AmateurRadio.com

I have completed the Arduino-based rotator computer interface and controller project or at least gotten the code and functionality stable and to the point where I’m satisfied with it.  The unit emulates the Yaesu controller command set and works with Ham Radio Deluxe.  I’ve tested the unit with a Yaesu G-1000DXA rotator.  While the code has AZ/EL rotator support, I do not have an AZ/EL rotator to fully test the elevation functionality yet.  This summer I hope to assemble a satellite antenna setup complete with an AZ/EL rotator using this interface.

If anyone is able to test with an AZ/EL rotator, or if anyone wants to attempt to interface this to another brand rotator, please let me know as I would be glad to develop the code.

Now that the snow has melted and ice fishing season is over, I’m looking forward to doing some Summits On The Air (SOTA) operation on the Appalachian Trail (AT).  This video I found from Kevin Gallagher beautifully summarizes a six month AT journey into a few minutes and got me thinking about SOTA operation from the trail.

It’s been a fun ride in the amateur radio blogosphere these past few years.  I’ve had some good discussions with intelligent people and had  fun along the way.  I shared ideas, some good and some half-baked.  I had some folks believing that the LORAN network was being saved by radio amateurs, organs were going to be harvested from radio amateurs for universal healthcare, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers liked to jam on amateur radio.  I analyzed, complained, praised, and ranted, and a lot of you listened.  Several of you presented alternate points of view that provoked thought and sometimes changed my opinions.

Unfortunately, I find it increasingly difficult to write about topics that are consistent with the original intent of this blog.  As I’ve often mentioned, I wanted to do something different from the normal “I did this today” blog.  A lot of folks like to do that, and that’s OK.  A blog is what you want it to be, it’s your creation.  There’s only so much I can write about regarding what’s broken or can be improved in amateur radio, and writing about it doesn’t really do anything to fix it.  Often in this online world we amass an audience that agrees with our viewpoints and opinions, and critical topics on blogs tend to preach to the converted.  Those who really need to read such topics aren’t reading blogs.

Rather than have this blog go on a life support system with periodic and annoying “I’ve been really busy” posts as many amateur radio blogs have done, I’m retiring The K3NG Report and have launched another site entitled Radio Artisan which will focus on projects and operating events, mainly outdoors.  While technically it’s hosted with WordPress and essentially is a blog format, I’m not treating it as blog so I don’t feel an obligation to post regularly or write about the amateur radio crisis du jour.

See you over at Radio Artisan…

Thanks for reading and 73.  Dit dit.

Welcome to Radio Artisan, and a special shout out to former K3NG Report readers.  This is my new creation which will focus on projects and operating activities.  Links to projects and “sticky” articles are over on the right.  I will generally post articles when some new project page has been created or if there’s an update to an existing one.

A few of the pages are past postings from the K3NG Report.  The PIC Keyer is a project that I’ve had published for several years now.  My newest creations are the Arduino CW Keyer and the Arduino Computer Rotator Interface / Yaesu Rotator Interface Emulator.  Both are being actively developed with new features, but are fully functional.

I’m currently on an Arduino kick as you may be able to tell.  I also have in the works a frequency counter which will interface with the CW keyer, and a DDS chip controller which may become the basis for a larger project.  I also have in the works an Arduino controlled balanced antenna tuner.

If you have any interests in these projects, please be sure to drop me a line.

73

As promotional videos go, this is rather interesting. Very detailed and an interesting look at the burgeoning technology of the sixties. Below is a quote from the video description on YouTube:

[Recorded: October, 1967]
This half hour color promotional/educational film on the integrated circuit was produced and sponsored by Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation and first shown on television on October 11, 1967. In the film, Dr. Harry Sello and Dr. Jim Angell describe the integrated circuit (IC), discuss its design and development process, and offer examples of late 1960s uses of IC technology.
Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation was one of the most influential early high-tech companies. Founded in Palo Alto California in 1957 by eight scientists and engineers from Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory, Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation was funded by Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corporation of Syossett, New York. Rapidly establishing itself as a technology innovator based on its invention of the planar manufacturing process in 1959, the company developed the first monolithic integrated circuit, the first CMOS device, and numerous other technical and business innovations. French oil field services company Schlumberger Limited purchased Fairchild in 1979 and sold a much weakened business to National Semiconductor in 1987. In 1997 National divested a group, formed as the present Fairchild Semiconductor, in a leveraged buy-out. The company re-emerged as a public entity based in South Portland, Maine in 1999 under the corporate name Fairchild Semiconductor International, Inc.

Fairchild Semiconductor presented its new products and technologies with an entrepreneurial style, and its early manufacturing and marketing techniques helped give Californias Santa Clara County a new name: Silicon Valley. It was one of the early forerunners of what would become a worldwide high-tech industry, as evidenced in this short promotional film.

Pretty neat stuff, brought to you by The Computer History Museum.

I’ve decided to take on a “new old” project and port my PIC keyer code to the Arduino platform.  I use the word “port” loosely as the Arduino offers many higher level features and libraries, and I will be programming in C rather than the PIC’s native assembly code.  I know I’m about two years late to the start of the “Arduino party”, but from what I’ve read it looks like the party is still going strong with new people joining the fun everyday.

I started writing the PIC keyer about 10 years ago, first starting with PICBasic.  It quickly became apparently that PICBasic, while easy to get started with, produced much too bulky to pack in the features I was looking for.  This is often the case with high level languages.  I went on to assembly and ended up making a full blown keyer with memories, straight key and bug modes, variable weighting, code practice mode, a frequency counter, and several other features.  I look back at the code and can’t believe some of the stuff I did.  I think my two biggest accomplishments were writing and debugging the frequency counter code and making the variable frequency sidetone output while simultaneously doing other functions without the benefit of interrupts and multitasking.  Some of this code is just pure magic and trying to figure it out today I find myself cursing the younger me who was more clever and diligent than the older me today.

The PIC will always be my first love, but I’m ready to move on.  Despite having written very modular and readable code with lots of comments, it’s a major undertaking adding new functionality to this assembly code, especially when I don’t look at the code for months at a time.  Also, I was often having to deal with memory limitations, and when porting the code to bigger chips with more memory I had to deal with memory page issues.  While I could spend the money to get a C compiler for the PIC, it just doesn’t make sense with the popularity of the Arduino platform.  And with all the modules you can get for functionality like memory cards, Ethernet interfacing and wireless networking, there’s just much more potential for growth, doing cool stuff, and reaching a larger user audience.  These days I would rather spend my time making a chip talk over TCP/IP than figuring out how to stuff more assembly code into 500 bytes of remaining memory just to do something like blink an LED.

I expect porting the main CW keyer functionality over to the Arduino will be much easier than the initial PIC development was due to the Arduino’s interrupt capabilities.  Also, the Arduino library has a sound generation library that appears to operate “in the background” while the main code is running.  This is heaven compared with what I had to go through to get sidetone output to work while not missing a beat with CW element timing on the PIC.

I’m awaiting an Arduino board to arrive in the mail; hopefully the fun will begin later this week.  I’ll be posting my progress here.

And on a somewhat related note, it never seems to get reported by “mainstream” amateur radio media, but Sunday, February 13th will be the four year anniversary of the elimination of code test in the US.  Please turn on your rig, start at the lower edge of your favorite HF band, run the VFO up through the band, and listen to all the CW (OK, ignore the RTTY this weekend).  If the spirit moves you, why not have a CW QSO?  Remember – CW is alive and well because of us, not a test.

Collin over at Make: is at it again.  Here is a great little seven minute intro on how to use a multimeter.

If you’re an experienced ham, then you can indeed skip this one.  I like the basic videos that Make: is putting together to use when I teach hams.

If you don’t know it already, you can go to the Make: website http://makezine.com/ and download the videos and share with your friends and students.  I started putting these videos on basic electronics on a DVD for students and they have REALLY learned quite a bit.

If you know of any other good videos, post below and share the knowledge!