After having a gloriously easy time setting up my Kenwood TM-D710G and DRA-50 the other day with both the RMS Express Client, and eventually the RMS Packet software to get my VARA FM gateway up and running, I ran into a puzzling snag trying to get my IC-9700 working with RMS Express + VARA FM on my CF-31 Toughbook.
Normally my IC-9700 and Toughbook are dedicated to satellite radio, but I really wanted an alternative radio setup for VARA FM that I could use to check my RMS Packet gateway was functional. I figured it would be a no brainer install VARA FM/RMS Express and use that setup.
Unfortunately, I ran into two problems. The first was very minor — VARA FM only supports baud rates up to 19K. The IC-9700 was set to 112K (Satellite guys like a higher baud rate because of Doppler corrections). That was an easy change to drop the IC-9700 baud rate down to 19K. As soon as that happened, I had PTT access.
The next problem was not as intuitive. While the rig PTT was working, no modulation was produced, despite being in “FM D” digital mode and having the DATA MOD set to USB. I could tell VARA FM was producing the sound output, because I could swap the output to the Toughbook speakers and hear the modulation.
I ultimately fixed the issue by opening up Windows Sound Mixer and discovering that the internal IC-9700 sound device “USB Audio CODEC” was MUTED. Why, I don’t know, that’s not something I would have done. But I had never used the sound interface in the IC-9700 before, and apparently when Windows recognized that device, it muted it.
Nothing was wrong with VARA-FM or RMS Express at all. It was entirely an issue between Windows 10 and the CF-31 Toughbook.
