Home brewing using microcontroller chips

These chips are used in washing machines, cars, TV's, radios, toys, modern transceivers and just about every other electronic system smarter than a light bulb.

These chips are the brains behind how a transceiver logically operates.

Hams armed with some readily available tools can homebrew with microcontrollers and make them do some wonderful things, like make a repeater controller, an antenna rotator driver, a portable Morse code encoder, a transceiver interface to a GPS unit or whatever else the
imagination can conjure up.

It takes a time to learn how to use them, but with practice, some low cost tools and a home PC you too can be doing tricks with these microcontrollers.

Those venturing into experimenting with microcontrollers are often well rewarded.

A myriad of different microcontroller chips are readily available. Experimenters' evaluation boards to make the going easy. Once you have a design working and debugged, you can build it into a useable circuit.

Over the next few weeks I aim to guide you in starting in this fascinating aspect of ham radio, and when next we meet I'll explain the basics of the inside of a microcontroller chip.

David VK3DRB, Melbourne

Source: Wireless Institute of Australia

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