Pic Programming ? Upgrade old radios?

[kc4umo]

Was wondering if anyone here has got into pic programming and design? Last year I ordered some chips and a couple of programmers. Pickit 2 and a clone. A good friend of mine got me interested in this and sent me some proto type boards he designed. Before I got the schematics he passed away. So now I am on my own. 

There were a couple of projects I was looking at doing.
Replace the standard VFO in a Siltronix 1011C. (Maybe others as well)
Frequency generator to use on work bench.

This is just a couple of things I am looking at doing. I have not gotten far in my learning yet though.
There are so many more things I could do but these would be fun.

[N8YX]

Jerry and Paul had a thread about this, IIRC...

[N1LAF]

We should resurrect this, but maybe at a more technical forum. PICs are dirt cheap, and the DDS chips would make a great pair.

Speaking of... I have a 1011D that needs to be worked on, alignment-wise...

[kc4umo]

Jerry and Paul had a thread about this, IIRC...

Cool I will look for it.

We should resurrect this, but maybe at a more technical forum. PICs are dirt cheap, and the DDS chips would make a great pair.

Speaking of... I have a 1011D that needs to be worked on, alignment-wise...

Yes I like to see a technical thread of microchips and radio combined. There seems to be endless ideas on how to use them in radio hobbies.
I have both the 1011C and D. My plans was to install this and set it to give 500kc steps starting at 28 MHz.
These radios are easy to work on if you can get rid of the drift.

[N1LAF]

Cool I will look for it.



Yes I like to see a technical thread of microchips and radio combined. There seems to be endless ideas on how to use them in radio hobbies.
I have both the 1011C and D. My plans was to install this and set it to give 500kc steps starting at 28 MHz.
These radios are easy to work on if you can get rid of the drift.

Continuous tuning output from 28.000 Mhz to 29.000 Mhz with fine resolution of 0.2 Hz may be possible.

VFO output 22.5 Mhz to 23.5 Mhz for the 28Mhz to 29 Mhz range.
Auto-detect of LSB/USB/AM selection/offsets
Programmable display offset, so it can be used on other radios as well. The display offset can be stored in the PIC EEPROM user memory.

[X-Rated]

Actually, there is a ham at MicroChip. N7HPR. He did a lot of work on SuitSat.

Paul is right. Much of the stuff we had discussed earlier was about PLD's. Basically doing everything in hardware and no real program. That is a bit on the pricy side and the BGA's are beyond what most hams have the equipment to use.

I suck at programming. I can only get better.

[N1LAF]

I have practical experience in programming PICs with serial port interface, SPI interface, and digital display outputs, so the PIC part of this is pretty straight forward. The AD9834 will probably be a good pick for this little project.

Design with a virtual ground, so the unit can be used with negative or positive power supplies (Siltronix uses -12 VDC in the VFO chamber).

Opto-iso for serial interface. Encoder will have to be programmed in. Switch inputs for USB/LSB/AM freq shift. Switch for selecting display offset, and push button to save display offset.

I'll have to look at this a little bit more to nail down the circuit.

[X-Rated]

You need to have an I2C to be able to SPI on others.

[NQ6U]

I'm not saying you shouldn't pursue this but it seems like PICs are losing out in favor of RaspberryPi and Arduino these days.

[kc4umo]

Nice comments all. There is a lot to learn at what can be done here and I have only just started the learning process. I think this will be a good discussion here unlike some other forums I asked on.

I'm not saying you shouldn't pursue this but it seems like PICs are losing out in favor of RaspberryPi and Arduino these days.

Point taken.
One think I learned from the EEVblog is to stay away from Arduino type platforms. Not that there is anything wrong with one that wants to use them. Only that it was said that they are sort of plug and play if you will and you really learn nothing in the process. Remember I am only going by what a few "Engineers” stated. And not to say one day I may not try them myself.

I do know my friend that passed away was very successful with his designs.
However I am always open minded and take in any information available since I am a noob to all this.