The same ASCII stream over a socket instead of a wire: ser2net, an
Ethernet-serial adapter, a Raspberry Pi at the radio. One TCP transport
presented as a serial port, so the backend keeps a single code path.
Explicitly NOT the radio's own RJ45. A TS-890 or TS-990 speaks Kenwood's
KNS/ARCP there — session, authentication, a different protocol — and that needs
one of those radios in hand to write honestly. The setting's help text says so,
because an operator who plugs in their TS-890's Ethernet port and types its
address deserves to learn that from the interface rather than from silence.
Two details that decide whether this is usable or maddening:
- A read deadline expiring is reported as "no data yet", not as an error. It
is exactly what a serial read timeout means to the caller; as an error it
would make ask() abandon a rig that is merely thinking.
- The log line names what was connected to. "connected on @ 0 baud" after a
network connect sends someone hunting a serial fault that does not exist.
The host wins over the COM port when both are filled: it is the more deliberate
setting, and silently preferring the wire leaves someone staring at an address
they typed and a radio that never answers.