rf-bench-drivers-icom 0.1.0

Icom IC-7300 radio driver for bench automation — Hamlib rigctld TCP client

rf-bench-drivers-icom

Icom IC-7300 radio driver for bench automation. Part of the rf-bench-drivers family of packages.

Communicates with the IC-7300 via Hamlib rigctld over a plain TCP socket — no pyvisa, no direct CI-V, no external Python dependencies.

Related packages

Package	Namespace	Description
rf-bench-drivers-icom	rf_bench.icom	This package — Icom IC-7300 driver
rf-bench-drivers-yaesu	rf_bench.yaesu	Yaesu FT-891 driver
rf-bench-drivers-siglent	rf_bench.siglent	Siglent instrument drivers (SSA3000X, SDG1000X, SDS2000X, SDM3000X, SPD3303X)
rf-bench-drivers-utils	rf_bench.utils	RF math utilities (power conversions, noise, IP3, etc.)

Hardware requirements

• Icom IC-7300 connected via USB-B cable to /dev/ttyUSB0 (or another serial port)
• Hamlib installed (sudo pacman -S hamlib / sudo apt install hamlib / brew install hamlib)
• rigctld running before you instantiate IC7300

Starting rigctld

rigctld -m 3073 -r /dev/ttyUSB0 -s 115200

• Model 3073 is the IC-7300 in Hamlib 4.x (use 373 for Hamlib 3.x)
• Baud rate must match the radio: Menu → Set → Connectors → CI-V Baud Rate = 115200
• Default listen port is 4532 (TCP)

If you need to run two radios simultaneously, start the second rigctld on a different port (e.g. --port 4533) and pass that port to the driver.

Install

pip install rf-bench-drivers-icom

Usage

from rf_bench.icom import IC7300

# Connect (rigctld must already be running on localhost:4532)
rig = IC7300()

# Or specify host/port explicitly
rig = IC7300("localhost", 4532)

# Context manager form (auto-closes)
with IC7300() as rig:
    rig.set_mode("usb")
    rig.set_frequency(14_200_000)   # Hz
    rig.set_agc("off")
    strength = rig.get_strength()
    print(f"Signal: {strength:.1f} dB")

API

Constructor

IC7300(host="localhost", port=4532)

Methods

Method	Description
get_frequency()	Returns VFO-A frequency in Hz (float)
set_frequency(freq_hz)	Sets VFO-A frequency in Hz
get_mode()	Returns (mode_str, passband_hz) — e.g. ("USB", 2400)
set_mode(mode, passband_hz=0)	Sets mode; mode is 'usb', 'lsb', 'cw', 'cwr', 'am', 'fm', 'rtty'; passband_hz=0 uses radio default
get_strength()	Returns raw Hamlib STRENGTH float (dB re S9 for Hamlib 4.x; range approx -54 to +60)
get_strength_settled(settle_s=0.5, samples=3)	Waits settle_s seconds, then averages samples strength readings
set_agc(mode)	Sets AGC: 'off', 'fast', 'mid', 'slow' — 'off' is a true hardware bypass on IC-7300
get_agc()	Returns AGC value: 0=off, 1=fast, 2=mid, 3=slow
set_rf_gain(gain)	Sets RF gain, 0.0–1.0 (1.0 = maximum)
close()	Closes the rigctld TCP connection

The class also supports the context manager protocol (with IC7300() as rig:).

Default passband widths

Mode	Passband
USB / LSB	2400 Hz
CW / CWR	500 Hz
AM	6000 Hz
FM	15000 Hz
RTTY	500 Hz

Notes

• All frequency values are in Hz throughout the API.
• get_strength() returns Hamlib's raw STRENGTH value. For Hamlib 4.x with the IC-7300 this is dB relative to S9 (S9 = 0, S9+10 = 10, S1 ≈ −48). The exact calibration varies — use a signal generator and get_strength_settled() to build a calibration table.
• set_agc("off") achieves a true hardware AGC bypass on the IC-7300. This is not the case on all radios.
• rigctld must be running before you call IC7300(). The constructor connects immediately and will raise ConnectionRefusedError if rigctld is not listening.
• No external Python dependencies — pure stdlib (socket, time).

License

GPL-3.0-or-later. See LICENSE.