
I simply downloaded the sketch and uploaded
it to the Arduino. Well almost.
I did actually make a couple of changes to
Budds sketch. As I mentioned I wanted to create a buildable project that
students can understand the radio, electronics and the software element of this
project.
I created a couple of functions that simply look for a LOW on 2 pins. If this exists the Arduino loads a debug function
where it writes out some text to the screen, and flashes an LED. This is an important step for the build
project I have in mind, as I want the students to build a bit then test a bit
etc. For those who have seen the RSGB Century PSK receiver - and the instructions I wrote to accompany the project, you will instantly know what I mean.
I also included a write out to the Serial port the
serial address of the I2C display. And finally add the I2C libraries to enable
to I2C display to be used.
Another alteration was to create an auto
reset function where if the Arduino cannot resolve 10 characters in succession,
it calls the auto reset method, and simply reboots the Arduino.
That’s it. If you didn’t want to change any
of the code, I would simply grab Budds latest version and use that. It works
perfectly fine. Connecting the circuit again couldn’t have been easier. I took
the output from Pin 8 of the LM567, and installed it onto PIN 8 of the Arduino.
Here is the board and Arduino working on the 1st attempt of connecting it all together.
That’s it. However I didn’t want to stop
there. So I made some changes and improvements on a Vero board version. I also looked into finalising the Circuit on a PCB. I will cover more of this in an upcoming blog post. and how the new version is looking.