CAT with Tuner Attached 857D RRC-1258 MkII

[Gerryb]

Problem:  Remote Working for Digital Modes using FT857D

I have managed a remote setup using RRC-1258 MkII twin via reverse tunnels on RaspberryPi 4g dongle and 4g Network, and all is working with detached head at home control site.

I need a tuner so it is attached currently to the 857D’s CAT port on remote site.

But I need CAT controls as VOX does not seem to trigger when attempting FT8 tones in USB mode.  (FT8 works if I press PTT every 15 seconds!!)

It would nice to control the rig via such WSJTX (later I will tunnel the digital DATA plug via the Raspberry pi)

CAT controls can be via the microphone plug ("Undocumented feature").   I have the Windcamp T8x7 adapter at the control home site, which has a CAT port from the Microphone connection and can plug into the PC but that fails, I assumed because I cannot provide 64,000 baud the Microphone interface needs.  WSJTX and windows nor Linux do not offer the 64,000 baud rate which I assume is a fixed rate when using the microphone interface.    Or is that when using CAT for a tuner there is no CAT via the microphone port?

I am in a complete muddle with this as well, as how to use the Com1 2 ports to achieve this with tuner in place:

"You can use the RRC as a CAT kind of server. If you connect com2 via a CT-62 to the 897 then you can connect the antenna tuner to COM1 and set com1 to mode 7. The messages from the tuner will then be forwarded to/from com 1 together with the message which goes from Control-RRC to com2"     
"Connect antenna tuner to COM1" seems to require a mini din to MALE Serial plug which is not the current CT-62 cable (female). 
I am not keen on soldering up a mini din... Or is it simpler than this?    Am I making a mountain out of a molehill?   There seems to be too many ways to kill a CAT

Gerry G3WIP

[Gerryb]

How to use Remoterig and get CAT control for an FT857D when one has a tuner attached.... my simplified question.

It seems I will have to make up at least once serial cable to attach tuner to RPC and then one the 857D to the RPC.  One can be a CT-62.

I was trying to use the feature of CAT over the MIC port using the adapter at the home control end.   I had missed out the menu 57 on the 857 which shows NOR and CAT as microphone options which needed setting to CAT. CAT meaning in addition to MIC, but still could not get it to work even if I turned off the other menu tuner options at set the machine to CAT.   I suspect I am trying to be too clever as running this with a reverse VPN over 4g and introducing too much latency.

Gerry