Computer Radio For The Mac

Unplug the radio from the computer. Install the driver again. Reboot the Mac (sometimes, more than a reboot - a power cycle of the USB Serial port is required). Power up the radio and plug it in to the USB port. 1 more thing to try.

• Computer Radio For The Macro
• Computer Radio For The Mac Air

Connecting your Radio to your Computer

Their are two major Radio-Computer connection channels, CAT and Audio...

CAT (Computer Aided Tuning)

CAT is what allows an application to communicate with the radio's VFO, setting and reading frequencies and modes. Almost all Amateur radios (excluding the new LAN based radios) operate CAT communication over a very old RS-232 protocol - even if the radio is using a modern USB interface, the protocol is still 60 year old RS-232 over USB. Unlike modern self-configuring devices the setup parameters found in the Radio's menus must match the settings in the application preferences exactly. This can be challenging to get right the first time but the application should remember the settings for you after that.

Since most older radios have old style TTL or RS-232 connections for this channel and most computers have abandoned these old style serial ports, we need to add a USB-to-Serial adapter to the computer. This is usually a simple piece of hardware (UART) accompanied by a Mac software driver that allows the application to 'see' the radio connected to this device. The device may also include level converters to convert the RS-232 to the TTL level required by the (older) radio and sometimes DTR and RTS lines to also let the computer key the radio's PTT and CW lines.

Since 1991 Dog Park Software Ltd. Has been committed to providing the Amateur Radio community with the very best in Amateur Radio Software so that Hams using the Macintosh platform around the world can enjoy the same computer-radio interraction and enhancement that PC Hams take for granted - but with the added flexibility, security, user friendliness and stability that Macintosh users are. Mac' LeVitus is among the world's leading authorities on the iPad, iPhone, and OS X. He's been one of the Mac community's most trusted gurus for more than 25 years and has written or cowritten more than 60 books. He is also a columnist for the Houston Chronicle and The Mac Observer. The included software is very easy to use on a Mac and lets you set the broadcast frequency in increments of 0.1 MHz, which is useful if you live in an area with lots of radio stations, as I do. However, the signal strength is pretty low, so you're relying on your receiver to. Sep 02, 2005 Mac Ham Radio Software. Tired of searching for quality ham radio software for the Mac, only to be told by the PC weenies that there isn't any? Well, you've come to the right place! Here you will find a a collection of amateur radio programs for the Macintosh. The Mac is a great platform for ham radio software.

Some devices combine the above capabilities with digital CW generators and or sound cards (modems) for the Audio channel.

Some radios have the USB/Serial adapters built in and only require a USB cable connecting them to the computer but still require a Mac driver to be installed.

Audio (Digital Communications Modes)

The audio channel allows the computer to send pre-recorded speech or digitally encoded information (RTTY, PSK etc.) to the radio's microphone or accessory jack as well as receive digitally encoded data from the radio's headphone or accessory jack for decoding. Some radios have this sound card capability built into the radio and it can be accessed over the same USB cable as the CAT channel. Sound cards on the Mac do not normally require a driver to be installed and can be configured in the Mac System Preferences Sound panel.

How do I connect my computer to my radio ?

Which Driver do I need ?

If you don't see the USB/Serial adapter port connected to your radio in the Port popup (or all you see is a Bluetooth port) then it could be one of the following:

• The right driver (kernel extension) is not installed.
• A bad or loose cable from the adapter/radio to your computer.
• A radio with an internal USB/Serial adapter (UART) and the radio is powered down.

You can tell which chip set is being used in your adapter/radio by selecting 'About This Mac / Overview / System Report / Hardware / USB. If the UART shows up in the Hardware/USB report It means that it is plugged in and powered up - not that a driver is necessarily loaded. Once you have identified the UART Chip set (FTDI, Silicon Labs, Prolific, Keyspan/Tripplite, RT Systems etc.) you can download and install the Mac driver from the manufacturers web site.

Where can I get a Mac driver for my ICOM IC-705, IC-7100, IC-7200, IC-7300, IC-7600, IC-7610, IC-7850, IC-9100, IC-9700, PCR2500, Kenwood TS-890S, TS-990S, TS-590S, Elecraft KX3, K3S, Yaesu FTdx101, FTdx3000, FT-891, FT-991 or Ten-Tec Eagle USB direct connect built in USB/Serial adapter ?

The USB/UART Bridge chip inside the Icom, Yaesu and Kenwood radios is a Silicon Labs USB to UART Bridge Controller and the Mac drivers are available here.

The USB/UART Bridge chip inside the Eagle, K3S and KX3 is an FTDI USB to UART Bridge Controller and the Mac drivers are available here.

Note: macOS built in FTDI driver:

'Since 10.9 (Mavericks), OS X has included built-in partial support for some FTDI devices in VCP mode. Starting with 10.11 (El Capitan), Apple’s own driver seems to be sufficiently comprehensive that many customers will not need to install FTDI’s own VCP unless they wish to use its advanced features such as baud-rate aliasing and configurable latency times' .

What if the radio doesn't show up in the Port popup?

• If you haveParallelsrunning on your Mac - make sure it hasn't 'stolen' the port.
• macOS High Sierra 10.13 introduces a new feature that requires user approval before loading new third-party kernel extensions.
• You may also need to reboot your Mac after the install.

You can tell which driver is installed and loaded by selecting 'About This Mac / Overview / System Report / Software / Extensions. and looking for the kernel extension that matches the adapter chip set (eg FTDI, Silicon Labs, Prolific etc.) It’s important that the driver is Loadable and Signed. It will only show as Loaded when the device is powered up and plugged in.

Make sure you have the correct version of the driver installed for your version of macOS - for example, the latest Silicon Labs driver will not work with macOS 10.9 or 10.10 and you need to install their legacy driver.

Don’t forget that the System Report does not automatically refresh and can take up to a minute to display all the extensions. If you want to see if a change you made (plugging/unplugging/changing usb ports etc.) has caused the driver to load then you have to go through the system report steps again - or run the application and look at the debug log for the loaded driver.

Radio still not showing up ?

1. Unplug the radio from the computer.
2. Install the driver again.
3. Reboot the Mac (sometimes, more than a reboot - a power cycle of the USB Serial port is required).
4. Power up the radio and plug it in to the USB port.

1 more thing to try...

• In rare cases with older adapters some people have had to insert an older USB 2.0 hub inline with the radio.

Installing Drivers on High Sierra, Mojave, Catalina and Big Sur

Drivers (kernel extensions) can be tricky to install on High Sierra (and later) if you are doing it for the first time, but if you want to communicate with your radio using MacLoggerDX, MacDoppler or any other Ham Radio software you will need to install the driver supplied by the manufacturer of the UART in your radio or radio adapter. It is not possible for MacLoggerDX or MacDoppler to do this for you.

Note: macOS built in FTDI driver:
'Since 10.9 (Mavericks), OS X has included built-in partial support for some FTDI devices in VCP mode. Starting with 10.11 (El Capitan), Apple’s own driver seems to be sufficiently comprehensive that many customers will not need to install FTDI’s own VCP unless they wish to use its advanced features such as baud-rate aliasing and configurable latency times' .

Starting with OS X Mavericks, Apple has been making changes to how third party kernel extensions are allowed to work. On macOS High SIerra and later, kernel extensions must be digitally signed using an Apple Developer ID and installed into /Library/Extensions enforced by System Integrity Protection. Kernel extensions will not load unless authorized to do so by a logged-in user.

User-Approved Kernel Extension Loading

macOS High Sierra 10.13 introduces a new feature that requires user approval before loading new third-party kernel extensions. (Approval is automatically granted to third-party KEXTs that were already present when upgrading to macOS High Sierra).

When a request is made to load a KEXT that the user has not yet approved, the load request is denied and macOS presents this alert.

This prompts the user to approve the KEXT in System Preferences / Security & Privacy / General.
You will have to enter your credentials after clicking the lock in the lower left corner to enable the Allow button.

This approval UI is only present in the Security & Privacy preferences pane for 30 minutes after the alert. Until the user approves the KEXT, future load attempts will cause the approval UI to reappear but will not trigger another user alert..

Once approved, the KEXT will immediately be loaded or added to the prelinked kernel cache, depending on what action was blocked. Subsequent requests to load the KEXT will proceed silently as on previous macOS versions.

Apple Technical Note TN2459

Big Sur

Return to Bote's Radio Nexus home page

Updated 2012.10.18

Useful Links

Diagram for AM/FM/XM Physical Radio — diagram showing how to connect a real live physical radio or iPhone through your computer using RadioDelay to sync radio to television video.

Diagram for Option 1 — diagram showing how to listen with MLB Gameday Audio through two computers.

Diagram for Option 2 — diagram showing how to listen with MLB Gameday Audio through one computer that has two sound devices.

Audio HiJack Pro — Record any audio. Uses same plug-ins for GarageBand as mentioned in the narrative here.

SoundFlower — Soundflower is a free Mac OS X (10.2 and later) system extension that allows applications to pass audio to other applications.

Griffin iMic — add an inexpensive high quality USB sound card to your desktop or laptop computer. Works on Apple and Windows machines.

Baseball Field Guide — sort-of pocket sized paperback booklet with excellent pictorial descriptions of Major League Baseball rules with good explanations of commonly misunderstood plays and umpire rulings. Although it is getting a bit long in the tooth it is highly recommended for long-time and new baseball fans.

Synchronizing Radio and TV

Problem:

Joe Buck. Tim McCarver. Do I have to spell it out for you? They are annoying and ill-informed.

You've followed your team all season long with Your Guys who know the team up close and personal; guys who describe the game accurately while providing useful insight; guys like Hall-of-Famer Jon Miller, Duane Kuiper, Mike Krukow, David B. Flemming and so on. But the sound from the local radio play-by-play is not synchronized with the video flashing across your television screen. You either hear an exciting play unfold only to witness the visual evidence 10 seconds later, or else you see it happen before the excited announcer describes it on the radio. Bummer.

Solution:

Mute your TV. Get your radio sound and your television picture in sync, and you won't even need J.C. Chasez to do it.

There is no way that I can tell you how much delay there will be between radio and television, nor which will be ahead of the other. It depends on where the game is relative to the transmission path, how many satellite links are involved, processing equipment latency, and a thousand other dependencies.

Knowing this, you will need to tune your delay for each game, and sometimes tweak it during the game as well. Sometimes the radio will be ahead of the TV, other times the TV will be ahead of the radio.

If the TV is ahead of the radio and you have a DVR this is good news! You can simply pause your DVR momentarily until you get it synchronized with the radio play-by-play.

Computer Radio For The Macro

If the radio is ahead of the TV video, then you have to delay it to match up with the images on your screen. The latter problem is what this page hopes to help you solve.

What You Need

Note: I do not own a Mac nor an iPhone nor an iPad, iAm merely passing along this info provided by others in the interest of helping baseball fans get a better “user experience” out of baseball games on TV.

Griffin iMic

I'm only a very satisfied customer and own a bunch of these neat little USB dongles that add a sound card to your computer. Just plug in an iMic and in seconds you have another sound card. Plug a physical cable into the output of the iMic and then into the input of your built-in sound card and you can use RadioDelay. The iMic is also a great replacement for sound cards that have crapped out in laptops.

Order your iMic direct from Amazon at the link in the pane to the right.

Garageband

Garageband is a software application that allows users to create music or podcasts. It is developed by Apple Inc. as part of the iLife software package. General information is available from this wiki article.

MLB Gameday Audio app for iPhone — iPersonally find iTunes inscrutable, but I'm a crusty old curmudgeon. I wanted to provide a link directly to the MLB app here, but Mr. Jobs won't allow it. Go to the iTunes app store and search for 'MLB'. You will see several choices; pick the one appropriate to your needs. My untrained eye thinks the FREE app does the job, but I'm cheap, too.

— OR —

Audio Hijack Pro

Brett sez:

I purchased a program called Audio Hijack Pro http://www.rogueamoeba.com/audiohijackpro/ a few years back which allows users to record the output coming from programs digitally as opposed to recording off of the soundcard analog input. Audio Hijack Pro also has the ability to apply audio filters in series (the same filters as used in Garage Band) but apply it to live audio. When you use this technique, I found you can bypass using another computer or an additional soundcard all together.

For my setup, I 'hijacked' the live audio from Firefox. This allowed me to setup 5 - 2 second delays on the live audio as you described in your article and everything synced up perfectly. Attached is a screenshot of the end result.

Unfortunately Audio Hijack Pro isn't a free solution, but is a bit simpler way if you already have the program. Users can at least give it a shot for 10 minutes in the trial version.

Audio Hijack Pro with 5 delays sitting in a row. It looks purty, too.

Computer Radio For The Mac Air

SoundFlower

Michael K. sez: Soundflower is a freeware program, like HiJack, that allows you to take audio from any source and redirect it. You can use Soundflower with Garage Band for streaming audio by setting Soundflower as the default output, setting up the Garage band capture device as 'Soundflower', and then setting the Garage Band output to the speakers ('Built In Output'). Make sure not to enable Soundflower's output to the speakers or you will get a nice echo from the dry (original) source audio mixing with the delayed audio.

Making It Work

by Chris G. C. (not me)

For Mac users, you can delay a radio signal in order to sync with the MLB Gameday, or any other, broadcast with GarageBand and delay effects that are included in the software.

Run a male-to-male 3.5 mm cable from the headphone or line out from your iPhone or radio to the audio input of your Mac (usually located next to the headphone out on a Mac). Turn the audio on and set volume to about 1/3.

1. Open the 'System Preferences' application in your dock, and click the 'Sound Preferences' (speaker icon). Select the 'input' tab and 'line in' as the sound input source. You should see the 'input level' meter light up, indicating that the computer is seeing your source audio. Adjust the level with the slider so that the signal is not clipping (not too loud, not red-lining).

'System Preferences: sound' window.

2. Open GarageBand and create a new project.

NOTE: In GarageBand 08 the default is to open with a 'Software Instrument' track. You have to delete this track (in the Track manu) and then create a 'Real Instrument' track. You can then add delays under the 'Details' section of the 'Track Info' box.

3. In the lower right corner of the GarageBand window, be sure 'input source' is set to: 'built-in input.' In the setting below this, set 'monitor' to 'on'.

4. Enable 'record' on the track that appears in the window (click the red button). Adjust the slider below the audio meters so that audio is not clipping.

GarageBand track

5. To add delay: Click the 'edit' tab to the right of your GarageBand window. In the effects column, mouse over the bar that says 'click here to add an effect' and do that. Under 'AU Audio Effects' select AUDelay.

Mouse over the icon for the effect you've just added and you will see three sliding bars, click that. Change settings to:

• dry/wet mix: 100% (to take out the original live signal)
• delay: maximum (I can't get it to go past 2 seconds, even though the window suggests that I should be able to)
• feedback: 0%
• lowpass cutoff frequency: between 10,000 and 15,000 Hz for best performance

AUDelay settings

Repeat step 5, adding additional delays onto the signal until you get the delay you want. You can adjust the delay length on the final effect plug-in to achieve the desired result. Note: the track allows for 4 delay effects to be added, which gives you a maximum delay of 4 x 2 or more, depending on the version you are using of GarageBand and AUDelay you have available.

If you need more delay, you can click the 'Master Track' tab above the track 'edit' tab and, using the same procedure outlined in step 5 above, you add another delay unit to your chain and achieve a full 8-second delay.

GarageBand track edit tab with several delays in place

If AUDelay does not give you enough of a delay, there are many free plugins that are compatible with GarageBand and have longer delay times. Voxengo is one of many software developers that offer a free sound delay plug-in (in Mac and Windows compatible versions) and their plug-in offers a 3 second delay.

Installation is drag and drop, just check the website and follow the directions.

Finally, as this effects chain can add unwanted noise to your signal, use the visual EQ to adjust to your taste and system. Be careful setting the volume levels as these can make or break this setup.

Enjoy Kruk and Kuip and Go Giants!

Chris

FUCK THE YANKEES! FUCK THE PHILTHIES!! FUCK THE CARDINALS *AND* PETE KOZMA!!! FUCK YEAH!!!!

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