[HBQRP] DDS's and Ardruino's for Xmas.

[Arnie Grubbs]

Hi Group, I hope everyone is doing well after the holidays! 

A couple of weeks ago.I ordered a few items from "China" off E-bay  Got the package
yesterday.. Not bad even with the holidays.

I ordered a few of the AD9850 based DDS boards, for about $3.00 each,  and a few of the
"Micro" adruino clones.  These are even smaller than the "real" Micro's since they do not
have the USB interface.  They cost about $4.00 each by them selves. 

You use a TTL serial interface.  I picked up  USB-to TTL interface boards for these "micro" clones for about $7.00 total for board and clone from the same E-bay site.  The quality of the boards look great. I have not yet tried these out, but plan to do so when I get some time.
 (Not sure when that will be though.. my next month has a very hectic schedule).
I am not sure if I will be able to make it to the next meeting but will try.  I am having surgery on my foot
next Wednesday so making it to the meeting is going to be "IFFY".

Anyhow.. here is a link to my  Smugmug picture server account with a pix of the DDS in the top left, a 

full "real"  Ardruino Micro, in the bottom left, and the china clone in the bottom right.  Also there is a quarter there
for a size comparison

 http://vhunter.smugmug.com/Other/Ham-Radio/HomeBrewers-QRP-club/i-ccSLxh7/0/XL/Ardruino%20and%20dds-XL.jpg . 

I hope that the link address comes thru ok.

I picked up a few of these china Micro's  to use as embedded controllers in some projects I want to do in
Ardruino.   For the cost of these China boards, which includes shipping, I think they will be  fun building
blocks for many projects,   I am excited about the possibilities that these things provide to an experimenter. 
Its like a tinker-toy set for radio and electronic experimenters!

  Add on some of the available "shields"  like the 16x2 line LCD and button board,
stepper motor driver boards,  wi-fi and bluetooth boards,  Data logger boards with RTC, and others,
Oh, I even see that Argent data systems has a 'radio shield' which provides AX.25 1200 bps TX/RX for attaching a radio,   and an LCD interface.for a multi-line display.

 Some of the projects that come to mind could be some antenna tuners (mag loop or otherwise) CW Keyers, for standard or QRSS CW..
Controls for  DDS based signal generators for test bench equipment or for VFOs in radio's.  Use as the brain for a weather station (remote or otherwise) that could report to APRS, hook into WiFi,  or log a month of data to an SD card for later...   How about a simple repeater controller or the brains of a DTMF controller for things
around the shack or a remote site?     "Very Cool" stuff...

Again, not sure if I will be able to make the next meeting, but if I am feeling up to it, I'll try to make it
and bring along a couple of samples of the boards for show and tell.

I thought that I heard we were going to be doing an ol'time xtal radio set at the next meeting..?
Is the project a "go"?  What do we need to bring..  I heard an oat meal box? What size?

 Looking forward to some great meetings this year!


73 - Arnie KA0NCR