Couple of months back I have created a prototype board for Si570. I had plan to use the Arduino Mega or mBed to drive the Si570.
Both of the options worked well, in fact the mBed based prototype was very small in and can fit in to a pencil box.
After driving the Si570 from the Arduino Mega, I thought of adding a Display to configure/view the frequency. Adding a 20x4 LCD was the initial decision, later changed to a 480x320 TFT.
Arduino Mega has lot of pins which could be used for controlling the Band Pass Filter, Low Pass Filter, Tx/Rx control etc.
Here is the list of parts/functions which I am planning to add in this build to extend the VFO to a full functional Radio Controller
1) 4x4 KeyPad for frequency entry/selection of other radio functions/configuration/setup
2) 480x320 TFT display .(3.2 or 2.8 inch)
3) Tx/Rx switching , display the same in LCD
4) Band Output to select the BPF/LPF
5) RIT
6) VFO-A/B/SPLIT mode.
7) CAT interface
8) VFO-Memory and vice-versa
9) S-Meter for Signal strength
10) LSB/USB indication
11) AGC On/Off Control
12) PreAmp On/Off Control
13) RIT On/Off Control
14) Attenuator On/Off Control
15) Noise Blanker On/Off Control
Following Menu/ Setup Parameters are also considered at the moment.
1) IF Offset
2) VFO Mode - Possible options are (a) VFO-IF, (b) IF-VFO
3) RIT settings
4) SSB Offset Settings
5) High /Low Frequency Settings ( optional)
6) Band Settings (configured with default band plan,but can be altered based on user). This option can be used if the LPF/BPF is avilable certain HF bands.
7) Call Sign
A basic design of the UI is attached here.
Time to write a Radio Contrroller Library for Arduino :)
Both of the options worked well, in fact the mBed based prototype was very small in and can fit in to a pencil box.
After driving the Si570 from the Arduino Mega, I thought of adding a Display to configure/view the frequency. Adding a 20x4 LCD was the initial decision, later changed to a 480x320 TFT.
Arduino Mega has lot of pins which could be used for controlling the Band Pass Filter, Low Pass Filter, Tx/Rx control etc.
Here is the list of parts/functions which I am planning to add in this build to extend the VFO to a full functional Radio Controller
1) 4x4 KeyPad for frequency entry/selection of other radio functions/configuration/setup
2) 480x320 TFT display .(3.2 or 2.8 inch)
3) Tx/Rx switching , display the same in LCD
4) Band Output to select the BPF/LPF
5) RIT
6) VFO-A/B/SPLIT mode.
7) CAT interface
8) VFO-Memory and vice-versa
9) S-Meter for Signal strength
10) LSB/USB indication
11) AGC On/Off Control
12) PreAmp On/Off Control
13) RIT On/Off Control
14) Attenuator On/Off Control
15) Noise Blanker On/Off Control
Following Menu/ Setup Parameters are also considered at the moment.
1) IF Offset
2) VFO Mode - Possible options are (a) VFO-IF, (b) IF-VFO
3) RIT settings
4) SSB Offset Settings
5) High /Low Frequency Settings ( optional)
6) Band Settings (configured with default band plan,but can be altered based on user). This option can be used if the LPF/BPF is avilable certain HF bands.
7) Call Sign
A basic design of the UI is attached here.
Time to write a Radio Contrroller Library for Arduino :)
