Tonight (Friday, Feb 26th) at the weekly meeting of the Huntsville Amateur Radio Club, I’ll be presenting a fast tour of a number of applications useful to radio amateurs. These are all free of cost and open source software. I’m going to do a quick presentation of each, without going into a lot of detail.

Applications shown will include:

fldigi – sound card digital modem
xlog – a logging program
hamlib – rig and rotator control
xdx – dx cluster client
colrdx – another dx cluster client
gpredict – satellite pass prediction and information
splat – VHF/UHF propagation prediction using terrain data
antennavis – Antenna pattern modeling and visualization
xnec2c - Another antenna modeling application
gsmc – a smith chart tool
aldo – morse code trainer
xastir – APRS application which can use network or rf connection

And . . . A surprise demo that I think is very interesting. The success of that demo will depend on reception conditions at the meeting. If I can’t make a full-functioning demo I’ll show what I can.

The meeting is at the Huntsville American Red Cross Chapter house at 7:30.

Here is a map link.

Next Friday, March 5th at the same time and place, we’re going to be having an installfest to install Ubuntu Linux on your computers.

Come on down to the Haiti relief event at Lowe Mill tomorrow. You will seldom see such an amazing musical lineup for $5 admission. There’s also a silent auction fundraiser, and Antitronics is contributing some items so come bid on them! Here’s what we’re putting into the hat:

Two Drawdio kits from Adafruit Industries. These are fun little kits that make a lencil that generates tones when you draw, using the resistance of the graphite on the paper. You can see one already built at the Antitronics space – I’ll be there this afternoon.
Auction Info (pdf).

Two Introduction to Arduino kits and lessons. These each include an Arduino Duemlanove, some assorted extras, and a free lesson.
Auction Info (pdf).

Update: Here’s a link to some of the awesome artwork available at the auction.

The class is full

If you want to take the class but didn’t get in, send an email
and I’ll schedule another one soon.

It’s on – an Introduction to Arduino Class

Where: Antitronics – Flying Monkey Arts Center
When: Saturday, October 3rd 4:30 – 7:00
Cost: $30 (for the things you get to keep)

Requirements:

Let me know in advance if you will be there.
You need to bring your laptop, let me know which O.S. you run.

I have in my hot little hands a stack of Arduino Duemilanove boards. For your $30 you will get one of those, a USB cable, a 9V battery clip with a plug, a couple of LEDs and resistors. and a potentiometer. I will not supply a 9V battery. You won’t need one for class – you only need one later if you want to run your project disconnected from your computer.

The goals will be:

1. To get the arduino software environment installed
2. To demonstrate the structure of a basic arduino application
3. To show how to read information from the real world
4. To control some simple outputs, including PWM (and an explanation of what the heck PWM is anyway).

We will not go into deep details of the AVR processor or any other technical aspects of the arduino and how it works — this is sort of an appliance operator’s view.

Arduino home: http://www.arduino.cc/
The Duemilanove: http://arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardDuemilanove
The Software: http://arduino.cc/en/Main/Software

You are invited to go ahead and install the software before the class if you are comfortable with that. If you want the hardware early, just pay me and it’s yours. I should have the remainder of the items (battery clips) in by next week.

Registration is limited since this is the first class. I don’t want to end up overloaded.

The class is full

RSVP to info [at] antitronics [dot] com