cwdaemon-0.13.0

cwdaemon is a small daemon which uses an USB-to-UART converter or PC parallel or serial port to output Morse code to a transmitter from a text message sent to it via UDP port 6789.

The program uses the soundcard or PC speaker (console buzzer) to generate a sidetone.

It is called as root, with "cwdaemon -p <portnumber> -d <device>". If no portnumber is given, the default portnumber 6789 is used. Device can be one of the serial (ttyS0, ttyS1, etc) or parallel (parport0, parport1, etc) ports. Default is parport0.

For FreeBSD, use ttyd0, ttyd1, etc. for the serial ports and ppi0, ppi1, etc. for the parallel ports. Default is the first parallel port.

You can also use dummy device "null" instead of parallel or serial port. This device does exactly nothing (no rig keying, no ssb keying, etc.).

cwdaemon also handles PTT, and band index output for automatic switching of antennas, filters etc. Pinout is compatible with the standard (CT, TRlog).

cwdaemon is available on github: https://github.com/acerion/cwdaemon cwdaemon's older webpage is http://cwdaemon.sourceforge.net/

Please note

BSD and/or Linux are not real-time operating systems. e.g. the timer resolution of the kernel is 10 milliseconds. You may especially notice this when using PTT and setting the PTT delay value. If you experience timing problems, you might try using the -P flag. This will set cwdaemon's priority. The default is zero, any negative value will be a higher priority, the maximum being -20.

Quickstart

On linux run the cwsetup.sh script and next run cwdaemon with the -n flag. If this does not work, read the next paragraphs....

Setting up parallel port(s) on linux for cwdaemon

You need the parport devices to use cwdaemon. Check if you have them:

ls -al /dev/parport*

If you don't see any files, create the with MAKEDEV (as root user):

cd /dev; ./MAKEDEV parport

Next, check whether the parport and parport_pc kernel modules are loaded: when you type 'lsmod', you should (on the i386 architecture) see something like:

parport_pc 23304 0 (autoclean) parport 25992 0 (autoclean) [parport_pc]

The lp module should not be loaded, it is only needed if you want to use a printer and it will block the parallel port if you use cwdaemon. You can unload it with the command 'rmmod lp' as root.

If you don't see any parport modules please check whether you have the line:

alias parport_lowlevel parport_pc

in your /etc/modules.conf file and load the modules with:

modprobe parport modprobe parport_pc

Be sure that parallel port support is enabled in your BIOS! If you use odd ioports or interrupts, you can do things like:

modprobe parport_pc io=0x3bc,0x378,0x278 irq=none,7,auto

which configures 3 parallel ports with the second port using irq 7 and the third port some auto-detected irq.

When cwdaemon is run, the ppdev kernel module should be loaded automatically. In case it doesn't, just type:

modprobe ppdev

PLEASE NOTE: you should probably run a 2.4 kernel to use the ppdev device with cwdaemon.

Setting up serial port(s) on linux for cwdaemon

Setting up your serial ports is straightforward. Here are some commands to get you started:

setserial -g /dev/ttyS*

will tell you what serial lines are configured. If you see a line with "UART: unknown", this probably means there is no serial port for the device.

setserial /dev/ttyS0 -v autoconfig

will try to autoconfigure your first serial port. You need to run this command as root.

Other valid commands are:

setserial /dev/ttyS1 auto_irq skip_test autoconfig setserial /dev/ttyS3 irq 5 uart 16550A skip_test

Newer distributions use a file called '/etc/serial.conf' where the information for your serial ports are stored.

Setting up parallel port(s) on FreeBSD for cwdaemon

You will need ppbus and ppi either defined in the kernel or loaded at boot time as kernel modules. ppbus and ppi are defined in the GENERIC kernel hence should work as is unless you have removed them from your kernel. If not, you can add the following in the kernel config, recompiling and reloading a kernel as outlined in the FreeBSD handbook.

Parallel port

device ppbus # Parallel port bus (required) device ppi # Parallel port interface device

You can also load ppbus.ko and ppi.ko at boot time instead of rebuilding your kernel. This is also outlined in the FreeBSD handbook.

e.g. In /boot add

ppbus_load="YES" ppi_load="YES"

Setting up serial port(s) on FreeBSD for cwdaemon

The serial port driver is loaded by default in the GENERIC kernel. If not configured in the kernel, you can add to the kernel config and rebuild the kernel as outlined in the FreeBSD handbook.

Serial (COM) ports

device sio # 8250, 16[45]50 based serial ports

How cwdaemon works

After starting, the program detaches from its controlling terminal, after that the program can be controlled via its network udp input port.

You can control cwdaemon by sending requests to it. Recognized requests are listed below. Skip the quotes around codes when sending actual requests. <ESC> is ASCII escape character (decimal 27, hex 1B). Most of the requests are so called "escape requests", because they start with Escape character.

<ESC>0 Reset to default values <ESC>2<speed value> Set keying speed (5 ... 60 wpm) <ESC>3<tone value> Set sidetone (300 ... 1000 Hz) <ESC>3<0> Sound off <ESC>4 Abort message <ESC>5 Stop (Exit) the daemon <ESC>6 Set uninterruptable (word- ) mode for simulator <ESC>7<weight value> Set weighting (-50 ... 50) <ESC>8<device> Set device for keying (same as -d) <ESC>9<port number> Obsolete <ESC>a<0|1> PTT keying off or on <ESC>b<0|1> SSB signal from microphone or soundcard <ESC>c<x> Tune x seconds long (limit = 10 seconds) <ESC>d<delay> PTT on delay 0..50 (0 .. 50ms) <ESC>e<bandindex> Band info output on pins 2, 7, 8, 9 of the parport (pin 2 = lsb, 9 = msb, e.g. 1000 = 160m, 1001 = 10m) <ESC>f<sound system> Set sound system, same as '-x' command line option. Recognized values are: c - console buzzer (PC speaker) - default system, o - OSS, a - ALSA, p - PulseAudio, n - none - no audio, s - soundcard - autoselect from OSS/ALSA/PulseAudio. You may experience few seconds of delay (~4 s) when switching from ALSA or PulseAudio to OSS audio system. This is because OSS waits until audio device stops being blocked by ALSA or PulseAudio. <ESC>g<volume> Set soundcard volume (0 .. 100).

<ESC>h<text> This request must be followed by a second request containing only text to be played by cwdaemon. Once the cwdaemon finishes playing the text from second request, it replies to the client with "h"+<text>+"\r\n", where <text> is a text from first request.

		 "text" is optional.

		 The reply defined in first request is used by
		 cwdaemon only once, i.e. only for a single
		 text request that follows the escape
		 request. If you want to receive a reply from
		 the cwdaemon after playing each text request,
		 you need to send the "<ESC>h" escape request
		 first, for every text request.

		 Example:
		 client sends: "<ESC>hcat"
		 client sends: "purring"
		 server plays: "purring"
		 server sends back: "hcat"

		 client sends: "<ESC>hdog"
		 client sends: "barking"
		 server plays: "barking"
		 server sends back: "hdog"

		 client sends: "<ESC>h"
		 client sends: "whispering"
		 server plays: "whispering"
		 server sends back: "h"

		 client sends: "<ESC>hdog"
		 client sends: "barking"
		 server plays: "barking"
		 server sends back: "hdog"

		 client sends: "purring"
		 server plays: "purring"
		 server does not send a reply - none was specified this time for "purring"

Any message Send Morse code message (max 1 packet!) qrz de pa0rct ++test-- In- and decrease speed on the fly in 2 wpm steps. Repeated '+' and '-' characters are allowed, in such cases increase and decrease of speed is multiple of 2 wpm. de ~d~l~2~w~rj pse k Add half-space delay after characters NOTE: the delay is added after the character following the tilde (~). E.g. AB~CD results in a delay between C and D.

Default startup values

Speed = 24 wpm Tone = 800 Hz Sound = on Wordmode = off Weight = 0 UDP port = 6789 PTT delay = 0 (off) Device = parport0 Sound device = console buzzer

tty driver tuning

The default tty driver pinout uses DTR (pin 4 on DB-9) for keying CW, and RTS (pin 7 on DB-9) for PTT. This is the equivalent of

-o key=DTR -o ptt=RTS

To swap both pins, use

-o key=RTS -o ptt=DTR

To turn PTT off (e.g. transceiver in QSK mode) while retaining CW key at DTR, use

-o ptt=none ["-o key=DTR" can be omitted]

cwdaemon supports the following special characters

AR = BT < SK ( KN ! SN & AS

BK

cwdaemon parallel and serial port circuitry

See the examples in the schematics directory.

Examples

Example programs are located in exa

Cwdaemon

Install / Use

README