Ham Radio Ten Meter Beacon Station

gklinger · Post by **gklinger** » Mon Dec 01, 2008 1:16 pm

A link to this video got posted to the Toronto CBM and since it's VIC-related, I'm posting it. It's a ham radio setup that uses a VIC-20 (to do what, I don't know). Check it out here.

CrAlt · Post by **CrAlt** » Mon Dec 01, 2008 2:58 pm

I have that brown box with the LED's flashing. Its a "Kantronics -- The Interface" rtty, cw, uP.

I just dont have any software for it. It plugs in to the game port.

Im a ham and would like to play with it some.

People use the beacons to tell when there is band opening. If you can hear a long away beacon then chances are conditions are good to make a contact to that part of the world.

http://www.ac6v.com/beacons.htm

CrAlt · Post by **CrAlt** » Mon Dec 01, 2008 6:56 pm

Its looks like the software was called "Radiotap". It came on a cart. Anyone have a image?

http://www.atarimagazines.com/compute/i ... And_64.php

6502dude · Post by **6502dude** » Mon Dec 01, 2008 9:26 pm

I have a MicroLog Air-1 and can provide a dump of that eprom.

I use it periodically with Icom R71-A receiver.

channelmaniac · Post by **channelmaniac** » Mon Dec 01, 2008 11:57 pm

I had a Kantronics cart board that I took the EPROM off of and converted to a diag cart board.

You want a dump of the EPROM? Give me your email address on a PM and I"ll send it to you.

RJ

CrAlt · Post by **CrAlt** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 12:32 am

thanks!

channelmaniac · Post by **channelmaniac** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 8:40 am

Sent!

Seems I had already dumped it but forgot I did...

It was a simple matter of just attaching it to an email and sending it.

Hope it works well for you.

RJ

nippur72 · Post by **nippur72** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 9:45 am

What was the callsign of the station and its frequency?

I used to listen to 10 meters beacon with my CB transceiver; I remember a south african one ("ZS6PW" or something) that was very loud here in Italy.

CrAlt · Post by **CrAlt** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 3:09 pm

channelmaniac wrote:Sent!

Seems I had already dumped it but forgot I did... It was a simple matter of just attaching it to an email and sending it.

Hope it works well for you.

RJ

ok. I got it thanks!

Do i have to burn it to a eprom or is there a way i can run this from a disk?

Im guessing its a .bin file. I searched around the site and found that i could "echo -e -n '\x00\x40' | cat - file.bin > file.prg" to make it a prg. I did that and copyed the bin and "prg" to a 1541 floppy. I goto my vic and do a load "radio",8,1 and get no errors. I then sys40960 and the vic just hangs. I tryed with and with out my 16K expander in there.

Am i way off here?

http://cralt.com/vic/radiotap.bin is the file i got in the email. 4096 bytes.
http://sleepingelephant.com/ipw-web/bul ... c&start=15 is where i got some hints from... but its mostly greek to me.
Oh well. Im gona start building the interface cable for my HF rig

CrAlt · Post by **CrAlt** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 6:38 pm

Well my hardware seems good to go. The interface seems to work and its wired to my TS570d
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jSVcD70IS0

Just need to get this bin to start...

6502dude · Post by **6502dude** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 7:06 pm

I have not seen schematic of the interface board, I'm pretty sure you will need to burn this to eprom.

If you want to try from disk:

Take eprom dump, then (assuming it is /blk5), use a hex editor to add load address bytes to bin file - insert 00 A0 at first of eprom bin file.

Then save this to floppy disk.

With 8K ram expansion located in /BLK5 space:

load "bin file name",8,1

then - sys64802

Good luck!

CrAlt · Post by **CrAlt** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 7:25 pm

Oh well looks like this project is halted for now

I added 00 A0 to the start of http://cralt.com/vic/radiotap.bin and no matter how i setup the memery in VICE i get a READY prompt when trying to start it at different addresses.

The real vic hangs or also gives me a "READY" prompt with my 8K and 16K ram carts. :-/

6502dude · Post by **6502dude** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 7:41 pm

I had a look at the bin image.

It is not autostart.

I don't have time right now to try disassembly to find start address and where this fits in memory map.
Maybe someone can help out with this.

Leeeeee · Post by **Leeeeee** » Wed Dec 03, 2008 4:39 am

Attach the .bin file as a cart image at $A000 then SYS 40960 to start.

Expansion RAM is not needed.

Lee.

Leeeeee · Post by **Leeeeee** » Wed Dec 03, 2008 4:45 am

Making a .prg file by appending $00,$A0 to the start of the .bin file, loading it into RAM then doing SYS 40960 also works.

This obviously needs RAM in BLK5

Lee.