Thanks for the pointers.
I think I have it working. The format from the dsc.cpp file is
sDDDD<space>sDDDD<cr> where s is sign +/- and D is a digit. First DDDD for RA, second for Dec

I used sync on Kstars to align the values.
However, I cannot get Kstars to follow the DSC crosshairs. When I change the coordinates, the crosshair moves, but the kstars screen does not follow the corsshair. Is that a setting somewhere in Kstars? On Sky Safari it is called Lock/Unlock
On the right click context menu, there is a DSC submenu with a center crosshair which centers the view to the DSC crosshair for a few seconds but then the view reverts.

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