I'm interested in controlling my station via an RS232 bus and am
in the market for "relay boards." IE, send RS232 commands and
open and close relays (or TTL outputs). Also want some inputs
to send alarms (like high SWR) back. I searched on the net and
found that numerous companies make "me-too" relay boards.
They tend to all be 8 relays and 4 inputs for about $100.
If you want 16 relays, you buy two of these for $100 each.
Actually, I'd rather have all TTL outputs and no relays, but I haven't
found any boards like that.

I'm wondering if anyone has had good or bad feedback about
vendors of these things. Also, would appreciate hearing about
any cheaper solutions than $10 per I/O pin. Any sources of
preprogrammed PIC or similar ucontrollers I can use to make
my own? It would seem that one PIC chip could replace one
of these relay boards (assuming I don't need relays). Unfortunately,
I don't have time to become a PIC programmer.

Rick N6RK
email: richard "at" karlquist "dot" com