catrina.me

ICOM 7300 Remote with WFWeb and POTACAT

catrina

/

I think I reached the holy grail – original 7300 remote access WITH cat control from both POTACAT and wfweb! My lazy recliner Sundays will never be the same!

I’m not the greatest POTA hunter, I barely could call myself one at all – but I really like is the short scripts usually used so I can listen in and practice my CW copy. I recently discovered POTACAT and it’s extra helpful in giving the call sign (my weakpoint), op name and QTH. That’s like half the QSO! So, I click on one I find, listen for the signal and work on my operator skills tuning in and my cw skills listening to copy.

But what about when I’m away from desk? I have the original 7300 I got from a club member and it doesn’t have the fancy internet connection, it connects directly to PC. Well, for flat remote control (no POTACAT) you can use wfweb. It’s a fork of wfview but with a more modern UI, and lots of upgraded features. You open your Chrome/Edge browser to https://wfweb.k1fm.us and set up your rig on the connected PC. Then, on your remote (like laptop) you go to https://[my.pc.ipaddress]:8080 and done!

The problem is, I’m a bit greedy. I wanted my cake and eat it to. So how do I get POTACAT to *also* cat control that remote computer so it can change the frequency and I use wfweb to fine tune? Now, keep in mind POTACAT does have ECHOCAT and its meant exactly for this purpose but ECHOCHAT is a bit early in development and not as robust as wfweb.

And I love me a waterfall.

So, since wfweb is a fork of wfview, I installed wfview which has RigCtld and allows me to attach POTACAT to that “external” port while keeping wfweb on the “server” portion.

Here’s some Claude assisted instruction along with my photos:

Browser-Based IC-7300 Remote Control with POTA Spot Tuning and Automatic Logging

This guide documents how to set up a fully remote-capable IC-7300 station accessible from any browser on your local network, with one-click POTA/SOTA spot tuning via POTACAT.

What You’ll End Up With

  • wfview owns the USB connection to the radio and acts as the hub
  • wfweb gives you a mobile-responsive browser interface with waterfall, audio, FT8, and CW/CW decoder
  • POTACAT pulls live POTA, SOTA, and DX spots and tunes the radio with one click

Setting up com0com

Install com0com and open its setup utility. “Add Pair” and check “use Ports class” on both sides and “Apply”. This will create two com ports, for example COM8 and COM9. The two ports are linked: anything written to COM8 comes out COM9 and vice versa. Note both port names — you’ll assign one to wfview and the other to POTACAT.

Step 1: Install and Configure wfview

Install wfview from the link above. Launch it and connect to your IC-7300:

  1. Go to Settings → Radio
    • Connection type: Serial (USB)
    • Serial device: select your IC-7300’s COM port
    • Baud rate: 19200 or Auto (must match your radio’s CI-V Baud Rate setting)
    • CI-V address: leave at default 94h unless you’ve changed it
  2. Go to Settings → Server
    • Check Enable
    • Set a username and password (you’ll need these for wfweb)
    • Note the control port — default is 50001
  3. Go to Settings → External Control
    • Check Enable RigCtld
    • Directly below that, enable the Virtual COM Port option and select one port of your com0com pair (e.g. COM8) — this exposes rigctld as a virtual serial port
    • POTACAT will connect to the other end of the com0com pair (e.g. COM9)
  4. Click Connect to Radio and confirm the radio connects successfully.

IC-7300 menu settings to verify:
Menu → Set → Connectors → CI-V → CI-V Baud Rate: 19200 (or Auto)
CI-V Address: 94h (default)

Step 2: Download and Run wfweb in LAN Mode

wfweb is a separate console application — not an installer. Go to the wfweb releases page and download the latest Windows zip. Extract it somewhere convenient, for example C:\Users\yourname\Downloads\wfweb.

wfweb normally connects directly to your radio’s USB port, but since wfview already owns that port, you need to run wfweb in LAN mode so it connects through wfview’s server instead.

Open a Command Prompt, navigate to your wfweb folder, and run:

cd C:\path\to\wfweb
wfweb.exe --lan 127.0.0.1 --lan-user YOUR_USERNAME --lan-pass YOUR_PASSWORD

Replace YOUR_USERNAME and YOUR_PASSWORD with the credentials you set in wfview’s Server settings.

wfweb will start and serve the web interface on port 8080.

Step 3: Access the Browser Interface

On any device on your local network, open a Chromium-based browser (Chrome, Edge, Brave) and navigate to:

https://<your-pc-ip>:8080

To find your PC’s IP address, open a Command Prompt and run ipconfig — look for the IPv4 address under your active network adapter (e.g. 192.168.0.225).

On first visit, your browser will warn you about a self-signed certificate — click through to accept it. You’ll land on the wfweb interface with waterfall display, full radio control, and audio streaming.

Step 4: Connect POTACAT

Install POTACAT and configure it to talk to wfview via the com0com virtual port pair:

  1. Open POTACAT and go to Settings → Rig
  2. Set connection type to Rigctld (Network)
  3. Select the other port of your com0com pair (e.g. COM9 if wfview is using COM8)
  4. Rig model: IC-7300
  5. Click Test Connection — it should confirm successfully

Now clicking any POTA, SOTA, or DX spot in POTACAT will instantly tune your IC-7300.