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1995-09-20
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164 lines
************************************
* HF•150 version 1.00 *
************************************
© Copyright Daniel Aronovitch 1995
This program and its components are public domain. You may
distribute them freely provided that
1/ all the files are always kept together
2/ the files are not altered in any way
3/ no profit is made
If you wish to break any of these conditions, get first in touch with me
at the address below.
Bug reports, suggestions, criticism or donations are welcome at the
same address.
Daniel Aronovitch
37, rue de la Constitution
B - 1030 Bruxelles
Belgium
About !HF•150
=============
The aim of this program is to provide an easy way to control the HF 150
general coverage radio receiver manufactured by Lowe. It requires the
RS232 interface IF•150 available at Lowe’s.
All the options are hopefully straightforward.
1/ Memory
a) RCL
Recalls a previously stored configuration from a memory of the
receiver. The set up of the panel will be blanked as the set up of the
receiver is unknown at this point.
b) STO
Stores its actual frequency and mode states into one of the displayed
memory of the receiver .
2/ Mode
This panel allows you to set the receiver to one of the eight possible
modes. Note that for AM mode, I use AMW instead of AM as Lowe
does, this for easiness of programming and, if required, this could be
easily amended. At the start of the program, nothing is selected as the
state of the receiver is unknown.
3/ Band
This allows you to switch quickly to a specific band. The receiver is
set to the lowest frequency of the selected band and the tuning step is
adapted. Inside the band, the tuning range is restricted to that band and
is wrapping.
Three band banks are actually available, ie Broadcast, Amateur and
Marine. The bank is selected using the menu button of the mouse and
ticking the desired bank. Each bank contains a “Full” button which set
the tuning step to 8 Hz (the smallest available) -unless the step lock
button is on- and gives access to all frequencies.
4/ Quick memories
These are six memories maintained into the program for temporary
storage / recall of stations.
Memory six differs slightly from the five others in that it swaps its
contents with the main frequency and mode. This is useful for duplex
communications.
5/ Frequency
You can enter or edit there the frequency to tune to. When a
frequency is entered, the band is reset to “Full” and step to 8 Hz (if step
lock button is off). With the two arrow buttons to the right of this
display, you can up / down tune at the step rate. The frequency is
rounded to the nearest 8 Hz.
6/ Step
You can either enter or edit a step value in kHz into the window - in
this case, the frequency is rounded to the nearest 8 Hz - or toggle the
step with some useful pre-programmed steps by clicking on the Step
button. On its right is a step lock toggle switch that, when enabled,
locks the step whatever happens.
7/ Miscellaneous
At start, the program looks in its directory for a text file named
'Config'. This file can contain the following keywords :
Mode <mode as on Mode panel>
Frequ <frequency in kHz>
Step <step in kHz>
RCL <receiver memory number>
STO <receiver memory number>
M1 <frequency in kHz> <mode>
.
.
M6 <frequency in kHz> <mode>
FrequKey <frequency keyword> [see 8/ b]
ModeKey <mode keyword> [see 8/ b]
The keywords and their arguments must be separated by one or
more spaces or tabs characters and one command by line is required. If
the command is to be ignored, you can either not include it in the list, or
give its argument a value of zero.
8/ Extras
The program is able to understand two kind of text files dragged to its
window or iconbar icon.
a) memory bank
The aim of this file is to configure the memories of the receiver.
The file must contain '**Memory_Bank**' at the start of a line.
It is thanks to this keyword that the program recognises the file
contents. I didn't use file type recognition because I didn't want to
reserve one for such a restricted use and risk types clashes.
The rest of the file are separated lines as :
<memory number> <frequency> <mode> [<comments>]
The last line must contain 'END'.
Warning : it is assumed that the file is correctly formatted, so if you
want to crash the program, try that way!
Have a look at the "MBank" file included.
b) data base interface
As I wanted the program to interface with your favourite database, I
made the assessment that every database is able to export one card in
text form (if yours doesn't try the excellent public domain Powerbase).
If HF•150 receives a file which contains the keywords FrequKey and
ModeKey as defined in the 'Config' file, it assumes that what follows
are the respective values.
To be clear, say you were french and defined in your database card a
Fréquence field and a Modulation field, you should enter in the config
file :
FrequKey Fréquence
ModeKey Modulation
then, when the program receives a text file containing Fréquence and
Modulation, it will assume that this is a card from a database and that
Fréquence is followed by a numeric value which is the frequency and
that Modulation is followed by one of the modes as in the Mode panel.
The default fields values are Frequency and Mode.
Have a look at the 'CardSample' file included.
Comments
I did not include the fixed and variable frequency offsets as Lowe did in
its PC program (which, by the way, destroyed twice the map of the hard
disk on two different PC's) because I could not figure out a decent way
to measure them with a better accuracy that the error itself. Any
suggestions in this respect are warmly welcome.
Any questions or comments are most welcome.
Wed 20th September 1995
Daniel Aronovitch.