Keywords: manual

## Testing hamlib

At his point you should probably read your rig's manual, to see how you should hook up your rig to the serial port. For my kenwood rig, I need a standard serial cable with two 9-pin connectors. You also need write permission to the serial port. On my system, this means I need to add myself to the dialout group, with a command like:

> $ adduser 'username' dialout

Next, you can test hamlib with rigctl, a binary distributed with hamlib. See which rigs are supported:

> $ rigctl -list

Then start rigctl with your model number, e.g. '210' for a kenwood TS-870S, hooked up to COM2:

> $ rigctl -r /dev/ttyS1 -m 210

Now you can check out if mode, PTT, frequency, signal strength and power (all used by xlog) are retrieved. At the 'Rig command:' prompt, type:

f
  : retrieve frequency
m
  : retrieve mode
t
  : retrieve PTT (TX/RX mode)
l
  and 'STRENGTH': retrieve signal strength (-54=S0 and 0=S9)
l
  and 'RFPOWER': retrieve rig power (0.39 = 100 Watts)

The hamlib FAQ at `http://hamlib.sf.net/faq.html` gives some answers to common problems. You could also ask around on the hamlib mailing list, see: `http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hamlib-developer`.