Still ugly, but it transmits and receives now.
After sending the beacon message it listens a while, then transmits the largest RSSI from that receive period.

I think I'll leave it on a breadboard until I'm done improving it. Not sure what other features I should try to add. 🤔
Then maybe mount it in a box, or design a board then mount it. It would be pretty cool to have it on my roof.

#hamRadio #vhf #sa818 #arduino #amateurRadio #2m

It's ugly, but it's transmitting. Right now it's a beacon, sending just my call sign and grid square.

Now to figure out what to do on receive. I'm thinking it should monitor the frequency, then report the strongest signal received in that period when it sends the beacon message

#hamRadio #sa818 #arduino #vhf #beacon #2m #homebrew

I've been trying to get my SA818 to play nice with an Arduino, and I think I finally got it. Turns out the SoftwareSerial library was causing problems when I tried to control the SA818. I wanted two ports so I could use the USB serial port for debugging, but alas, I had to do debugging a different way (got some LEDs and just flashed them in different patterns).

#HamRadio #vhf #sa818 #arduino #serialPort #cProgramming

Figured out my SA818 programming problem: I had the tx and rx lines backwards. I was under the impression that in UART, the tx pin on the first device was connected to the rx pin on the second. However, the cheap Chinese USB adapter I have wants tx to tx 🤦‍♂️

Good thing the description on the website is written in passable English, it had enough to get me on the right track.

#HamRadio #uart #vhf #sa818 #hamr

Has anyone been able to program a SA818 board? I've tried a few different ways (Python sa818, a C version of the same thing) and it just won't work. I never get a response to the connect message.

I'm starting to suspect it's the USB-serial dongle that came with it. Might have to find an Arduino and try it that way, but that's a lot more work.

#hamRadio #vhf #sa818 #linux

https://hackaday.com/2022/11/15/getting-to-the-heart-of-a-baofeng/

Now I want to play with one of these #SA818 chips. With that and maybe a little amp I could get rid of the transceiver/sound card setup I'm currently using for the #K0GQ #EchoLink translator. Fewer points of failure == win!