Hobbies: HAM-Radio

Since 1991 I have been licensed as a Radio Amateur ("HAM").

Since I'm currently living in a flat I'm handicapped in building large antennas. So I can only work in Packet Radio and take part in local FM rounds, most of the time on 70cm. Our preferred local frequency is 430.075 MHz, but sometimes I'm also QRV on our FM-repeaters in OE9:

OE9XVV on 438.825 MHz (shift -7.6)
OE9XVJ on 438.875 MHz (shift -7.6)
OE9XVI on 145.650 MHz (shift -0.6)

For more information about our hamradio network in OE9 have a look at the OE9-Web-Site.

Now and then I visit my parents. Since my father is also licensed (his call sign is OE9FKI) I can use his station for DXing on 50 MHz. I would recommend visiting his homepage http://www.oe9fki.net because he's very active on hamradio and has some nice pictures of his stuff.

Fun with the Microchip PIC

I've been playing with the Microchip PIC 16F84A for a while. This chip is very versatile and can be used for many hamradio applications. My first completely self constructed application was a "Roger Beep"-controller capable of sending not only a simple beep but also several CW letters at the end of your transmissions. There's a documentation in PDF format (sorry, only in German by now) including a scheme and the HEX-File to program the chip.

UPDATES: The schematics from Version 1.0 Rev.A contain a serious bug - pins "Vdd" and "Vss" of the 16F84 are swapped due to my incredible ignorance and sillyness :-( ... please download the updated documentation from the link above or see just the schematics of Rev.B .

Furthermore it seems I'm an outstanding case of stupidness ... the HEX File available for download here seemed to be somehow buggy - the "R" and "HI" options didn't work correctly. I corrected it today (2003-07-29) by uploading an actual version. The correct one must be of 1.169 bytes in size.

A (modified) PLL for ATV with the U6223

Ingo Rackow, DF1OG has published a PLL for ATV in CQ DL 3/96 (page 194) using the U6223 IC manufactured by TEMIC. His design uses a PIC 16C54 (source code / HEX-file) to control the PLL. Since the 16C54 needs a parallel programmer (the TAIT programmer for instance) it's a bit complicated to program. So I've adapted DF1OG's source code to a 16F84A. As reported by OE9FKI the PLL works fine also with the 16F84A. You can download the source and the HEX-file here.

Since it seems that information on this project isn't available on the internet I decided to scan every piece of documentation flying around here and publish it right here ... but be warned! This is for non-commercial, educational/amateur use ONLY!!! I am NOT the author and NOT the copyright owner, and I might be forced to remove this document at any time. See the last page of the PDF-file for details.


Please note:
I'm not sure about the status of DF1OG's project. The source mentions "public domain" and I downloaded the files from our local Packet-Radio BBS freely, so I think it's all free. Nevertheless I publish all information for educational purposes only !

I can't provide an eMail-address of DF1OG, I only have a PR eMail-address (df1og@dk0mav.deu.eu) but I'm not sure that it's still valid.

Use MPASM (freely available from Microchip) to compile my sources.

QRG-Keyboard for FT-100/FT-817/TS-50

Peter Horlacher, DH1PAX developed a circuit for the FT-100 and FT-817 transceivers to enter the desired QRG via a tiny matrix keyboard in German Funk-Amateur magazine (issue 08/2004, page 823; you'll find the source and the binaries on that page - search for "Frequenzeingabe-Tastatur"). Peter uses an Atmel AT90S2313 micro controller to set the QRG via the CAT interface.

As I own a TS-50 since summer 2004 I was interested in controlling this rig via CAT, which is possible as David Steeman found out. So I fired my soldering iron and downloaded a demo version of BASCOM, an IDE for the AT90S2313 to program it in BASIC. The demo version is restricted to 2 kBytes of sizes for the produced binaries, but that's enough for the 2313 as its flash size is only 2 kByte anyway.

Have a look at the German article (as long as I'm not forced to remove it due to copyright concerns) and my TS-50 source and binaries.

RC5 compatible programmable IR sender and RC5 receiver/decoder

I had to repair my TV set some weeks ago (the horizontal flyback died). After changing the flyback (I used a HR Diemen 8368 as spare) and the HOT (BU508DF) the box was up again. After all I wanted to enter it's service mode to check settings.

It turned out that it is possible to enter service mode by sending the RC5 command "29" to it. Since the standard remote control does not feature this command, the only way seemed to be buying a special service remote control. But I didn't want to spend a lot of money on this so I tried to develop my own RC5-compatible remote control. I wanted it to be configurable (by DIP switches) and RC5-compatible.

And because I was in this topic already I wanted to analyse some of the remote controls used around here, so I wanted to have a RC5 receiver and decoder (with LCD display).

First I thought about using a PIC for this, but then I remembered the Atmel AT90S2313 I already encountered in the QRG-KEY project and the powerful BASCOM (see above). Luckily all routines needed for these two projects (RC5 send and receive, LCD-control, etc.) are ready-made in the libraries, so these little helpers were rather easy to complete. If you are interested in these tools - see the RC5SMX2 sender and the RC5RX decoder package. They both contain a simple scheme, the source and a ready-to-use hex-file.

They are free to use as long as credits are given in your source code.

Matrix Orbital compatible display controller for M50530-LCDs

I got hand on some quite large LCDs (40x3) which use the Mitsubishi M50530 as controller. Since this controller is not HD44780-compatible it is not supported by the WinAMP LCDplugin. At least I found a data-sheet for this controller at http://www.lc-design.de/ so I started to think about how to fix this.

Matrix Orbital have designed LCDs which can be controlled via a serial (RS-232) interface. Luckily also the WinAMP LCDplugin supports this de-facto standard: They simply write every character received on RS-232 to the LCD except for ASCII-code 254 which is interpreted as command-flag followed by one or more bytes defining the command. See their web-site for details.

Using again an Atmel AT90S2313 and Bascom it was not very difficult to build some kind of "emulator" which is able to simluate a Matrix Orbital compatible LCD to WinAMP and controls the 40x3 M50530 LCD display. As I'm rather lazy I only implemented commands needed by WinAMP and not all of those featured by Matrix Orbital. Feel free to expand it yourself :-) .

I made a small PCB including a primitive step-up-converter from 5 V to 12 V since the M50530-LCD needs 10 to 13 V contrast voltage and I wanted it to run from 5 V because I power the LCD from the PC's USB ports. An archive containing scheme, PCB, source code and a HEX-file is waiting for download here. Again you're free to use it for non-commercial purposes as long as you give credits in your source.

Please note: The WinAMP LCDplugin seems to be buggy when it comes to outputting custom characters on Matrix Ortibal displays via the %c macro. At least I checked my sources over and over and came to this conclusion. The plugin simply addresses the custom characters in a wrong way: Character number n in the plugin is character number n+1 at the display. If anyone finds a mistake in my source it would be nice to hear from him :-) ... I gave it up since it is not very important for me.

By the way - this is my QSL-Card:



PLEASE NOTE: QSL via bureau is NOT possible, as I'm no longer a member of the Austrian HAM Radio Club (OEVSV) because I do NOT share most of the aims and opinions of that club anymore. So I decided to quit membership by the end of 2003.

If you want to exchange cards please use the postal address from my card above (only after QSO and agreement).

Kinzi Design - Copyright (c) 2005.