[McHUG] CW Paddle, Atmel AVR and Si570

[Rich Mitchell]

Hey guys,
Here is an interesting post that was on the SoftRock group this morning.  I'll try to find the Atmel AVR code that he talks about and post it here.  The code controls the Si570 and Doug, K4DSP, modified it to use a CW paddle as the input device.  

73
Rich, N3III

Read on:


All,
I have finally gotten around to experimenting with the Si570s I
received recently. The method I used for programming them seemed novel
to me, and I thought it might be of interest to others.

I like the Atmel AVR microcontrollers. When W0CNN generously posted
some C code to control the Si570 using any AVR micro I downloaded it
and was able to get it running quite easily. At that point I looked at
methods for actually inputting the desired frequency - keypad, rotary
encoder, serial port, etc. I wanted something that was fast and
convenient and, most of all, simple. So I ended up using an input
device that have been using for years, and it turned out to work
really well.

I used my CW paddle. I wrote a keyer routine and then created a
Morse-to-ASCII translator. Now I plug in my paddle and send "14.085K"
(the micro provides sidetone, too) and the frequency of the Si570 will
be set to 14.085 MHz. (I end all commands with "K" to make it simple.)
You can specify the frequency in a number of ways. For example 102,
102.0, and 1.02e2 all mean 102 MHz. Sending "K" by itself will cause
the micro to send the last programmed frequency in CW. I've started
adding the ability to save frequencies to EEPROM, so sending "S01K"
will program the current frequency into memory 01, while sending
"R01K" will cause the frequency from memory 01 to be retrieved.

I'm currently running this on an 8-pin ATTiny85 which costs less than
$2. Of the 6 I/O pins available I am using two for the I2C comms, two
for the paddle, and one for the CW sidetone output. So I have one I/O
line left but I haven't decided what to use it for.

Would this be useful or interesting to anyone else? If so I'll clean
up the source code this weekend and post it in the files section.

END OF QUOTE

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