EA7 SOTA Tour - Day 7

After visiting Granada and The Alhambra, it was time for the highest summit on this trip ...

25/May/2019 EA7/GR-051 (Calar) EA7/ON7DQ

Thanks to the first activation by Mark, M0NOM, there was not much to prepare or study, all the info is here.

I used the same parking spot (37.169343, -3.384053) and track as Mark, but I did search and find the "vertice", which is a bit further over the top than you would expect.

The first part is an easy gravel road.

After a while you reach the "Collada de  la Gitana" (1718m), where the road takes a sharp right turn. There we don't follow that road any more and take the mountain track (signposted).
After a while there is a choice between a "low" and a "high" track. We took the "high" one since it looked more used, but I think it doesnt make much difference in how much climbing/descending there is (I only noticed afterwards that Mark took the lower path).

This summit seems popular for all kinds of activities ... we met the following 'locals' : two youngsters coming down the narrow mountain track on MOTORBIKES (meaning they must have gone up too !), a man coming down RUNNING at full speed (dressed in running gear, so I gues this was his morning excercise), and a couple on horseback. We sure must have looked as the odd ones out hi.

The last part is the steepest and involves a little  scrambling over rocks, but nothing difficult or dangerous. The summit is again quite wide and flat. It took us a while to spot the vertice between all the shrubs. Its exact position is here: 37.170120, -3.417689.

With all the open space, I used the longer endfed antenna here (23m wire in inverted-V style on the 6m pole). You can see the 9:1 balun above my head, fixed to the vertice with a short piece of string.
WX was sunny but very windy. The activation was a blast !
I stayed 1 hour and 20 minutes and made 43 QSO's, working my good friend in Belgium (Geert, ON7LG), two DX (K4DY and N4EX) and 2 S2S.
This activation was also validated by the DVGE program, see the report here

I will surely remember this wonderful view on the front range of the Sierra Nevada !

On the way back to Granada, make sure to stop at this picturesque place near Guejar Sierra.
Parking for this view of the "Embalse de Canales" is here: 37.160962, -3.480552.
If you can't go there yourself, see a nice video of it here.

For the next activation, continue on  Day 8

or

Go back to the overview

EA7 SOTA Tour - Day 4

This day we moved from Malaga to Lanjarón, and visited the white village of Frigiliana, so only one SOTA activation was possible.

22/May/2019 EA7/MA-027 (Reina)

Parking is at the Fuenta de la Reina here: 36.813118, -4.372143 , or you can drive the small road to the left (with the long name "Camino de las Contadoras y de Jotrón"), up to the radio tower here: 36.816604, -4.374553, where you can also park.

The gate to the paved road that leads to the VOR installation on the summit has some fierce "forbidden" signs ... if they scare you off, take this road : park at the radio tower, and take the rather steep slope going East, at the end you will be able to continue along the paved road, without meeting any "forbidden signs" (that's what we did ;-). It's only a 20 minute walk in total.
See picture below.

During the activation, several cars came up to work at the station (2 technicians, and later 2 people repairing the fence). Nobody bothered to ask what I was doing.
So I went over to have a little talk with them and they were very friendly.
Speaking some Spanish is of course always handy !

On the summit is a nice tree for some shade, and plenty of space to put up your antenna.
After my main battery failed on the first activation, I had used my backup "cassette box" battery.
While I also had this backup battery with me, I wanted to try my "backup backup" battery, say "plan C". It is also a plan to avoid trouble during airport security checks.
I made a description of it on the SOTA reflector, see more details here.

Four cells from a powerbank are placed in series, and give 16.8V when fully charged. The automatic voltage reducer gives just under 15V, perfect for the KX3 to give the full power of 15W(or 12W on the high bands) all the time.

The activation went well, and netted 30 QSO's , including 5 S2S.
Since I stayed on the summit for over one hour, this activation was also valid for DVGE, see report here.

And with this lovely view from the summit we go on to the next one ...




For the next activation, continue on  Day 7

or

Go back to the overview

EA7 SOTA Tour - Day 2

The day after the flight, we visited  Torcal de Antequera, and had two SOTA activations. 20/May/2019 EA7/MA-013 (Camorro Siete Mesas) EA7/ON7DQ This summit was a rather bad start ... maybe because it has number 13 ? I partly followed a track from WikiLoc, but after walking for a while my phone gave up, no GPS, no cell connection (maybe from the heat ?). So it was a bit scrambling and searching to get near the summit and into the AZ. More or less in a panic, I forgot to take any more pictures. Since I couldn't spot myself , or look at the other spots, I just operated CW on 20m, and got spotted via RBN. So I still got 17 qso's after all.

20/May/2019 EA7/MA-032 (Zambra) EA7/ON7DQ

There is a parking spot at 36.877729, -4.455029

But you can drive the gravel road up all the way to the tower on the summit (but avoid doing this in a weekend). At the end, drive around the tower, where you can park.

This activation was also valid for the Spanish DVGE or "Vertices" program, see here

*** TOURIST ***

Day 3 was spent walking the Caminito Del Rey

A 3 km walk leads over the renovated walkway.
The total walk, including  the access through the tunnel and forest is 7 km.

For the next activation, continue on  Day 4

or

Go back to the overview

EA7 SOTA Tour

Andalucia SOTA Tour

This time I was travelling with a good friend, so this was going to be a TOURIST tour !
But with some clever negotiating (promising that we would see some wonderful views etc ) ... I managed to get 11 SOTA activations into the travel schedule, hi.
One summit had to be canceled because of delay and heat, and one was replaced by another, easier summit , so I still did 10 activations in total.

Here the activated summits, click on the link to go directly to the page with more details and many pictures :

Date	Summit	Call used	QSO’s	Points
20/May/2019	EA7/MA-013 (Camorro Siete Mesas)	EA7/ON7DQ	17	6
20/May/2019	EA7/MA-032 (Zambra)	EA7/ON7DQ	39	4
22/May/2019	EA7/MA-027 (Reina)	EA7/ON7DQ	30	4
25/May/2019	EA7/GR-051 (Calar)	EA7/ON7DQ	43	8
26/May/2019	EA7/GR-088 (Alto de los Jarales)	EA7/ON7DQ	47	6
28/May/2019	EA4/CR-005 (Abugaloso)	EA4/ON7DQ	5	4
01/Jun/2019	EA7/SE-025 (Palomarejo)	EA7/ON7DQ	23	1
01/Jun/2019	EA7/SE-026 (Carmona)	EA7/ON7DQ	13	1
04/Jun/2019	EA7/CA-007 (Lijar)	EA7/ON7DQ	32	4
06/Jun/2019	EA7/MA-077 (Las Mesas)	EA7/ON7DQ	38	4
		Totals	287	42

So I made an average of 28.7  QSO's per summit.

Also made 20 S2S QSO's , resulting in 108 S2S points, and this got me to the 2500 S2S points mark.

Operating in EA7 and EA4 also made me activate in 15 regions,bringing me to the level of the Mountain Explorer GOLD.

Read more details of all activations ...  the first activations were on Day 2

KX3/KX2 Memory Commander

The KX3 has 6 memories that can be programmed with messages for CW or DATA (RTTY/PSK), and 2 voice memories for SSB/AM/FM.

For playing back one has to press 2 keys on the rig each time : first the MSG button, then followed by the number key for the message that you want to be transmitted (1-6).

I looked for a simpler way with just one key press, and at the same time I wanted to spare the KX3 buttons for wear and tear, especially since I use the memories a lot during my SOTA activations.

So it was again time for a little Arduino project ... and this is the result.

I explained the use of the KX3 serial port in previous posts (see here), so I won't go into that anymore. Only one line of code needs to be changed to make it work for the KX2 as well, see note just before the code.

The Hardware

Here is the simple circuit, and as always ... anyone can build it !
Click on the picture for a larger image.

In my junkbox, I found a rather small laptop adapter, from which I removed all the electronics, and this made a perfect case for this project. It measures 11 x 6 x 2.5 cm.
I started with the 6 buttons, which were put in a more or less straight line ...

Inside then came an Arduino Nano, a flat model Li-Ion cell from a laptop battery pack, a Chinese single cell charger and protection board, and a power switch.
A cut-off stereo audio cable was connected to the Arduino, following the circuit above.

For the charger board, search eBay or your favourite Chinese vendor for  "TP4056 Lithium Battery Charger Module", and you will quickly find offers for one, two or even five boards for a very low price.
Alternatively, you could of course power the Arduino from an external powerbank.

All items were fixed with liberal amounts of hot melt glue, and the existing holes were adapted for the Arduino mini-USB connector and the cable to the KX3, and at the other end of the box, the micro-USB connector is used for charging the battery.

It may look ugly on the inside, but when the lid is closed, it looked neat.

Now, how to remember what message is in what memory ... ?

At first, I thought to just scribble what each message was meant for on a post-it, and stick that to the box, like this.

This didn't look too neat, and I guessed that it wouldn't last long either.

So I found a "badge holder" from a conference, and cut off a piece that fitted the empty space on the box, and fixed that with superglue.
Then I made a text document with a textbox of the correct size (3.8 x 9 cm), and copied the contents of the memories from the KX3 Utility program to the textbox.
Before each SOTA trip, I use the KX3 Utility anyway, to program the rig, so I can easily copy and paste, and print a label to slide into this plastic holder.
And like this, I got a "professional" looking device ... what do you think ?

[ NOTE : I have to edit my document a little, because not all messages were lined up correctly, hi]


The Software

The code is quite simple, and the comments should help you understand how it works.

ToDo : add code for a long button push, to make the message repeating (sending the SWH command , rather than the SWT command).

Copy the following code to the Arduino IDE, save it under an appropriate name and upload to the Nano, and you're good to go !

Have fun, and I'm always interested to hear your comments on, or experiences with my projects.

73,

Luc - ON7DQ

UPDATE 7/5/2019

I changed the code, so that you have only to uncomment the line with the KX2 keycodes, and comment out the line with the KX3 keycodes.
I also removed the switch/case statement, making the code a lot shorter.

//------------------------------------------------------------------------------
// KX3(KX2) Memory Keyer Commander
// 6 buttons control the 6 transmit memories
// serial in from KX3 is pin 6 (not used now)
// serial out is pin 7 >> to TIP of ACC1 connector
//----------------------------------------------------

#include <SoftwareSerial.h>  // for comms to KX3

// map button names to pins
int m1  =   2;
int m2  =   3;
int m3  =   4;
int m4  =   5;
int m5  =   8;
int m6  =   9;

// Objects
SoftwareSerial mySerial(6, 7, true); // true = invert logic, because no MAX232 is used

// primitive variables
int key = 0;
int d = 10;
const int debounceDelay = 25; // milliseconds to wait until stable

// KX3 keycodes, comment the following line for KX2
String keyCodes[] = {"SWT19;", "SWT27;", "SWT20;", "SWT28;", "SWT21;", "SWT29;"};

//uncomment the following line for KX2
//String keyCodes[] = {"SWT19;", "SWT27;", "SWT20;", "SWT16;", "SWT35;", "SWT44;"};

void setup()
{
  Serial.begin(9600); // for debugging

  pinMode(m1, INPUT_PULLUP);

  pinMode(m2, INPUT_PULLUP);

  pinMode(m3, INPUT_PULLUP);

  pinMode(m4, INPUT_PULLUP);

  pinMode(m5, INPUT_PULLUP);

  pinMode(m6, INPUT_PULLUP);

  // connect to KX3
  mySerial.begin(9600);
  mySerial.println("AI0;"); // disable auto info on the KX3
  Serial.println ("Setup READY !");

}

void loop()
{
  if (debounce(m1)) key = 1;
  if (debounce(m2)) key = 2;
  if (debounce(m3)) key = 3;
  if (debounce(m4)) key = 4;
  if (debounce(m5)) key = 5;
  if (debounce(m6)) key = 6;

  if (key > 0) {
    Serial.print ("Sending Message " ); Serial.println (key);
    mySerial.println("SWT11;");          // the MSG key
    delay(d);
    mySerial.println(keyCodes[key - 1]); // the appropriate number key
  }
  key = 0 ;
  delay(50);
}

boolean debounce(int pin)
{
  boolean state;
  boolean previousState;
  previousState = digitalRead(pin); // store switch state
  for (int counter = 0; counter < debounceDelay; counter++)
  {
    delay(1); // wait for 1 millisecond
    state = digitalRead(pin); // read the pin
    if ( state != previousState)
    {
      counter = 0; // reset the counter if the state changes
      previousState = state; // and save the current state
    }
  }
  // here when the switch state has been stable longer than the debounce period
  if (state == LOW) // LOW means pressed (because pull-ups are used)
    return true;
  else
    return false;
}

My MOUNTAIN GOAT activation

In 2018 I ended with 950 activator points, so Mountain Goat (MG) status was coming in sight ...

Surely I could get to 1000 points during my traditional SOTA Winter Tour, where the extra bonus points quickly add up.

Now crossing 1000 points would not be too difficult, but I wanted to land on EXACTLY 1000 points.
As I prepare all my trips in a spreadsheet, it was not too difficult to make a schedule that would get me to MG on the highest  summit in Belgium, ON/ON-001, Signal de Botrange.

So I ended up with this list :

• ON/ON-010 Baraque de Fraiture       11 points
• ON/ON-011 Sur Clair Fa              11
• ON/ON-009 Iverst                    11
• ON/ON-024,Bois du Tour du Coo        2
• ON/ON-025 Burteaumont                4
• ON/ON-001 Signal de Botrange        11

So this made a nice total of  50 points !

I decided to do three summts on March 8, and the remaining 3 on Sunday March 10.

I had  booked the same AirBnb place as last year, near Aachen in Germany, because I also wanted to do some shopping and visit the city. Now what could go wrong ?

On March 8, I  left my QTH in Ostend at 05:45 local time. Traffic went really smooth this time, the roads were a little wet and I had some light drizzle ... no problems so far.

But when I came to within 10 km of my first summit ... it started snowing !
First a little snow .. then  more ... then more ... then even more !
Driving became rather dangerous, and by the time I arrived at the parking lot for ON/ON-010 .. it had turned into a nice "winter wonderland" ...

ON/ON-010 Baraque Fraiture

I could have used one of those small pop-up tents as suggested in this Reflector thread http://reflector.sota.org.uk/t/thoughts-on-pop-up-tents/18804
[NOTE : in the mean time I have bought the one as suggested by Peter, ON4UP]

This time though, all I had was some umbrellas .. so I improvised a "two-umbrella-and-a-chair" winter shack.

By the time I had it all set up in the snow ... it stopped snowing as abruptly as it had started !
Anyway, I had a nice cold but dry activation, hi.

Only problem, the chasers must still have been asleep, and so did the propagation .. I could only attract 7 callers. To think that I once had 100 QSO's in just one hour on this summit.

My last caller was G4OBK. I had been calling CQ in SSB, but Phil called me in CW.
A nice feature of the KX3 is that you can instantly reply to a CW call without switching to CW mode. Just grab the paddle and go ... the TX frequency and sidetone etc, are all taken care of.
After the CW qso you can just contine in SSB as before without touching one button ... nice !
(only one thing : the filter bandwidth will remain SSB-wide ... but not a problem with Phils' signal)

So after that, I packed up and went to the next one.


ON/ON-011 Sur Clair Fa

There was also some snow on this summit, but at least it had stopped snowing, and I could set up without the use of any umbrellas. It was still cold though, around freezing point.

The chasers were there and the propagation too .. 22 qso's in the log, and a nice S2S with Jan, OK2PDT.

After which it was time for the third one for the day ...

ON/ON-009 Iverst

Just everythin was better here ! 

There was no snow, and I could find a nice place to sit in the sun.

And even more chasers now .. I got 27 in the log !

On the right you can see my endfed antenna, length 9.15m. The top is around 5.5m on the fishing pole (I broke the finest tip in EA8/GC and left it there , hi). The 9:1 UNUN is around 1m above ground, and also the 4m counterpoise wire is hanging at 1m over the bushes on the right, so you could also call it an OCFD or windom.

And so day one ended with 33 points nearer the MG target, only needed 17 more !

.

ON/ON-024,Bois du Tour du Coo

This summit is only 2 points , and gives no winter bonus points, but I had to do it to get to my goal, exactly 1000 points. Ironically, this low point summit is one of the very few in Belgium where you actually have to walk and climb a little.

I parked again near the cemetary, position 50.393367, 5.873915.

The entry to the track has changed a little ... the speed sign that used to say 50 km/h is now indicating that you are in 30 km/h zone. The track starts just opposite this sign, and is also posted on the SMP by G4OBK..

[Note: in case you downloaded the track by ON6ZQ, which used to be on the SMP site, and started near the restaurant, that is now private property, so you can no longer use it. I see that Christophe has already removed this track from the SMP]

After some 20 minutes, I got to my favourite spot, at pos 50.389985, 5.867302

There were high winds here, and it would become a real storm later on.

I quickly set up, but after a short time it began raining. I hadn't taken any umbrellas, so had to keep myself dry with only a raincoat, and protected the rig with a plastic bag and a towel.

I did take a raincover for my backpack, so all my other stuff was kept dry too.

I had to keep the activation a bit short, but still got 23 qso's in the log, including a S2S with Markus, IN3ADF. Not bad.

With all the strong winds, no time to lose, and so I went to ...

ON/ON-025 Burteaumont

No snow or rain here, but even stronger winds, and not much protection .. so I tried do do it all as fast as I could, and keep a bit warm ...

After only 15 qso's, I had enough of it, and went back to the car for my lunch and some hot coffee ;-)

And then it was time for the "grand finale" ... my mountain goat activation. 

ON/ON-001 Signal de Botrange

Again no time or urge to walk far away from the car to find a nice operating spot, the wind had now gotten to a force 7 to 8 gale, and I tried to stay away from any trees ... so I just set up in a corner of the parking lot, at position 50.501176, 6.093912

The whole parking lot was also muddy, and it was cold, so not a very glamorous place for this special occasion, but it was what it was ...

As you can see in the picture above, the wind almost blew my fishing pole axay, the antenna was  hanging only a few metres above ground. And  I found no better place for the UNUN  than to tie it to my chair, just behind my back.

I was very curious to see (or rather .. hear) who my fourth caller would be.

The luck was all for Don, G0RQL, so I had a bit of a longer qso with him, to thank him for all the previous qso's we had, and for making me a MG.

After a while, drizzle started ... so had to grab some bubble plastic and the towel again ...

Anyway, my activation went well, with 21 qso's in the log. 

This was not the weather to celebrating my MG on the summit, so I did that in the evening with a pizza and a good beer !

Some statistics about the last five years that took me to MG

Started SOTA on July 15, 2014 - Became MG on March 10, 2019

Activated 195 summits, of which 125 were uniques

Activated in 19 regions, in 13 associations

Have 93 summits "complete" (activated and chased)

Used 11 different prefixes or callsigns

Made 4347 activator qso's , including 370 S2S qso's.

Made an uncountable number of new friends !!!

Thanks to all activators and chasers out there to help me this far. I hope to be doing SOTA for a long time to come ... cu all on the summits !

73,

Luc - ON7DQ

A very simple RF generator

This is a project ANYONE can build.

And it is a useful tool to have around.

I built this in a couple of hours, and then some hours to write the Arduino code for it.

The hardware

This is the really simple circuit. All you have to do is connect three pre-built modules : an Arduino board of your choice, a small OLED display and a Si5351 PLL breakout board.

When you order all the parts from China (except the box) , total cost is under 10 Euro.

In the picture I use an original Adafruit module, but for my first tests, I used a cheap Chinese clone, and it worked just as well.

Click on the image to get a larger view.

Each module just needs 4 wires to the Arduino : +5V and GND, and SCL and SDA (Clock and Data lines for the I2C bus).

Three buttons do all the work, and can be connected to any digital pin (D2-D13) you like, just make sure the numbers correspond in the code.

My connections were dictated by the physical location on the piece of perfboard, so I could solder the buttons directly to the Arduino pins without extra wires.

I did think to use a rotary encoder, but I wanted to keep it as cheap as possible, and most people have pushbuttons in the junkbox, but maybe rotary encoders are not so common.

That's all there is to it !

I found a nice metal box in a local "poundshop" (actually the box was around 1 Euro in the shop Wibra, well know to Belgian and Dutch hams, hi). It's a bit larger than an Altoids tin.

I have seen similar boxes at the known Chinese vendors for less than 1€ too.

Like it often goes, I spent more time drilling and filing the holes for everything, than the time needed to solder the parts on the perfboard.

I put a piece of (non conducting !) foam on the bottom of the box, and fixed the board inside with hot-melt glue.

There are still some shortcomings to my build : the display is sitting a bit too low in the box.

Some friend suggested I could have mounted the parts ON the lid instead of in the bottom of the box, and then maybe could have added a small Li-Ion battery beneath it, etc ...

Maybe some ideas for Version 2.0 .. but at the moment, I'm quite satisfied with the result.

I didn't see any need for a battery, since by the time you want to use the generator , your battery may have gone flat. So I chose to power the box from an external powerbank, which  is very common these days.

I use a LED flashlight which holds one 18650 cell, it can be charged with a regular cellphone charger, and also functions as a powerbank, very neat !

Here you can see the generator connected to my small power meter (see the post about it here).

The power is +13 dBm, but the carrier on 100 MHz is only about +10 dBm, so there is another 10 mW in the harmonics. For serious work, a filter should be used.

Software and "operating manual"

Making the sketch for the Arduino was really simple , thanks to code for the Si5351, made available by Christoph OE1CGS.

I found a link to his code, and lots of other info on the Si5351 on the QRP-LABS website here.

Christoph also maintains an interesting website of his own, you can find it here.

Now what to do when you have only three buttons ?

The STEP button rotates between several pre-defined steps.

I chose a number of useful steps : 10 Hz, 100Hz, 1 kHz, 5 kHz, 100 kHz, 1 MHz and 10 MHz.

Steps can easily be added or deleted in the code. Maybe later I will make them "settable" via a MENU option.

UP and DOWN buttons do just as the name says ... they put the frequency one STEP higher or lower.

After each operation, the new frequency, the step, and the power level is displayed on the small OLED display. The OLED display is used with a text-only library to save on memory. 

A long press on the STEP button brings up the MENU.

For the time being, I only have one MENU item : setting the output power in 5 steps : 0 = OFF, 1 = 25%, 2 = 50%, 3 = 75 % and 4 = 100%, selected with the UP/DOWN buttons.

Another long press on the STEP button exits the menu.

The menu code is not completely finished, I may add some other stuff and post it later.

You can download the basic version here  : go to my github page.

73 Luc ON7DQ 

My IC-7300 "Big Controller" (part 1)

Ever since I made the small "Nintendo Controller" for my IC-7300 (see this post) , I have been thinking , and thinking , and thinking ... about a bigger project. I wanted to control all kinds of functions in the IC-7300, that had no dedicated button, and were too cumbersome , involving several key presses (real buttons or on-screen touch buttons).

Almost two years have passed since then, and I still hadn't started this daunting project.

BUT !

In contrast to several of my other projects, which often remain in their "naked PCB" state .. this time I had one thing : a BOX !

It is an old D-link Ethernet repeater in a sturdy metal case, not one of those flimsy plastic boxes which are now so common (I see they even sell one on e-Bay for 25£ ... hi).
Here the front, back and inner of this box.







The sturdy construction, and metal shielding looked OK for my project, so I removed all the old electronics , and mounted two pieces of PCB on the original standoffs. Plenty of space to mount a linear supply (less RF noise !), and an Arduino Mega2560 (which I may have to shield if it makes a lot of noise ...).
I did keep the original Power input and switch, and the RESET button.
The power inlet does not contain a noise filter, I may change that later, if needed.





I wasn't sure if I really would needed the powerful Mega, but I wanted to try out several things, and didn't want to have to change from a Nano or UNO in the middle of the development ... and for the small price difference, it wasn't such a hard decision.

After some thinking, and consulting a few other hams that showed interest in my project, I came to this result as a first step. A FRONT panel !
Still not sure how the end product should look, I took it the safe way .. I made a mockup panel, made from PCB material (easy to drill and file etc), and mounted it on top of the original front panel. This gives a good impression of how it will work, and it is much easier to make a change in the wiring if needed.



For the display, I could have chosen a touch screen, since the IC-7300 also has a touch screen.
But for this project, I chose a cheaper TFT display with 160x128 resolution, and a rotary encoder for all MENU actions. I guess it makes things easier if someone wants to copy or adapt my design.
The many buttons will control all "direct" actions, requiring only one press !



On the front I have from left to right :
MIC input
4 buttons for M1 - M4 (and long press should give M5-M8, or auto-repeat for M1-M4)
3 toggle switches : MIC <-> Heil headset , Straight Key <-> Paddle for CW, the 3rd switched not decided yet, I just had space for another one , hi.

Then come 8 smaller buttons for several functions, the red ones would be a PF1 and PF2 (Programmable Functions, selectable via a settings Menu)

The black ones would be : band up , band down, cycle the band stacking registers, select power in steps 5 10 50  100W (powers settable via menu), TUNE (for using a manual tuner or external autotuner), USB out AF<>IF (for listening to DRM or using other SDR software).

TFT graphic display and rotary encoder for all MENU control and selection
I intend to use it as follows
short push = change display mode. Some ideas : analog S-meter, CW decoder,  other meter readings, the actual set parameters, time and temperature, ...
A long push on the encoder button would enter the MENU
Rotate left or right to make a selection.
Again a short push = go back one level.
A long push would  exit the menu completely.

And finally, a switch and two 3.5 mm connectors for a Heil (or other brand) headset, the switch near that connector then selects headphones or external speaker (or maybe just external speaker ON/OFF, and leave the headphone audio on all the time, not decided yet).

This is the back of the front panel ... no wires attached, so still a lot of work to do before I can even start the programming..



Now I still have to put some connectors on the back panel, where I will have lots of connectors for CW Paddle and several mechanical keys (I use a straight key, a Bug and a Cootie for SKCC operations) , CI-V to the radio, MIC to the radio, speaker input from the radio, external speaker output, input for a foot pedal, and maybe more ...

UPDATE 2019-09-23 : Connectors

I did put the connectors in the box in December 2018, but found no time to take a few pictures, so finally , here we go. Viewed from the inside, it looks like this.

From the outisde, these are the planned connectors, from left to right :

Mains power, COOTIE, BUG, Straight KEY, Paddle and KEY out to rig KEY input. Will all be wired in parallel, function will be switched in software like in my previous "Nintendo" controller.

Then come SPEAKER OUT, SPEAKER IN* from RIG, and the CI-V connection.

* I may change the speaker input to a fixed level AUDIO IN from the 13 pin ACC connector, so to have a fixed level for a CW decoder. Then I will have to include a seperate audio amplifier in the controller .. have to think about that ....

Finally there is a connector for a footswitch and the output to the RIG's MIC connector.
Maybe this can also be done via the ACC connector, so that I can continue to use the standard hand mic or a desk mic..

Standby for part 2, where I will describe all the wiring, Part 3 will then describe the Arduino code.
Anyone wanting to help "thinking", be it hardware or software, please contact me on my QRZ.com address. This will be a project for next winter (2019) I guess ...

73,
Luc - ON7DQ