Weblog Ben’s HobbyCorner

www.pa0kn.nl has made a 80-40-20 meter transceiver and at the moment we are writing the Bascom-AVR code for the intelligence of this device. Main processor an Atmega128, frequency is generated with an AD9851 DDS. Display from a Nokia 6100 (Epson-type). Encoder with switch for selecting frequency and menu. There is even an analog S-meter visable on the digital screen. By a small click on the encoder-knob the steprate can be choosen for frequency-adjustment, a longer click will put the menu on the screen. Will put some details of the Bascom-AVR software on my homepage. All very stable and sound very good. Our first multilayer board and no errors found!!!

Working on a Software version of the hardware Central Board. Using the CodeJock libraries, they are great. Takes a lot of time to get things working as I want them to work, but the result is amazing. Icons of 64×64 pixels in a ribbon bar, tabbed toolbar, message bar with the last alarm etc. Main screen with all menu options working, at the moment I am typing all code for the submenu’s.
A one-by-one call is done to all field devices in the list and they should react within 50 mSec. When not, several attempts are done and when still no reaction a contact loss is put on the message bar. There is a possibility to have the alarm been send as a Text message (SMS) by cell phone. For this part I use the Kylix-libraries. Specially the Flash SMS option is very nice, instead of receiving a new message on your cell phone you get the message straight on the display. And even sending a URL with a link to a more detailed HTML-page is possible…..