Lucent KS-24019 - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / testgear

author: perdrix
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2017, 03:11:49 pm
content: I recently acquired a pair of Lucent KS-24019 modules - the L108 (RFTGm-II-Rb) and L109 (RFTGm-II-XO).Other than the user manual which I DLed from docs.xdev.com, is there any other information available? I can just hook up 24V, and let it rip, I can attach an RS-422 dongle but as I don't know how to talk to it (not even baud rate etc, never mind what commands to send ...).I anyone has "been there, done that" I'd be interested to find out more.Can it be converted to do 10MHz out rather than 15MHz?ThanksDave

author: Vgkid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 18, 2017, 04:40:09 pm
content: I own one. My gpsdo doesn't seem to have wanted to work, the rb does. I'm not home, so I will look at this later.

author: texaspyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 19, 2017, 12:02:47 am
content: I recently added support for the RFTG-m to Lady Heather. It took quite a bit or work to do. I had to use a serial port monitor program to sniff the traffic between the Lucent control program and the device and work out the protocols. If you can compile the Linux versions (or the Windoze version) of Lady Heather, I can send you the latest source code.Ideally you would want to run two instances of Lady Heather, one connected to each side of the unit. Or you could just monitor the active unit.The RFTG-m seems to work well driving the serial port with RS-232 level signals and a proper adapter cable. I have issues doing this with the Z3811/Z3812 Lucent KS units... only one of my USB dongles works with that device. Also, I have had issues using a few cheap self-powered RS-422 / RS-232 dongles with the RFTG-m. It seems the adapters can't always generate enough power from the RS-232 signals to drive the RS-422 signals. They worked with the short ASCII time code message but garbled the longer binary messages.

author: perdrix
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 19, 2017, 09:23:58 am
content: Hi Mark,So I don't need an RS-422 dongle and can talk to it using an RS-232 port? Is that right - if so if'n you could let me know how to wire that 9 pin cable it would be great.PS How goes the rocketry?ThanksDave Partridge

author: texaspyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 19, 2017, 12:31:40 pm
content: Quote from: perdrix on June 19, 2017, 09:23:58 amRFTG --> PC7 --> 58 --> 39 --> 2Alas, the landowner of the great field where we did a lot of flying sold the property. The new landowner let us fly for a few years but recently kicked us off the field. Finding good places to fly is quite a challenge.I did design and build the Mother of All Launch Control Systems... there's nothing quite like it out there. 10+ mile range, no single point / component failure or operator error can cause an unintended launch, constant fault checking, military grade encryption / authentication, GPS, optical beacons, weather station, etc.

author: perdrix
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 19, 2017, 12:58:22 pm
content: 9600,8,N,1 or something else?Dave

author: texaspyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 19, 2017, 01:29:25 pm
content: Quote from: perdrix on June 19, 2017, 12:58:22 pmYes.I know of only two programs in the world that talk to the RFTG-m. The Lucent program (old Windows code on ko4bb.com and the next version of Lady Heather) and those take care of the baud rate. The RFTG-m does send an ASCII time code/status message that you can look at from a terminal.

author: vintageradiobuff
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 23, 2017, 10:08:44 pm
content: I have been using the RFTGM control program with my RFTGm-II Rb and XO units. I also use Lady Heather for another GPSDO that I have. I am very interested in using Lady Heather with the RFTGM. Is there a newer version of Lady Heather that has the capability or do I have to compile it myself? I am not familiar with computer programming and am therefore looking for a plug-and-play solution. Could you give me some pointers in this regard, Texaspyro?

author: perdrix
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 24, 2017, 07:23:56 am
content: "Real Soon Now" as they say in the software business ...