This beacon was
originally a WIA (VK6 Division) owned unit, run by the
Northern Corridor Radio Group. In 2004, it was decided to
upgrade the unit to something more modern and more reliable as
the old technology was developing faults quicker than it could
be repaired. Shown below is the old 10m beacon, which was
originally built by John VK6ZN and then repaired by VK6FJA
many years later with an old 11m radio donated by Greg (now
VK5JGW). It used a diode matrix CW identifier, which has
corroded somewhat over the last 15 years. It does still work
though - with a repair to the Transmitter, it could be put
back in service if required.
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The front of the old beacon. |
Inside the old beacon showing the radio (click on the image to see it full size!) |
The old beacon from the top. |
A better option
was decided by the NCRG
in 2004. A "Realistic" HTX 100 (Tandy-RadioShack) radio
was bought from VK-HAM
for the purpose of replacing the ageing beacon transmitter (an
old CB radio). James VK6FJA set about the modification of the
unit to perform the beacon task. On this page, you can find
details of how the new beacon was constructed.
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The radio to convert. These were being sold off by Tandy a while ago. It is based on the Uniden HR2510 design. In fact, inside - the radio IS a Uniden. These were made around 1988 and sold off well into the 1990's from Tandy stores.
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Inside the radio - the new CW ID board has been mounted on the top panel and a plastic insulator keeps the radio circuitry apart from the CW board.
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A picture of the new CW ID board based on a 16F84A PIC IC. |
Here is the circuit diagram of the new CW ID board. |
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The front of the new beacon radio (HTX100). The yellow glow behind the CW indicator is a LED indicating that the radio is being keyed. |
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Download the PIC HEX code. Download the PIC asm file. Download the source code.
The beacon source code was re-written based on concepts in other freeware morse identification units. The program was written in Pascal and compiled using mikroPascal demo software for the 16F84A PIC micro. Parts available at Dick Smith Electronics stores.
Datasheet for PIC 16F84A Micro. ( pdf file 1.45Mb local )
The manual for
the radio is available from the www.mods.dk
site.
Or a cached version is here :- Owners Manual (1.2Mb) or
Service Manual (5Mb).
Disclaimer: Software for beacon written with resources from the Internet. Code is original but code design concept is based on freeware programs. Manuals and datasheets are freely available from other websites on the Internet and a copy is provided as a cached version only and will be removed upon any request to do so. Photos (c) VK6FJA 2005. Details current as as July 2005.