Just curious...are there any HF radios that use a Palm or Pocket PC as the
front-end user-interface? I'm surprised that no one has rigged up a Pixie
or something to do this...

spdevel wrote:
Just curious...are there any HF radios that use a Palm or Pocket PC as the
front-end user-interface? I'm surprised that no one has rigged up a Pixie
or something to do this...

And they should do that because... ?



WA7AA


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And they should do that because... ?


....because a lot of the expense of these devices is in the user-interface,
buttons, readouts, etc. If you have a small QRP type of transceiver, it
seems like a Palm would save a lot of the expense while maintaining the
portability.

Is this such a radical idea?

spdevel wrote:
And they should do that because... ?

...because a lot of the expense of these devices is in the user-interface,
buttons, readouts, etc. If you have a small QRP type of transceiver, it
seems like a Palm would save a lot of the expense while maintaining the
portability.

Is this such a radical idea?

Not so much radical as impractical. The reason that radios haven't
become exclusively software controlled is the same reason you don't
drive your car using a mouse and a keyboard - it's clumsy and
impractical. So to make a black box radio with a PC i/f would actually
be much more expensive because almost no one would buy it.

73 ... WA7AA


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spdevel wrote:
And they should do that because... ?

...because a lot of the expense of these devices is in the user-interface,
buttons, readouts, etc. If you have a small QRP type of transceiver, it
seems like a Palm would save a lot of the expense while maintaining the
portability.

Is this such a radical idea?

Not so much radical as impractical. The reason that radios haven't
become exclusively software controlled is the same reason you don't
drive your car using a mouse and a keyboard - it's clumsy and
impractical. So to make a black box radio with a PC i/f would actually
be much more expensive because almost no one would buy it.

73 ... WA7AA


--

Anti-spam measu look me up on qrz.com if you need to reply directly

And they should do that because... ?


....because a lot of the expense of these devices is in the user-interface,
buttons, readouts, etc. If you have a small QRP type of transceiver, it
seems like a Palm would save a lot of the expense while maintaining the
portability.

Is this such a radical idea?

spdevel wrote:
Just curious...are there any HF radios that use a Palm or Pocket PC as the
front-end user-interface? I'm surprised that no one has rigged up a Pixie
or something to do this...

And they should do that because... ?



WA7AA


--

Anti-spam measu look me up on qrz.com if you need to reply directly

In article ,
says...
Just curious...are there any HF radios that use a Palm or Pocket PC as the
front-end user-interface? I'm surprised that no one has rigged up a Pixie
or something to do this...

There is a program out called CTR-817 for the PocketPC OS that controls
the FT-817 transceiver. Do a Google search for that and you should find
the site where it can be found (I don't have the URL handy right now).

--

-- //Steve//

Steve Silverwood, KB6OJS
Fountain Valley, CA
Email:

Steve Silverwood wrote:
In article ,
says...
Just curious...are there any HF radios that use a Palm or Pocket PC as the
front-end user-interface? I'm surprised that no one has rigged up a Pixie
or something to do this...

There is a program out called CTR-817 for the PocketPC OS that controls
the FT-817 transceiver. Do a Google search for that and you should find
the site where it can be found (I don't have the URL handy right now).

If you're talking about HF-only rigs, then I confess ignorance. Ditto
for programs to control DC-to-daylight transceivers.

_But_:

If you have an Icom PCR-1000 (which covers HF, and on up to near
daylight), there are a couple of programs for the Palm to control it.
They worked just dandy on my Palm VIIx, and on the i705 that replaced
it.

It is truly unfortunate that they appear not to work on the Palm
Tungsten series, which doesn't have the serial library built in. While
there _are_ add-on serial libraries available, the ones I've tried
don't appear to actually drive the Tungsten T-3's serial interface.

It's _very_ disappointing, and I'm about to post to the PCR-1000 list
about my problems. *sigh*

--
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?

Steve Silverwood wrote:
In article ,
says...
Just curious...are there any HF radios that use a Palm or Pocket PC as the
front-end user-interface? I'm surprised that no one has rigged up a Pixie
or something to do this...

There is a program out called CTR-817 for the PocketPC OS that controls
the FT-817 transceiver. Do a Google search for that and you should find
the site where it can be found (I don't have the URL handy right now).

If you're talking about HF-only rigs, then I confess ignorance. Ditto
for programs to control DC-to-daylight transceivers.

_But_:

If you have an Icom PCR-1000 (which covers HF, and on up to near
daylight), there are a couple of programs for the Palm to control it.
They worked just dandy on my Palm VIIx, and on the i705 that replaced
it.

It is truly unfortunate that they appear not to work on the Palm
Tungsten series, which doesn't have the serial library built in. While
there _are_ add-on serial libraries available, the ones I've tried
don't appear to actually drive the Tungsten T-3's serial interface.

It's _very_ disappointing, and I'm about to post to the PCR-1000 list
about my problems. *sigh*

--
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?