Configuring Kenwood APRS-Capable Radios

Kenwood has manufactured several radios, including the TM-D710 and TH-D72, that are capable of standalone operation as an APRS terminal. However, their screens are somewhat small, displaying limited information. YAAC can read the data feed from the Kenwood radio and display it with YAAC's map and tabular analysis capabilities. Unfortunately, Kenwood's firmware does not allow transmitting APRS messages from both the radio and an external computer simultaneously, so Kenwood mode is receive-only for YAAC. If you wish to transmit messages with YAAC through a Kenwood radio, you need to put the Kenwood radio's TNC in PACKET (not APRS) mode, use Serial TNC mode in YAAC, and give up the ability to use the Kenwood radio's display for tactical APRS status; note that you can use the Radio View in YAAC as a substitute for the Kenwood transceiver's APRS display.

To add a Kenwood radio, click the Add button on the Configure Ports tab. The port editing dialog will appear. Set the port type to Kenwood.

The other parameters you will need to specify for the Kenwood radio/TNC are:

• the name of the port to which the TNC is connected. On Microsoft Windows, this will be a COM port (COM1, COM2, etc.). On Linux, this will be a /dev/ttyS port (ex. /dev/ttyS0) or a USB serial port (ex., /dev/ttyUSB0). Similar device names will be used on other Unix derivatives. Note that on Linux and Unix systems, you will need the access right to access serial ports. Typically, this will be membership in a group owning the serial ports, such as dialout, tty, or uucp. You will also need the access right to write a lock file into the lock file directory on your system. Typically, this will be membership in the lock group.

  NOTE: The Fedora Core 15 distro of Linux has a known incompatibility with the RXTX library used by YAAC to access the serial ports, due to moving the lock directory to a place not known to the RXTX library. To work around this, ensure that the /var/lock directory's group is lock and has group write privilege, and that your account is a member of the lock group as mentioned above.

• The baud rate the TNC will be communicating at (typically, 9600 baud). Ensure that the TNC is set to the same speed as you configure this port to. Note this is independent of the baud rate transmitted over the radio (1200 baud on 2 meters, 300 baud on HF, and 9600 baud on UHF).

Once you have the settings the way you want them, click OK. Ensure that the radio is connected to the port before you click OK.