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I'm at a bit of a loss and will also preface by saying that I have very little experience working with Telnet. I have Startech Serial over IP 'webserver' setup, everything seems fine on this end. Next in the chain is a Mozart FM Transmitter with a RS485 slave and master section on the back. When I was handed this equipment, from a group of broadcast engineering people, the idea was to be able to Telnet into the transmitter and be able to pull some reading.

I can telnet into the StarTech, at least from what I can tell, alright, but I'm not getting any indication that I'm accessing the transmitter. Any help would be most appreciated.

ParanoidPenguin
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  • Is this about amateur radio? – Sven Jan 05 '15 at 19:05
  • Those transmitter usually need a driver in the OS you want it accessible, and will create a virtual port/serial com. Check your media and instruction that come with it. Edited: The telnet/www allow you to define what the transmitter will expect on the back connector. (XON, etc...) In the OS after it will connect to that IP & create a COM with those settings. – yagmoth555 Jan 05 '15 at 19:12
  • I'm not sure what you're referring to @yagmoth555 when you are referring to the "telnet/www", the settings that I have access to are within the browser page of the startech device. – ParanoidPenguin Jan 05 '15 at 20:03
  • @Sven No, this is a professional radio station, though operating on a relatively low power transmitter. – ParanoidPenguin Jan 05 '15 at 20:04
  • It's unlikely you find many experts for those devices here. – Sven Jan 05 '15 at 20:05
  • @Sven I had figured as much, but I thought someone may know Telnet well enough to help me sort through the issue. My gut feeling is that my UART Control settings within the StarTech aren't correct, but I can find nothing within the transmitter documentation that states anything about Telnetting into the device. – ParanoidPenguin Jan 05 '15 at 20:07
  • My point was read the manual. I doubth you can read data from telnet at all. All plug like that use telnet to configure it, the remote pc after read the data via the virtualport. Its old technology, you expect to read data easilly? When its flowcontrol bit and sent bit by bit as any serial port work – yagmoth555 Jan 05 '15 at 23:12
  • @yagmoth555 I have been reading the manual, it makes no mention of configuring this type of Telnet access. I'm getting pretty close to thinking that our consultants may have screwed up this part of the order. The device has an optional web server module, that allows it to be accessed via a web browser. They opted to access it over serial instead; which I'm not confident is possible. – ParanoidPenguin Jan 06 '15 at 00:58
  • @ParanoidPenguin Read again please. Like you got answered below, you need a software like I told you to make a virtual port. It will create a COM5 in example and the driver will allow you to put the IP of the device in the property windows. – yagmoth555 Jan 06 '15 at 01:52

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If I "guess" correctly, your "Mozart FM Transmitter" is a device that, while doing lots of nice things strictly related to your business (much different from Server Management, indeed), provides an RS485 interface by which it can be programmed and, probably, monitored.

In this case, it means that:

  1. if you have a PC with an RS485 interface AND...
  2. ...if you connect with a proper cable such PC to your device AND...
  3. ...if, on such PC, you have a specific software (commonly provided by the device manufacturer)

THEN

  1. you can use such software to interface the device (as for the features provided by the software).

As you can see from above, the above scenario requires that you have a physical RS485 cable connecting your PC to the device. Adding to this that RS485 has strict requirements in terms of length, this means you can be, at most, some tens of meters away from your device.

So the question is: How can you be able to use the software (ref. point 3 above) if you are miles away from your device BUT you have Internet connection at both side?

The answer is: encapsulating RS485 communication within the IP protocol. How?

  • by connecting an "RS485 to IP" converter, to your device, so that such device will not notice anything strange (as it will "speak" the RS485 language it knows well);

  • by installing a virtual-RS485 "driver" on the PC, so that the software will "speak" with what it looks like a common RS485 device, but instead is a "virtual" interface provided by the operating system that "speaks" RS485 from the side of the software, and TCP/IP on the side of the network (to reach the converter).

From your question, I got that the Startech Serial over IP is exactly the converter above (probably one similar to this).

You also mentioned a "webserver" and a "telnet access" to your Startech. I bet both kind of accesses are provided by your RS485<=>IP converter just to configure networking parameters. No other usage should be possible, expecially regarding functions provided by end device (the FM transmitter) as it's mostly impossible, for the converter to "understand"/"speak" the protocol offered by the end-device (the converter does not know nothing about the transmitter).

This seems to be confirmed also by Startech, as together with transmitter they provide also a software that, based on what I quickly saw rewieving the docs, is exactly the "driver" mentioned above (the one to install on the remote PC).

In the end: configure proper IP on the Startech; install proper startech drivers on the PC; install Mozart software on the PC. Then configure Mozart software to use the virtual interface provided by the startech driver. Then (...while crossing your fingers), launch it and... everything should work (at least, I hope).

P.S.: it looks to me that this question (and, obviously, answer) has absolutely nothing to do with ServerFault. Should it be moved to SuperUser?

Damiano Verzulli
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  • Huh, I haven't seen anything suggested by DB Broadcast to suggest they have this type of software; they do have an optional webserver-- I'm using this term differently than when I'm referring to the Startech IP/Serial device -- that allows you to access the device within your browser. You are correct in the length, the cable is only coming from the Startech and it is located less than 3ft from the transmitter. I'm hoping to contact customer support from DB Broadcast tomorrow, I'll mention the software you have suggested. – ParanoidPenguin Jan 06 '15 at 00:53