I need to activate a HF radio automatic tuner, I need to control it using two PI’s over either a LAN or wireless link. The unit at the radio end has to send a request to tune momentary signal and provide a led that the tuner end PI has received the signal, then using my HF radio we can put RF to the tuner and the tuner will adjust itself to tune to the required frequency, it then needs to send a 'I am tuned " acknowledgement back to the pi near the radio. I am learning PI very very slowly so any help would be appreciated.
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Hi Greg,
Sounds like quite the project!! I’m keen to see how this one progresses.
In terms of sending a signal to another Pi you could go down the route of using an MQTT server to subscribe to a feed, you can read more about it on their webpage: https://mqtt.org/
Adafruit, another Maker company in the US have a great resource that might be able to help as well! https://io.adafruit.com/
As for using the info passed through it will depend on how you can talk to the tuner. Do you have a link to the one you are using?
Breaking down the problem into the different parts will definitely help in getting the project up and running as fast as possible!
Liam.
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Good morning Liam
I will attach the manual for the tuner unit, mine has been modified a little but I wont be able to scan that circuit till this evening and send to you. I want to use the PI’s as I have a couple of 4’s that I also want to use as weather stations and as a GPS clock. Anyhow see attached manual and I will send you some more info this evening.
Regards
Greg Fletcher
Communication Systems Geraldton
0418 939069
JC-4s Manual English v9_5.pdf (1.08 MB)
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Good evening Liam
Please see attached a overall drawing and a schematic of the circuit that I am controlling, the modifications where done so that a Barrett or Codan HF two-way radio could put the tuner into tune mode. How this happens is when you press tune on the radio it not only provides the signal to put the tuner into tune mode but the output power of the radio is reduced from 100 watts to 10 watts so the radio doesn’t get damaged whilst the tuner is doing its thing, once its tuned away you go. Hence the need to send the tune signal to the tuner and get an acknowledgement back from the tuner, now I could just do away with the add on board and connect the PI as per the JC-4 manual as well.
Anyhow give me a call if you like?
Regards
Greg Fletcher
Communication Systems Geraldton
0418 939069
06102100.PDF (101 KB)
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Hi Greg,
Just a heads up, when replying to a forum topic via email it also includes your signature(which has your phone number and company name) I’d head over to the forum and edit those out of your post.
Unfortunately this one will be quite involved and you wont be able to slap a Pi in the mix. vs a UART or SPI radio this one looks as if it was designed to be primed by a human (and only a human).
Although it complicates things a bit I’d say its worth implementing a microcontroller(MCU) in between the Pi and the radios to run the routines to tune them. To make the switches ‘fire’ from a signal sent by an MCU you could use a relay( or some other chips depending on how much current flows through each switch). By adding the microcontroller you arent connecting it directly to a $90+ computer and instead a $6 board that is really good at doing timing dependent tasks.
I couldnt find in the manual if you are able to send any digital signals to it for automatic tuning, but didnt do a comprehensive read.
I had a trawl around the Core website and couldnt find any services or systems that allow you to have a one-on-one technical chat with them, the forum is definitely the spot for this so other makers can jump in and drop their thoughts or read up in the future.
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Goo evening Liam
Thanks for the heads up on the phone number I will try and sort that.
Ok lets try and simplify this.
What I need to do is
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