Kenwood: Connecting our repeater to echolink using a Kenwood TMV71a

[Blindguy]

Hi all I am trying to connect my PC with Echolink to my TMV71a to transmit to our club's repeater. I bought the connection kit from Kenwood which has two cables. Each cable has a mini DIN connector at one end. One cable has a DB9 serial connector and the other has two 3.5mm audio connectors. On the back of the TMV71a there are two mini DIN ports. One is labeled DATA and the other is labeled PC. How do I know which cable plugs into which port? I have only found a very small amount of info on the web to help. Any info would be greatly appreciated.

 

[ShawnInPaso]

The mini DIN on the cable with the DB9 on the other end goes to the PC socket on the back of the radio. Of course the DB9 goes to the PC serial port.


The mini DIN on the other cable goes to the data socket on the back of the radio. The phono plugs are color coded, the pink one goes to the mic input on the PC and the green plug goes to the line out (or speaker out) of the PC.

If you are facing the rear of the TM-V71, the PC socket is located at the upper right corner. The data socket is immediately left of the PC socket.

Hope this helps.

Shawn WB6JWB

 

[AK9R]

The mini-DIN jacks on the back of a TM-V71 are not the same. The PC jack has 8 pins and the DATA jack has 6 pins. You should have one cable for one jack and one cable for the other.

 

[Blindguy]

Thanks guys that is a big help. My other question is that according to Kenwood I have to put the TMV71a into Echolink mode by turning it off and pressing the PF2 key with the power button. Is the PF2 button the one next to the volume knob for receiver a or is the one to the left of that?
thanks
Frank

 

[ShawnInPaso]

Hey Frank - the PF2 key is next to the volume knob.

Cheers,

Shawn

 

[Blindguy]

Thanks to Shawn and all I am half way there. I am receiving fine from the TMV71a to the computer and out to the internet. The problem is that I am not transmitting. It appears the computer is not activating the PTT on the Kenwood TMV71a. I have the PC prt (outbound port) on the TMV71a connected to a Prolific Serial to USB converter which is configured as COM4. In the Sysop Setting in Echolink there is a TX Page. I do not know which settings to check on this page. There are a group of four radio buttons as to how to activate the PTT. I think the default is ASCII. There is also a combo box for serial port (set to COM4) a check box that says 9600 baud and a check box for local PTT. Can ayone help me configure this page for the TMV71a? As usual allhelp is greatly appreciated.
thanks
Frank

 

[ShawnInPaso]

Hey Frank,

Hopefully someone with a V71 and echolink will help out. I did notice a V71 FAQ online which says this about the transmit tab in echolonk:

"On the TX Ctrl tab, choose RTS and choose the same serial port as you did for RX Ctrl. On the DTMF tab, choose the Internal DTMF decoder."

Shawn

 

[K3CFG]

If you want some help playing around with it in the morning time some time let me know. I will be happy to help out.I am normaly on the Michican conference during the day


Carl Gosline K3CFG

 

[Blindguy]

Thanks guys, I am still not able to get it to work. Maybe I can describe my setup and it may be apparent what I am doing wrong:
I have the PC connected to the TMV71 using the two cables from Kenwood.
The repeater is about a mile away on 147.3360 which the rig is set to.
In Echolink under link setting in Tools there is a choice between simplex and repeater operation (-l or -r). Which one would I use in a setup like this?
The next page gives two choices for rig control I think the first is blaster and the second digital, any idea which one applies here?
Where I am right now is that when I connect from another computer I can ear the audio coming from the TMV71 but no audio is getting from the PC to the TMV71.
thanks
Frank

 

[ShawnInPaso]

Hey Frank,

I found an echolink manual online and took a few minutes to read through some of it.

Where it describes the "list" (not link) settings in Tools there and the choice between simplex and repeater operation (-l or -r) there is a photo which says "these are user settings and do not impact syspo mode operations".

I did not see anything related to "blaster" or "digital", perhaps I'm looking at an outdated manual.
Are you able to get the V71 to PTT yet?

Shawn

 

[Blindguy]

Hi Shawn, OK I got it to PTT and it can send and receive fine. As it turns out for the benefit of anyone who searches this thread, I used a reapeater type (not link) so the call was given a "-r" suffix. The connection mode (digital/blaster) didn't seem to matter. I used an external USB sound card, as the internal one wouldn't send and receive at the same time. I also had to make an adjustment to the TMV71a itself using the Kenwood MCP software to increase the Echolink volume enough to activate the VOX. The only issue left to tackle is how to change the echolink timeout value. I really thank you for all of the help you have given.
Frank

 

[ShawnInPaso]

Hey Frank, that's great success !

I am glad your persistence paid off, more power to you.

Cheers,

Shawn