Stuart Longland (VK4MSL)Well, there's another radio project done… Brisbane WICEN got donated a Timewave PK-96 TNC coupled with a Kenwood TM-231A radio.
Now the Kenwood radio is probably a decent 2m set, it does not do 70cm, and worst of all, the PK-96 is coupled through the microphone port. Ugh!
The PK-96 as the name suggests, does both 1200 baud and 9600 baud modes. It'd be nice to be able to use them both. I needed some bits for another project, so in that order went some 6-pin mini-DIN cables and some 5-pin DIN connectors.
The cables I bought are these ones: https://au.element14.com/videk/9375-2/lead-6pin-mini-din-plg-plg/dp/1525910
This was cheaper than buying a MiniDIN6-to-wire-ends off eBay ($30). I bought one of these and chopped it in half. The colour code and function wound up being this:
Pin 1: Yellow — Packet audio input
Pin 2: Orange — 0V
Pin 3: Green — PTT
Pin 4: Red — 9600 baud audio output
Pin 5: Black — 1200 baud audio output
Pin 6: Brown — Squelch
I need to rig up a barrel jack to 30A power pole adaptor so I can plug that TNC into power, but that should be easy to achieve. Someone's already modified the PK-96 to support USB, and I wonder if it can be further modded to run off USB power instead of needing 12V… but that'll be a job for another day.
Getting `aioax25` to talk to it will be the next challenge. I know how to get `aioax25` to send `KISS ON` to the TNC, and that puts it straight into KISS mode, unlike the Kantronics KPC3s that need that followed up by a `RESET`. It looks like it should work, but I think I need to try connecting this to a radio and see if it actually works.
