune the signal until the pitch does not change when you press "spot". When the pitch does not change, you are exactly zero beat. The nice part of all this is you do NOT lose direct frequency entry from the remote pod when you define the numeric keys for other things. All you have to do is press the "E" key first, and the pod is then put into numeric mode for direct frequency entry. I leave it up to the creativity of the user to come up with a really nice remote pod key definition. The following example is how I use my remote tuning pod to work a Split DX pileup: I tune the dx station in on VFO A. I soon find out he is listening say up 5. I press the "Up" key on the pod followed by the "5" key. Now VFO B is tuned 5 kHz higher than VFO A. This is a starting point. Next I press the "dual" button I have defined on the pod and I set the pod to tune VFO B only by pressing the pod's VFO B key. I don't need to lock VFO A because the pod is now only tuning VFO B. I also press the pod's "SPLIT" key at this time. Now anytime I tune the pod knob, I am only tuning the DX listening frequency and not the DX transmitting frequency. As soon as I hear the DX transmitting, I press DUAL to turn it off so I don't hear all the callers. When the DX listens to a calling station, I turn dual back on and tune the pod knob to find the caller. If I find the caller, then I call at the next opportunity. Because I am now transmitting right where the DX station was listening, I have a greatly increased probability of getting through. It works pretty well. The "Remote Pod Fkey" window also has two entries to control the knob sensitivity for frequency tuning. They are: "Tuning Knob Desense Factor" - This controls how much the tuning knob pulses are divided by to desensitize the tuning. "Tuning Knob Desense Step Threshold" - This controls the minimum step size that the desense factor comes into play. I set this at 500 and use a desense factor of 10. The end effect is when I set my step size to 500 or greater, the knob pulses are divided by 10. This results in much easier tuning when using large steps. "Pod Knob keys are Toggles" - With this check box turned on, all the pod knob functions are toggles. For example, if you press and hold a key defined for RIT, then while holding the RIT button, the pod knob will move RIT. Once the key is released, the pod knob will always return to VFO A control. Pod Function Keys Without a Pod There are over 25 pod functions that can be assigned to keyboard keys. You can get pod functions from the keyboard without having a griffin knob or TenTec remote pod. The pod functions for numeric 6 to 9 can be done with F6 to F9 on the keyboard. The pod function for the zero key can be done with F10. The pod function for F1 can be done with F11. You can also use the numeric 1 to 5 for pod functions 1 to 5 if the CW keyboard is turned off and you have defined that you have a griffin powermate. Additionally, if the CW keyboard is off, F1 to F5 will operate as pod functions for 1 to 5. Please note the F keys only work as pod keys when the griffin powermate option is selected. Preferences Menu Window Local-UTC Correction - Enter in this box the difference in hours between your local time and UTC. If you are west of Greenwich, the values are positive. If you are east of Greenwich, the values are negative. If you have selected "PC Kepps Time in UTC", these values are reveresed. Mute Radio on Exit - This box sets what you want the radio speaker to do when you exit the program. Local time uses 24 hour Format - this box selects if you want local time displayed in 12 or 24 hour format. HamCall Drive Letter or Path - Use this box to define the location if your Buckmaster ham call data base. It can simply be your CD drive letter or if you have installed the databse on your C drive it should read "c:\ham0\". Memory Scan Dwell Time - this box defines how long the program stays on one frequency during a memory scan. Dual Main in Left - Turn this box on if you want to hear the main receiver in the left headphone when dual is turned on. Dual Main in Right - Turn this box on if you want to hear the main receiver in the right headphone when dual is turned on. Dual Sub in Left - Turn this box on if you want to hear the sub receiver in the left headphone when dual is turned on. Dual Sub in Right - Turn this box on if you want to hear the sub receiver in the right headphone when dual is turned on. Note the above 4 audio routing boxes must have both the main and sub receiver selected somewhere. Also, the left headphone must have at least one setting and the right headphone must have at least one setting. Failure to set it this way will force the main in the left headphone and the sub in the right headphone. License Class is described in it own section. Preferences2 Menu Window The default SSB PBT value can be used to set a default value of PBT that gets set anytime LSB or USB mode is selected. If this value is 0, then PBT will not be changed on a mode change. The default filter positions for each mode are defined with numbers from 1 to 12. Number 1 refers to the top left filter button, number 2 refers to the top center button, and so on to number 12 for the bottom right filter button. The default AGC setting for each mode is also defined in this window. The entry labelled "Do Not Use Auto AGC" simply means to not change the AGC setting when going to that mode. The value of the "Fast Tuning Mult" can be set using the "Fast Tuning Mult" edit box in this window. This value controls the amount of step multiplication used when the "FAST A" and "FAST B" buttons are used. The default value is 10. If the step being used is 50 hertz and this has a value of 10, then when the "FAST A" and "FAST B" buttons are used, the step would become 500 hertz. This controls how much tuning speed up is invoked when using these buttons. Preferences3 Menu Window The second decimal point in the displayed frequency can be removed. This is useful is you are doing a lot of cut and paste operations. Use the "Remove Extra Decimal" check box. Setting the "Do not Restart Sweep" check box will prevent the spectrum sweep from restarting after transmit is finished if the sweep was on before transmit started. Setting the "No Tune Save" check box will cause the tune power to always be whatever the ALC power slider is set to. Setting it unchecked will cause it to remember the value last set while tune was in progress. When the "Variable Frequency Scale" check box is checked, the analog frequency scale will vary with the step size. For steps less than 100 hertz, the scale is multiplied by 100. For steps between 100 and 1000 hertz, the scale is multiplied 0by 10. For steps above 1000 hertz, the scale is unchanged. This scale change is primarily for people that do not have the remote tuning pod to aid in dragging the frequency. With this option unchecked, the analog frequency scale is fixed. The "PTT Amp Tune Pulse" check box causes a "pulse tune" method when using Amp Tune. When "AmTn" is on, clicking the "PTT" button will cause a pulsing action to help tune an amplifier in a 50 percent duty cycle instead of 100 percent. The "Remote Pod PTT Toggle" check box allows the remote pod PTT button to be used as a toggle. With this check box on, pushing the remote pod PTT button will cause the Orion to go to transmit. Releasing it will do nothing. Pressing it again will cause transmit to stop. Setting the "Manual MIC AccInp" check box stops automatic changing between MIC input and acc input when changing between RTTY and other modes. Setting "Antenna 2 Active" off will stop the antenna 2 position from being a selection when you click the "M Ant" or "S ant" button. Set this off if you do not have an antenna 2 connected to the Orion. Setting "Receive Ant Only Active" off will stop the receive only position from being a selection when you click the "M Ant" or "S ant" button. Set this off if you do not have a receive only antenna connected to the Orion. Setting the "PC keeps time in UTC" check box assumes time on your PC is kept in UTC time. Un-checking this box assumes time in your PC is kept in local time. This value is used in displaying local and UTC time in the radio panel. Setting "Round off Frequency when Step Changes" causes the frequency to be set to a multiple of the step size when the step size changes. Setting "Auto Mode Determination from Transfer File" will cause the program to determine the mode entirely from the frequency information supplied in the transfer file when using the tentec file interface from an external program such as a logging program. This setting bypasses the mode information in the transfer file and lets the program determine the mode from its own frequency to mode algorithm. This setting is useful when the logging program supplying the input file does not have the correct mode in the file. The "Auto Memory File Entry Select" check box, when on, causes an entry in the memory file that corresponds to the current tuned frequency to be automatically selected. This automatic selection only occurs if the memory file has been sorted by frequency. With this check box off, this selection does not occur. The reason for setting this off is a performance reason. Under some circumstances, this automatic selection can slow down tuning of the radio. The option "Frequency Event Timer" is explained in the "Frequency Event Timer" section. Preferences4 Menu Window The "PBT Drag Scale" and "RIT Drag Scale" are used for setting the fine tuning rate of RIT/XIT and PBT. You can set the fine tuning rates to 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, or 32. Changes to these values do not go into effect until the program is restarted. The "Transfer Folder" box is used to set the folder for the Ten-Tec file interface. Some logging programs using the Ten-Tec file interface are not configurable for the location of "pegasus.out" and "pegasus.in". This parameter allows you to specify the folder for these files. Setting TRANSFER FOLDER C:\Orion would cause the location of the "pegasus.out" and "pegasus.in" files to be in the "c:\Orion" folder. The default for this parameter is the folder the N4PY control program runs in. The default is in effect if the window shows all blanks. The "High Speed tuning Factor" box causes the tuning rate when the pod tuning knob is turned at a high rate to be multiplied by this factor's amount. Legal values for this factor are 1 to 100. Use the value of 1 to disable this feature. Once the high speed tuning factor kicks in, it will stay in effect until the pod tuning knob is stopped for 1 full second. The "High Speed Sensitivity" value controls the point where the high speed tuning factor kicks in. A low value causes the high speed tuning factor to easiy kick in. A high value makes the high spped tuning factor kick rarely and only when the knob is turned very fast. The default value for this is 3. The legal range is 1 to 90. The "S Meter Compensation" box is an S meter compensation value that you can select to adjust the calibration of your S meter. This value is expressed in + or - dB. Remember each S unit is 6 dB. For example, to make your S meter always read 12 dB lower (2 S uints), you would set the value as follows: S Meter Compensation -12 To make your S meter always read 12 dB higher (2 S units), you would set the value as follows: S Meter Compensation 12 If the "RED Frequency Display on Transmit" check box is on, when transmitting the frequency is displayed in RED. If this box is set off, the frequency is always displayed in yellow. If split is on, the VFO B frequency box will always display the transmit frequency in red as a reminder that split frequency operation is being used. If the "S Meter Display Only" check box is on, the S meter display will not change when transmitting. The option "AMPTune Disable Keying Loop" is for people that use the amptune feature not to tune their amplifier, but instead to set their antenna tuner. With this option checked on, your amplifier will NOT be keyed when amptune is on and you transmit. The Orion "Sweep Delay" setting may be configured. Because the AGC in the Orion receiver is not extremely fast even in fast mode, a delay needs to be added when the sweep is running to allow time for the AGC to react to the new frequency as the frequency is swept. The normal value for this parameter is 10 millisecond. You can experiment with increased delays for more sweep resolution. Valid values are 0 to 500. Watch out for the zero setting! The box "Use UCW for Normal CW" allows you to set your normal CW mode to UCW instead of LCW. If checked, normal CW mode is UCW. If inchecked, normal CW is LCW. The box "Scan resume after transmit time" allows you to configure a scan automatic resume time. If the scan was stopped because the transmitter came on, this value controls how long transmit has to be off before scan comes back on again. A zero value means no automatic scan resume is used. The value of the resume time is in seconds. VOX Controls The VOX controls are in the settings menu in the "VOX Controls" window. The are self explanatory. The Orion Vox gain control works backward from normal intuition. The lower the setting, the easier it is to trip VOX. This is just the way the Orion firmware is programmed. Frequency Scan Window Selecting this window will show the frequency scan controls. The scan will start at the "Frequency Start" setting. When the radio reaches the "Frequency Stop" setting, it will loop back to the "Frequency Start" setting. The "Frequency Increment" controls how much is added to the scan frequency for each dwell time. The "Dwell Time" setting controls how long the radio remains on each frequency. To start the scan, "click" the "Start Frequency Scan" button". To stop the scan, "click" the "Stop Frequency Scan" button. The scan will not start if a memory scan or spectrum sweep is in progress. The scan will be stopped if the radio goes into transmit mode. You can control the direction of the scan. If the start frequency is less than the stop frequency, the scan will go up in frequency. If the start frequency is greater than the stop frequency, the scan will go down in frequency. Colors Window In order to help out hams with sight difficulties, the color of the button text can be configured. There are three settings to control the text colors of the buttons. Additionally, you can also define the color for local time display and UTC time display. There are 8 standard colors that can be selected. They are BLACK, WHITE, RED, GREEN, BLUE, YELLOW, PURPLE, and CYAN. There are also 2 user definable colors that can be selected with the names COLOR1 and COLOR2. Local Time This entry sets the color of the text for the display of local time. UTC Time This entry sets the color of the text for the display of UTC time. Button Text This entry sets the color of the text for all non-selected buttons. Button Sel Text This entry sets the color of the text for all selected buttons. Special Button Sel Text This entry sets the color of the selected text for the five special buttons LOCK, TUNE, DUAL, AMPTN, and SPLIT. CW Bkgnd This entry sets the color of the background for the CW keyboard window. Settings Bkgnd This entry sets the color of the background for the settings window. CW Text This entry sets the color of the text for the CW keyboard window. To define the user color called COLOR1, three settings are used to specify the amount of red, green, and blue to make up the color. The range for the amount of each color is 0 to 255. Color1 Red This entry controls the amount of red in the Color1 color. Color1 Green This entry controls the amount of green in the Color1 color. Color1 Blue This entry controls the amount of blue in the Color1 color. To define the user color called COLOR2, three settings are used to specify the amount of red, green, and blue to make up the color. The range for the amount of each color is 0 to 255. Color2 Red This entry controls the amount of red in the Color2 color. Color2 Green This entry controls the amount of green in the Color2 color. Color2 Blue This entry controls the amount of blue in the Color2 color. SWL Band Assign Window This window allows the 11 SWL band buttons to be defined to any frequency range you like. If you do not use the SWL bands and prefer to make these buttons be RTTY buttons or if you just want to make these buttons be any band you desire, you can do it here. The first column is labelled "Caption". The 11 edit boxes in this column allow you to name the button text for the SWL band buttons. The second column labelled "Lower Limit", allows you to set the lower frequency limit for the band you are defining. The third column labelled "Upper Limit", allows you to set the upper frequency limit for the band you are defining. Be careful when you set up your band ranges not to have any bands overlap. The first time you go to the new band you have defined, you should set the mode you desire for this band. The button will now remember the frequency, mode, and filter when you return to this band. You can change the column name for the SWL band buttons. This is the box at the bottom labelled "Column Name" in the "SWL Band Assign" window. Call Sign, TopTen Window Your call sign can be displayed on the control panel. You set your call sign in the "Call Sign" box in this window. You can define the color of the text of your call sign on the radio panel. They are BLACK, WHITE, RED, GREEN, BLUE, YELLOW, PURPLE, and CYAN. There are also 2 user definable colors that can be selected with the names COLOR1 and COLOR2. The default is BLACK. You can also define the relative size of the characters by using the "Call Sign Size" box. You can set the relative size from a value of 1 (the default), to a value of 15 (probably too large). For the boxes labelled "TopTen Devices", see the section on using Top Ten devices antenna control near the end of this file. 6 & 2 Transverters Window 6m Crystal Correction If you use the Ten-Tec 6 meter transverter, you can get the display to show the frequency very accurately by specifying the amount of error in the transverter crystal frequency. Specify this error in hertz with a plus or minus sign in the edit box. 6M Drive Power Max (0-100) You can specify the maximum amount of ALC drive to the transverter with this parameter. Its range is 0 to 100 with 100 corresponding to 100 watts. Use caution when setting this. 5 watts is the recommended setting which corresponds to a setting of 5. The scale of the TX slider is adjusted so that full scale corresponds to this value. If you are going to use the Orion's transverter output, set this value to zero. This will then automatically toggle the Orion transverter function in the Orion TX menu. 6M IF This parameter controls the internal IF frequency to the Orion will be set at when using the converter. The Ten-Tec transverter uses a 14 MHz IF. This is the default value. If you are using some other transverter that uses a different IF, you can specify it in this edit box. 2m Crystal Correction If you use the Ten-Tec 2 meter transverter, you can get the display to show the frequency very accurately by specifying the amount of error in the transverter crystal frequency. Specify this error in hertz with a plus or minus sign in the edit box. 2M Drive Power Max (0-100) You can specify the maximum amount of ALC drive to the transverter with this parameter. Its range is 0 to 100 with 100 corresponding to 100 watts. Use caution when setting this. 5 watts is the recommended setting which corresponds to a setting of 5. The scale of the TX slider is adjusted so that full scale corresponds to this value. If you are going to use the Orion's transverter output, set this value to zero. This will then automatically toggle the Orion transverter function in the Orion TX menu. 2M IF This parameter controls the internal IF frequency to the Orion will be set at when using the converter. The Ten-Tec transverter uses a 28 MHz IF. This is the default value. If you are using some other transverter that uses a different IF, you can specify it in this edit box. If the "Suppress Transverter Warnings" check box is on, no warnings will be issued when leaving a transverter band. User Configurable Transverters Window There are 5 user configurable transverter setups that the user can setup to work with virtually any transverter. These transverters are in addition to the 6 and 2 meter transverter setups that are built in. These transverters are configured in the "User 1 & 2 TranV" window, the "User 3 & 4 TranV" window, and the "User 5 TranV" window. The transverter must not be in the 1.7 MHz to 30 MHz range (the Orion can transmit in this range) and the transverter must tune in the same direction as the IF frequency. That is to say, as you tune the transverter to a higher frequency, the Orion IF frequency must also go higher as well. You cannot use an inverting transverter. For each transverter, there are 6 parameters to configure. They are: User N Lower Limit This sets the lower frequency limit for the transverter. It also enables the transverter and makes its band button appear after and program restart. User N Upper Limit This sets the upper frequency limit for the transverter. User N IF This tells the program what frequency to set the Orion to at the lower limit of the transverter range. User N Button Text This tells the program what text to display on the band button for this transverter. It is limited to 4 characters. User N Drive Pwr Max (0-100) This sets the maximum drive power the Orion will run at to drive the transverter. Its range is 0 to 100. 100 corresponds to 100 watts. 5 is the default which corresponds to 5 watts. Great care should be used in setting this value. The scale of the TX slider is adjusted so that full scale corresponds to this value. If you are going to use the Orion's transverter output, set this value to zero. This will then automatically toggle the Orion transverter function in the Orion TX menu. User N Crystal Correction You can get the display to show the frequency very accurately by specifying the amount of error in the transverter crystal frequency. Specify this error in hertz with a plus or minus sign in the edit box. The band buttons for these transverters only appear when the particular transverter is configured. The buttons are in the lower right corner of the radio window. Care must be taken when setting up these parameters, as bad values can cause strange problems. RTTY, KB Settings Menu Window The "RTTY, KB Settings" window of the "settings" menu contains options to control the RTTY and digital mode operations. The RTTY button is configurable. The label for the button can be specified, the actual operating mode can be set to USB or LSB, and the frequency offset in hertz can be specified. If an offset of zero is specified, the mode will operate just like USB or LSB. For example, you can define this button for use for PSK31 as follows: RTTY Label PSK31 RTTY Mode USB RTTY Offset 0 You can also define a second RTTY mode. You select your second RTTY mode by right clicking on the "RTTY" button. To define a second RTTY mode set the following settings: RTTY Label 2 RTTY RTTY Mode 2 LSB RTTY Offset 2 2100 The RTTY Label 2 parameter being defined activates RTTY mode 2. The bottom line is if you are using any of the newer digital modes, use the PSK31 example above. If the are using the older RTTY standard RTTY, use the example above for RTTY Mode 2. When the "Output RTTY Mode is RTTY Label" check box is set, the text for the mode in the pegasus.out file for the RTTY modes will show as the value you have defined for your RTTY label. With this check box set to off (the default), either USB or LSB will show as the mode text for the RTTY modes in the pegasus.out file. Step Window The "step buttons" are user configurable to any step between 1 and 10000. They are configured in the "step" window of the "settings" menu. The default values for the operating modes can be configured to any step between 1 and 10000. They are also configured on the "step" window of the "settings" menu. Note that in AM mode, if the frequency is in a HAM band, the AM step will be the value specified for SSB step. Also note that MW Step defines the step value for the American AM broadcast band. The actual step that is used in the Orion will always be set to 1 unless frequency polling is turned on. Transmitter Window This window contains the sliders to control the delay for the Amp Key1 line and Amp Key2 line. These sliders actually remember a separate setting for CW mode verses all other modes. If you are in CW mode when they are set, this will not effect the setting while in other modes. The converse is also true. The range is zero delay at the bottom and 1 second delay at the top. See sections on "Internal Tuner" and "External LDG Tuner" later in this document. Interface Window This window allows you to configure your primary comport. The listbox on this window defines the comport number used as the primary radio port for the Orion. If you check the box labelled "Get Orion at Start", the program will get the Orion VFO A and VFO B frequency, mode, filter, PBT setting, RIT setting, antenna setting, and output power setting at startup and use these as initial values instead of the last used settings by the program. This check box is not available if you have the RX-340 configured with the Orion. "WriteLog Multiple Radio Interface" - This feature should only be turned on when using WriteLog and running multiple instances of the N4PY program with each instance controlling a separate Orion. This feature allows WriteLog to log each instance of each N4PY program to a separate log file in WriteLog. Each instance is associated with the primary comport number the N4PY program is using. "Using Microham Band Decoder or USB Router" - Set this checkbox when you are using the Microham band decoder or their USB router. It causes the Orion to be polled for frequency and mode once every 2 seconds even if POLLING is off so the band decoder or router can keep track of settings. "Using SteppIR Controller" - Set this checkbox when you are using the SteppIR controller. It causes the Orion to be polled for frequency once every 2 seconds even if POLLING is off so the SteppIR can keep track of the current frequency. Interface2 Window This window allows you to configure your secondary comport for the RX340. The listbox on this window defines the comport number used as the secondary radio port for the RX340. If you do not have an RX340 attached, select "NONE" for the comport. Use RX340 for VFO B in Ham Bands - Checking this box will cause the RX340 to be used as VFO B when VFO A is tuned to the ham bands. Not checking this box will cause the Orion sub-receiver to be used as VFO B when VFO A is tuned to the ham bands. Use RX340 for VFO A in Ham Bands - Checking this box will cause the RX340 to be used as VFO A all the time. This allows the Orion just to be used as the transmitter and the Orion main receiver to be used as the VFO B sub-receiver in the ham bands. Reinitialize RX340 - Checking this box will cause a full reinitialize of the rx340. I have seen times when serial communication with the rx340 is lost. This button will restore serial communication. If DUAL is on when this is run, DUAL needs to be shut off and then back on. When VFO A is not tuned to the ham bands, the RX340 will always be used for VFO A and the Orion sub-receiver or main receiver will be used for VFO B. Frequency Event Timer This option is selected with a check box in "Preferences3". This feature allows you to define frequency events and have the radio go to those frequencies when the time for the event occurs. This is very useful for unattended operation with a receiving radio on the internet. The frequency events are defined in a special file called "events.txt". This file is created the first time you turn this option on with its check box. The file is located in the c:\n4py folder or wherever you have the program installed. Once you have turned on the option the first time, exit the program, and edit the "events.txt" file to create frequency events. Do not edit the file with the program running. The file is column sensitive. Each time must be 2 numeric characters followed by a colon, followed by 2 numeric characters. There should then be one space followed by a frequency expressed in megahertz. The events are defined by the day of the week. There can be up to 24 events for each day of the week. The file has a section for each day of the week and 24 events for each day. You should carefully edit the default lines with the values you want. All the default lines have a time of 00:00 and a frequency of 00.000. These times are in the local time of your computer and not in UTC. The times must be in 24 hour time with a range from 00:00 to 23:59. When program finds a match with the day of the week, hour, and minute, the program will change to the indicated frequency and set the corresponding default mode and filter. Internal Tuner Setting the "Enable Intrnl Tuner" check box in the "Transmitter" window of the "settings" menu will cause the Orion internal tuner controls to appear at the lower left side of the radio panel. There are 2 buttons. They are: 1) "Auto Tnr" - Left clicking this button will cause the internal tuner to go into auto tune mode. When the SWR stabilizes or 8 seconds go by, it will automatically stop. 2) "Bypass" - Left clicking this button will put the internal tuner into bypass mode, thus removing it from the output circuit. There is also a slider in the "transmitter window" of the settings window. This slider is labelled "Tuner Pwr" and controls the amount of power used when the internal tuner is tuning. The range is 10 to 50 watts. Please note that you must have purchased the Orion internal tuner from Ten-Tec for this to work. LDG Electronics AT-200PC Autotuner Setting the "Enable AT-200PC" check box in the "Transmitter" window of the "settings" menu will cause the memory tuner controls to appear at the lower left side of the radio panel. You must also set the correct comport for the AT-200PC. When using the Jupiter with the AT-200PC, you must be in pegasus emulation mode. The Jupiter cannot be keyed from the program while in front panel mode. The LDG AT-200PC must be at firmware version 1.9 or later for correct operation. See the LDG website for how to upgrade your tuner to this version. When using this tuner, the program will remember the tuner antenna settings by band. In addition, when changing bands with the program band buttons, the last tuner setting for that band will be recalled automatically without transmitting. If for some reason, it is ever necessary to clear out the EEPROM in the LDG tuner, the "Clear Mem" button in the "Transmitter" section of the settings menu can be used for this purpose. This will clear out all tuner memories. This is necessary if you have changed antennas and want to setup new tuner memories. Also, it is recommended that you perform an "Auto Tnr" on each band you will operate. For bands 7 mhz and up, you should do one "Auto Tnr" in the CW portion and another one in the SSB portion for the band you use. For 80 meters, you should do an "Auto Tnr" for at each 100 khz interval. For 160 meters, you should do one at each 50 khz interval for the portion of the band you intend to use. All these "Auto Tnr" operations must be done with the correct antenna selected. Once these "Auto Tnr" functions have been done, it will not be necessary to do them again unless your antennas change. There are 8 buttons. They are: 1) "Auto Tnr" - Left clicking this button will cause the memory tuner to go into auto tune mode. When the tune completes or 20 seconds go by, it will automatically stop. When it completes, the store memory routine will automatically run to save the current settings for the particular memory range you are in. If the "Auto Tnr" button turns red after the tune operation is over, it indicates the tune operation failed and the tune needs to be done again. Also, if the "Auto Tnr" button remains blue, it indicates the program 20 second timer timed out without getting a response from the tuner. If you click the "Sto" button, the program will accept the settings from the failed tune. 2) "Bypass" - Left clicking this button will put the memory tuner into bypass mode, thus removing it from the output circuit. Click the "Rcl Tuner" button to put the tuner back in use. 3) "Ant1" - Left clicking this button will toggle between the tuner's antenna 1 and antenna 2 connection. 4) "Cap" - Left clicking this button will tweak the capacitor setting of the tuner "down" in value. Right clicking this button will tweak the capacitor setting "up" in value. 5) "Ind" - Left clicking this button will tweak the inductor setting of the tuner "down" in value. Right clicking this button will tweak the inductor setting "up" in value. 6) "HiZ" - Left clicking this button will cause to tuner to go to its "Lo Z" or low impedance setting. Left clicking again will cause the tuner to go to its "Hi Z" or high impedance setting. The descriptor on the button indicates the current impedance setting of the tuner. 7) "Sto" - Left clicking this button will cause to memory tuner to save its current settings for this frequency to memory. It is only necessary to use this button if the "touch up" cap and ind buttons have been used. 8) "Rcl Tnr" - Left clicking this button will cause the memory tuner to recall the last settings for this frequency from the tuner's memory. If the SWR is greater than 2.0, the "Auto Tnr" procedure will automatically be started to try and find a better match. If the "Auto Tnr" button turns red after the tune operation is over, it indicates the tune operation failed and the tune needs to be done again. If you click the "Sto" button, the program will accept the settings from the failed tune. There is a tuning paramter in the pegasus.ini file to set the SWR threshold. Look for the line that says: LDG SWR THRESH=50 To change the SWR threshold, change the value to one of the following: 50 = 1.1 51 = 1.3 52 = 1.5 53 = 1.7 This one seems to work the best for me 54 = 2.0 55 = 2.5 56 = 3.0 The default is 53 for 1.7 to 1 threshold. External LDG Model AT-11MP Tuner Thanks go to Mark Erbaugh, N8ME, for information on this feature. Please note that some computer's serial port will not work with the DTR line turned off. Turn on the external tuner feature and then exit and restart the program. If the program still communicates properly with the radio, then you can use the external tuner feature. You can now use the LDG external tuner model AT-11MP by making a simple wiring change to your serial port cable for the Orion. If you wire the DTR line (pin 4) of the serial cable to the "Tune" line of the LDG external tuner, automatic tuning is possible. This is done as follows: You must modify the serial cable for your Orion. You will need the extra following parts: a female DB9 connector to plug into the tuner 2N2222 transistor 1000 ohm 1/4 watt resistor 5 feet of RG-174 thin coax (RG-58 will work also) Carefully remove the insulation from the cable to expose the individual wires inside the cable. You need to determine the wire that goes to pin 4. This is the DTR line. You can use a small pin and an ohm meter to determine this. You also need to find the wire that goes to pin 5. This is ground on the serial cable. Solder the pin 4 wire the 1000 ohm resistor. Solder the other end of the resistor to the base of the 2N2222 transistor. Solder the pin 5 wire to the emitter of the transistor. Now take the RG-174 coax and solder the center lead of the coax to the collector of the transistor. Solder the shield of coax to the emitter of the transistor. Now, using the DB9 female connector, solder pin 2 (tune) of the DB9 to the other end of the coax. Solder the shield of the coax to pin 4 of the DB9. This is shown schematically below. serial cable coax -------- to pin 2 (tune) of tuner DB9 / DTR PIN 4 --------1000 ohms---- | 2N2222 \ > GND PIN 5 ------------------------|------- to pin 4 (GND) of tuner DB9 The above will allow DTR of the serial cable to control the "Tune" function of the tuner. Program settings: Setting the "Enable Extrnl Tuner" check box in the "Transmitter" window of the "settings" menu will cause the Orion external tuner control to appear at the lower left side of the radio panel. There is 1 button for this. It is labelled "Auto Tnr". Left clicking this button will cause the external tuner to go into auto tune mode. When the SWR stabilizes or 8 seconds go by, it will automatically stop. There is also a slider in the "transmitter window" of the settings window. This slider is labelled "Tuner Pwr" and controls the amount of power used when the external tuner is tuning. The range is 10 to 50 watts. Tokyo High Power Amplifier HL-1.5KFX There are special Tokyo High Power settings in the "Usr5 TrnsV, Steppir" settings window. Here you will find a "Tokyo High Power Comport" check box and comport list box. If you are using the Tokyo High Power Amplifier HL-1.5KFX this is where you define the comport number for the HL-1.5KFX amplifier. The program will run the comport at 9600 baud and use a Kenwood interface to communicate with the amplifier. Connect the serial cable to the Kenwood amplifier serial connection and set the band control on the amplifier to "Kenwood". The program will send out the operating frequency to the amplifier once a second. The serial cable for the Tokyo High Power amp needs to be a null modem cable. That is pin 3 (transmit data) on the computer end needs to go to pin 2 (receive data) on the amp end. Also pin 5 for ground on the computer end needs to go to pin 5 on the amp end. LDG Electronics DTS-4 and DTS-6 Coax Antenna Switch The LDG DTS-4 and DTS-6 coax antenna switches are supported To setup the program for LDG coax switch: 1) With the program NOT running, open the orion.ini file and find the line that says: LDG COAX COMPORT= And change it to LDG COAX COMPORT=COMx where x= the com number from 1 to 9 2) Find the lines that say: ANT 1 LOW=0 ANT 1 HIGH=0 ANT 2 LOW=0 ANT 2 LOW=0 Etc., and set the ranges for each antenna in mHz. For example if antenna 3 was to cover the 20 meter band, you should put ANT 3 LOW=14.0 ANT 3 HIGH=14.3 Save the changes to the orion.ini file. The controls for the switch will show up in the "transmitter" window of the settings menu. With "Auto" selected, the frequency ranges above will cause the particular antenna for that range to be selected. If you select any antenna by clicking on its button, the auto function is turned off and that antenna will remain selected even if you change frequencies. Just click the auto button again to restore automatic antenna selection back. Orion.ini file Parameters for the [OPERATING STATUS] section The value for each parameter below is set to the default value. This is the value you get when the parameter is not defined. The text will indicate what other values are legal. SCALEX=1 SCALEY=1 There are scale factors for the main radio window. You can add lines in the [RADIO WINDOW] section for horizontal and vertical sizing scale factors. For horizontal scaling use SCALEX=1 For vertical scaling use SCALEY=1 The scale factors are used as multipliers of all coordinates in the program. With these values set to 1, the size of the main radio window will be unchanged. To make the window 10% larger in both axis use a value of 1.1 for each scale factor. To make the window 10% smaller, use 0.9 for each scale factor. This is being added for hams that have visual problems seeing the screen and not recommended if you have normal vision. If you make the window scale smaller, some characters may not display properly. Try this at your own risk. Memory File Usage Memories are saved in files that are "RMY" file types. RMY files are binary files and are not editable with an editor. They save all the significant parameters for the station including "split status" and the transmit frequency. If you want to edit an RMY file, you must first export the file. See "Importing and Exporting Files" below. The "File" menu has several entries to control memory file usage. The memory file entries in the "File" menu are as follows: New - Clicking this entry will allow you to start a brand new memory file. If the current memory file has not been saved to disk, you will be asked if you want to save it before the current memory is cleared. Open - Clicking this entry will allow you to open a memory file that has been previously saved. You will be shown all the RMY file types that exist in the program working folder. Close - Clicking this entry will save the current memory file contents to disk and end usage of this memory file. Save - Clicking this entry will save the current memory file contents to disk but still keep the memory contents in memory. This is useful to do just after you add a memory and want the disk to be updated with the new entry. Save As - Clicking this entry will save the current memory file contents to disk but still keep the memory contents in memory. This is useful to do just after you add a memory and want the disk to be updated with the new entry. It also allows you to give the disk file a new file name. Importing and Exporting Files On the file menu, there is an Import and Export. These functions allow the ability to import and export files that are text files. This allows you to export the current memory files as a text file and then add more stations to it. You may get these files from any source and simply combine them by following the file format. Later, you may import this file back into memory and assign an RMY file name to it. The format of the file is straight forward. An entry simply occupies a single line. Each line has ASCII text for the station name, station frequency in MHz, station mode, filter in hertz, country, language and optionally split frequency. Each value is separated by a comma with no extra spaces. Inspection of an existing file will show the format clearly. To export an RMY file, first open the RMY file as follows: 1) Click on "File" 2) Click on "Open" 3) Select the RMY file you wish to open 4) Select OK The above opens and loads the RMY file in memory. To export the RMY file, proceed as follows: 1) Click on "File" 2) Click on "Export" 3) Type in the name you wish for the CDF file 4) Select OK To import a CDF text file, proceed as follows: 1) Click on "File" 2) Select "Import" 3) You should see the files of type CDF. 4) Select the file you wish to import and click OK. If you then want to create an "RMY" file so that when you run the N4PY program next time you can get this file automatically selected, proceed as follows: 1) With the CDF loaded into memory as above, click "File". 2) Select "Save As" 3) Type in the name such as "NEWFILE.RMY" 4) Select OK This will save the data in the RMY format. You can now make this file name the default memory file as follows: 1) Select "File" 2) Select "Open" 3) You should see "NEWFILE.RMY" 4) Select this file as click OK. If you are a member of the ILG database (www.ilgradio.com), you can download an ASCII text version of their data. This is a file called "ilgstext.zip". I have a DOS utility program that can convert this database to a "CDF" file which can then be imported into the Orion control program. Send me an email if you would like to have this file converting program. Saving and Restoring Orion Memories On the file menu, there are three entries for saving and restoring the Orion memories. They are as follows: Save Orion Memories - Clicking this button will allow you to select a "CDF" file to save the memories in. The memories will be saved in a standard CDF file that can be used later to import files. It takes about 2 minutes to save the 200 memories. The Orion memories are numbered 1 to 200. Please note that because the Orion returns a frequency of 15.0 mhz if a memory is empty, you can use 15.0 mhz for an Orion memory and have it saved in the "CDF" file. Restore Orion Memories - Clicking this button will allow you to select a "CDF" file to restore memories from the file to the Orion. Abort Sav/Res Mems - Clicking this button while a "save memory" or "restore memory" operation is underway will abort the save or restore memory operation. During the Save and Restore memory operations, the current memory will show as the text on the "Store" below, just to the left of the "Recall" button. Using the RX-340 with the Orion If you wish to run the RX-340 as an AUX receiver for the Orion, you need to add an AUX receiver output to the Orion. To modify the Orion to have an AUX receiver output at the "spare" jack: 1) Remove the Orion top cover. 2) Prepare a 5 inch piece of RG-174 cable. On one end, make a center and ground pair of connections. On the other end, remove all the shield and just make a center pin connection. 2) With the top cover removed and viewing from the top rear of the Orion, locate the board that has the 12 phono connectors coming out of the rear of the Orion. On this board, you will see a small coax connector labelled "1" near the left top of the board. The female part of the connector is soldered to the board with 3 very small pins. The outside 2 pins are ground, and the center pin is the antenna output to the sub-receiver. 3) With the 5 inch piece of RG-174 coax cable, tack solder one end of the center conductor to the center pin for coax connector "1". 4) Solder the shield of the RG-174 to either one of the ground pins of coax connector "1". Make these connections as short as possible. 5) Locate the "spare" jack on the back of the Orion. On this same board you will find a pin from the spare jack that comes right through the board. Tack solder the other end of the RG-174 5 inch cable to this spare pin. There is no connection of the shield of the 5 inch coax on this end. 6) Check your connections with an ohm meter. With coax "1" removed, you should now see continuity between the female "1" connector and the spare jack. Make sure this is not shorted to ground. 7) Replace the Orion top cover. The spare jack on the Orion is now an AUX receiver output that is connected to the sub-receiver antenna. This can be run to the antenna input of the RX-340. This jack is fully protected from high transmit power when transmitting. To mute the RX-340 when the Orion transmits, connect the Amp Key 1 line of the Orion to pin 11 of the DB-15 on the RX-340. Use coax cable for this connection and connect the shield to pin 1 of the DB 15. Set an SSB delay for AMP KEY1 in the program to zero and use about 50 for CW setting of the AMP KEY1 line. For a serial cable for the RX-340, I made a cable with a male DB 25 that plugs into the RX-340 and a female DB 9 on the other end that plugs into the PC serial port. The cable is 2 RG/174 cables. The first cable has the center lead going to pin 2 on the DB 25 and pin 3 on the DB 9. The second cable has the center lead going to pin 3 on the DB 25 and pin 2 on the DB 9. The shields on both cables are connected together and go to pin 7 on the DB 25 and pin 5 on the DB 9. RX340 Switch Settings The RX340 jumpers on the back must be set for 9600 Baud, 8 bit, no parity. The receiver address must be set to 1. Set the jumpers on the back of the RX340 as follows: Switch S1 1 down 2 up 3 up 4 down 5 up 6 down 7 down 8 down Switch S2 1 up 2 down 3 down 4 down 5 down 6 down 7 down 8 up Using Top Ten Devices Antenna Control There is an automatic antenna selection feature provided to allow users to use the automatic band decoder provided by Top Ten Devices. This unit allows you to have either an external amplifier or external antenna switch automatically follow the Orion frequency settings. This program offers full support for the parallel port with all windows versions. Information on this band decoder can be found at www.qth.com/topten/bdecoder.htm Parallel port 1 is used to control the Top Ten device controller. This is enabled in one of two configurations by going to the "Call Sign, TopTen" window of the "settings" menu. Selecting "TopTen Devices Option 1", causes the bands marked on the Top Ten Devices controller to follow the Orion frequency precisely. In option 1, the bands are selected as follows: Frequency < 2 MHz selects band 1 Frequency >=2 MHz and < 4 MHz selects band 2 Frequency >=4 MHz and < 8 MHz selects band 3 Frequency >=8 MHz and < 12 MHz selects band 4 Frequency >=12 MHz and < 16 MHz selects band 5 Frequency >=16 MHz and < 20 MHz selects band 6 Frequency >=20 MHz and < 24 MHz selects band 7 Frequency >=24 MHz and < 26 MHz selects band 8 Frequency >=26 selects band 9 Selecting "TopTen Devices Option 2" causes a unique setup for controlling the device. In option 2, the bands are selected as follows: Frequency < 200 kHz selects band 1 Frequency >=200 kHz and < 30 MHz selects band 2 Frequency >=30 MHz and < 55 MHz selects band 3 Frequency >=55 MHz and < 149 MHz selects band 4 Frequency >=149 MHz selects band 9 When a frequency change is detected, the new band setting is output to the parallel port. The Top Ten Automatic Band Decoder is plugged into this parallel port and responds to the information sent to the port. Program Support for the Griffin Technology PowerMate The Griffin Technology PowerMate can be used like the TenTec remote pod for tuning the Orion when you do not have the tentec remote pod. It is also very helpful when running the Orion remotely over an internet or LAN connection. There is a box in the "Remote Pod Fkeys" window of the "Settings" menu labelled "Using Griffin PowerMate Knob". Checking this box enables special support for the PowerMate. The PowerMate must be configured as follows: RotateRight - SendKey with key value of Alt-G RotateLeft - SendKey with key value of Alt-B Click - SendKey with key value of Alt-I LongClick - SendKey with key value of Alt-Y Also, set the PowerMate sensitivity all the way to "Fast". The active application when the Orion control program is running is Orion.EXE. The numeric keypad on the keyboard becomes the keys that go along with the PowerMate. If the keys are not reacting properly, you may have to click on the program radio panel to get the keyboard focus to the radio panel. Once the PowerMate is properly setup, you can now configure "Remote Pod 0-3" and "Remote Pod 4-9" to operate from the numeric keypad of the computer keyboard. Pressing the PowerMate knob down quickly will produce a click that the program will interpret as "F1" and follow the setting for "F1". Likewise, pressing the PowerMate knob for a long click will cause an "F2" operation to be performed. There is no operation for the F3 key. Once properly setup, you can use the PowerMate to change frequency, filters, RIT, PBT and many other things. You can still use the numeric keypad for direct frequency entry by pressing the "ENTER" key first. You can purchase the PowerMate by going to www.griffintechnology.com. Hot Keys on the keyboard Increase step size Decrease step size Tune Down Tune Up Fast Tune Down Fast Tune Up Decrease Speaker Volume Increase Speaker Volume PBT Up PBT Down <-> Decrease Speaker Volume <+> Increase Speaker Volume A=B A/B AM Mode CW Mode Speech Proc FM Mode Show Message Box with this Menu CW Keyboard Keyer LSB Mode Mute Audio TxLoop PTT Toggle RTTY Mode Split ATTN USB Mode Calibrate Quit Accessory Input Toggle 0 - 9 Begin Entering Frequency F1 CW Keyboard Keyer Memory 1 F2 CW Keyboard Keyer Memory 2 F3 CW Keyboard Keyer Memory 3 F4 CW Keyboard Keyer Memory 4 F5 CW Keyboard Keyer Memory 5 to SSB Band Buttons to CW Band Buttons For comments and suggestions email to n4py@arrl.net Carl Moreschi N4PY 121 Little Bell Dr, Hays, NC 28635 Please do not email or call Ten-Tec regarding this software.