Serial Control Commands to get data from KPC650 EVDO Card

waylockwisp

All:

I recently was successfuly getting the KPC650 to work in a MikroTik (www.mikrotik.com) routerboard that I utilize for commerical applications. I utilized some posts/notes I found from someone that got the same card working on a specific Linux distro. And it works successfully. MikroTik added the drivers for the card with its v2.9.x release, so it was farily straight forward.

Now I want to raise the bar a bit (no pun intended) and gather information from the card about signal strength, connectivity status and weather it is on a EVDO or 1X system. To my knowledge the only way I can do this is via the serial console on the board. I've seen in some other posts where this was done via Linux shell, but not sure about the serial console.

Unfortuantely, I'm a bit rusty on serial communications. Are there a set of commands that I can utilize to query the KPC650 from within the serial console to gather this type of information and other status info? BTW, the MikroTik OS is based ona Debian Linux kernal.

Any advice or redirection to resources that might allow me to figure this out...would be greatly appreciated.

-Chad

Mackieman · EVDO Junkie Joined: 31 Oct 2005 Posts: 490

You should read this thread: http://www.evdoforums.com/thread2046.html

picothinker · Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 9:21 am Post subject:

Bumping an old thread here, but I am interested in using Mikrotik's RouterOS for EVDO on Linux. I have read that the existing usbserial drivers have too small a buffers to make use of Rev A speeds, and that the current airprime or (as of the newer 2.6.22 kernel) a newer driver called 'option' can give better performance.

The hardware requirements for RouterOS are very minimal, any old junk PC will work (requires 32 meg of ram). I have a Pentium 200 with a PCMCIA slot, so I am considering that, then sharing the connect with the rest of my network.

I have been in contact with the guys at Mikrotik and they are willing to consider adding this to the OS. RouterOS is highly popular with wireless ISPs, it has a lot of tools, traffic shaping, user management for hotspots, etc. I don't need most of those, but the prospect of using a very plain spare hardware box is appealing to me. I have been using old PC's for router/firewall/gateways for nearly ten years. The old ones are built like tanks, and while they use more power than a little brick router, still use much less than a modern PC. Old Pentium ones usually didn't even have a fan on the CPU heatsink, all the better to stick it in a clost.

RouterOS can generate a 'support output' file. I installed it on an old laptop, took it into a Sprint store, and borrowed a PCMCIA Audiovox PC-5740 card. It lit up, I generated the support file and sent it to Mikrotik yesterday. RouterOS appears to be a Debian/Knoppix variant.