The source code for EkBoxTester can be downloaded from here. It was written using Microsoft Visual C# 2010 Express Edition–a free but reasonably complete development environment for writing .Net applications in C#. You can use the source code as an example of how to communicate with an EkBox via the serial port.

When you launch EkBoxTester, the following window appears:

EkBoxTester Initial View

It’s pretty simple to use. Select the COM port to which your interface is connected, specify the encoder resolutions, and then click the “Start Test” button. When you click the “Start Test” button, EkBoxTester will attempt to open the COM port and send the command to the interface to set the encoder resolutions. If this doesn’t succeed, you’ll see an error message that will describe the specific problem encountered. Otherwise, if everything succeeds, the EkBoxTester window should now look like this:

EkBoxTester after "Start Test" is clicked

At this point, the numbers in red should change as you turn the encoders. If you don’t have any encoders connected, you’ll still see the red numbers but they will not change (obviously), but this is an indicator that things on the board appear to be working correctly. You can click the “Get Errors” button to see how many encoder errors have occurred (generally, none) and the “Get Resolutions” button to query the interface for the current encoder resolutions (which should be the same as what you specified in the inputs toward the top of the window).

Once you’re finished, click the “Stop Test” button, or just exit the program by clicking the red X in the top right corner.

USB Digital Setting Circles Schematic

The kit is much simpler than the serial version–the pull-up resistors were eliminated, the oscillator replaced by a crystal, and a MAX232 chip is no longer needed. The board and encoders are powered by the USB port, too, so no external power supply is needed. The kit includes all the components, including the programmed PIC chip, but does not include the TTL-232-5V cable. The cable must be purchased separately and is readily available from Mouser and Digikey, for about $20 plus shipping.

This kit should work great if you want to run your digital setting circles straight through the USB port of your laptop. However, if your goal is to use a bluetooth connection between your computer/PDA/smartphone and the board, then the serial version of the kit is the one you want to use. Furthermore, this USB version really isn’t adaptable for use with a smartphone or PDA–the TTL-232 USB cable needs to plug in to a PC in order to work.

Click here for the new software (version 1.0.5.0). This version requires the ASCOM 6.0 platform or newer to be installed. As always, leave a comment below if you have questions or problems.

The day of our visit to Martin came and we took the factory tour before hitting the gift shop. Alas, nothing in their shop was made to fit my guitar’s big strap button. Nevertheless, I found a really nice leather strap while I was there, and I bought it knowing I’d have to find a way to make the hole bigger.

Once I got home, a little research told me I’d need a leather drive punch to make the right-sized hole in the strap. I used my caliper to determine that the hole needed to be 7/16″ in diameter, and I found a suitable drive punch at eLeather Supply. The punch set me back about $15 after shipping and handling.

With drive punch in hand, the moment of truth was at hand. Any time I endeavor to modify an otherwise fine piece of workmanship, I do so with some trepidation. Thankfully, I had a cheap suede leather strap on which to test the punch before I committed to punching holes in my nice new strap. I determined that the best technique was actually to lay the strap on the concrete floor and whack the punch with a hammer. The trial with the cheap strap was a success, and the fit on the big strap button was excellent. So, I proceeded to punch the hole in my new strap and achieved the same success.

I share this here only so that others faced with the same problem might also use this solution. Now all I have to do is figure out how to play a guitar standing up!

Now it was time to get it all hooked up and functioning.

The BT232B adapter needs to be powered. There are three options:

1. a USB cable (only for power, not data)
2. an external 3V – 5V battery (not included, but a small cable and connector are included)
3. 5V at pin 9 of its DB9 connector

I chose option 3. Since my DSC interface board already has a 5V supply available, it’s a simple matter to feed it to pin 9 of the DB9 connector (note, however, that this combination will consume more than double the current of the DSC interface by itself, so you’ll want to use something bigger than a 9V battery to provide power). Here’s a photo of how I installed a small jumper wire on the underside of the board to provide the 5V at pin 9 (click to enlarge):

DSC board with jumper to provide 5V to pin 9 of the DB9

Be careful that the jumper wire doesn’t short with any other circuit board traces.

Once the board is providing 5V to pin 9 of the DB9, you’ll need to set a switch on the BT232B. There’s a switch that determines whether it’s expecting power on pin 9 or from the USB or external battery. Set the switch so that it expects power from pin 9. As a test, you can plug the BT232B into the DSC board (using the gender changer) and then power up the board. The BT232B Power LED should glow red, and the Status LED should flash blue.

The next thing you’ll need to do is configure the BT232B for 9600 baud, 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, no parity, and no flow control. The included instructions tell you how to do this, but the basic procedure is to set it for DCE (there’s a switch on the side to change it between DCE and DTE, depending on whether your plugging it into a computer or another device like the DSC board), plug it into a serial port on your computer (or through a USB-serial converter), give it power (the USB cable is convenient for that, but change the power selector switch), and then connect to it using Hyperterminal at 19200 baud, 8 bits, 1 stop bit, no parity, no flow control. you can then type commands in Hyperterminal that will change the configuration of the BT232B.

First, type “AT” (without the quotes) and hit the Enter key. The BT232B should respond with “OK” (again, without the quotes). If not, double check your settings and switches and try again.

Then type the following commands:

• PARITY=N
• FLOW=N
• BAUD=9600

After each command the BT232B should respond with some sort of confirmation of the command. However, after you set the new baud rate, Hyperterminal will no longer be able to communicate with the BT232B because the baud rate was changed. Don’t sweat it–you’ve done everything you needed to do.

Now you should be able to disconnect the BT232B from the computer. Set it for DTE and for getting power from pin 9 of the DB9, and plug it back into the DSC board, and power it up. If your PC doesn’t have built-in Bluetooth, you’ll need to insert your USB-Bluetooth adapter into a USB port (don’t forget to install any drivers if needed–check the documentation).

Now turn on Bluetooth on your PC and connect to the BT232B. Usually this is done by right-clicking on a Bluetooth icon in the system tray and selecting Connect from the menu. Windows will search for nearby Bluetooth devices and give you a list from which you can choose the serial Bluetooth adapter. Once it’s connected, it will hopefully report which COM port it’s configured as. If not, go into the Device Manager (right-click on My Computer in the start menu and select Properties from the context menu) and look at the list of ports to determine which port number is assigned to the serial Bluetooth adapter.

If you want, you can use Hyperterminal to connect to that port (9600 baud, 8 bits, 1 stop bit, no parity, no flow control) and test the connection. Once Hyperterminal connects to the port successfully, the flashing blue LED on the BT232B will stop flashing and glow steady blue. Try typing “H” and “Q” (without the quotes) and see if you get a response from the interface. If not, go back and double-check your steps and try it again.

Now you’re ready to use your favorite astro software with the DSC interface via Bluetooth. Just make sure that you set the COM port in the Settings to be the one for Bluetooth.

Let me know how it goes.

I even printed out some log and dupe sheets and dug out my old clipboard. I noticed the clipboard still had a square of hook-and-loop material that I used to use to hold my old Handspring Visor PDA in place for logging. Ten years or so ago, I wrote a Palm contest logging application that I named GOLog, and I designed and constructed a companion device I called the Serial CW Sender that interfaced GOLog to my transceiver to handle contest keying. All in all, it was a pretty neat system. Its chief drawback was that data entry on the Visor (and other PDAs, for that matter) was pretty awkward–you either used Graffiti or the onscreen keyboard. While it’s true that you could buy nifty fold-up keyboards for these PDAs, it wasn’t possible to use a keyboard and the Serial CW Sender at the same time, since they both wanted to occupy the single serial port on the Visor. I did, however, pick up a Targus keyboard at the time so that I could make sure that GOLog would work with a keyboard (GOLog could be used with or without the Serial CW Sender).

I hadn’t used my Handspring Visor in years, and since I bought my new notebook computer six months ago, I didn’t even have the Palm Desktop synchronization software running on any of my computers. I wondered if I could even still use this stuff–after all, the hardware is more than ten years old. So, naturally, I gave it a shot.

Palm Desktop is still available for download from Palm’s website. It turns out that Palm Desktop won’t run properly on a 64-bit Windows 7 computer, so that eliminated using my new notebook. Instead, I installed on my MSI Wind netbook running 32-bit Windows 7. Palm Desktop runs like a champ on that platform.

My Handspring Visor is the original Visor Solo, and it came with HotSync cables for both serial and USB. Once I got Palm Desktop installed and running, I connected my Visor to the netbook using its USB cable and initiated a HotSync on the Visor. Much to my surprise, Windows 7 found a driver for it and installed it! I thought for sure I’d have to go hunting for a driver for the thing.

I wasn’t out of the woods yet, though. The HotSync process kept causing a fatal exception on the Visor. Apparently the Palm Desktop software was trying to sync with an application that didn’t exist on the Visor. I fixed this by turning off synchronization of all the apps. It would then HotSync, but nothing was being transferred. (Later I went back and enabled selected applications for synchronization–it’s safe to enable Date Book, Address Book, To Do List, Memo Pad, Install, and Backup. Enabling Package Installer caused the Palm to lock up, so leave that disabled.)

Next I re-enabled the application installation feature so that I could at least install the GOLog application, and that went without a hitch. GOLog was up and running on the Visor, but it’d been so long since I used the software that I had to consult the user’s guide (that *I* wrote) to remember exactly how to set up for a contest. So far, so good.

I had no intention of using the Serial CW Sender, but I thought I might try the Targus keyboard to see how that’d work for Field Day. Miraculously, I still had the CD containing the installer for the Visor keyboard driver. The installer wouldn’t actually run–it said it couldn’t locate the executable for Palm Desktop–but the driver file itself was located on the CD and was easily installed manually. Once I figured out that I had to reset the Visor before the keyboard would work, everything was up and running!

The last test was to see if GOLog would properly synchronize with Palm Desktop. When I wrote GOLog, I also wrote a conduit that transfers GOLog’s log files from the Visor to the PC as a text file. Thankfully, the conduit worked like a charm, and I was able to get a sample log off the Visor and onto the PC. All was set!

My first opportunity to try the system under actual contest conditions was the monthly Spartan Sprint, conducted by the Adventure Radio Society. While the Spartan Sprint doesn’t offer anywhere near the activity of Field Day, it did give me enough to shake down the setup and assess it for Field Day use. I managed about 10 contacts in an hour or so, with no surprises from the equipment. The keyboard made it a breeze to use the Visor for logging, and GOLog did a great job of handling logging and dupe-checking. Since I operate in search-and-pounce mode during Field Day, I wouldn’t really miss the Serial CW Sender’s ability to handle the contest keying.

One of the best thing about the Visor and other old monochrome LCD PDAs is that you can run them for an entire weekend on a couple of AAA batteries. This is a definite contrast to more modern color devices that drain batteries pretty quickly. Also, with the Visor, you can swap batteries in the field if needed. Almost all modern devices use rechargeable batteries that are built-in and can’t be changed. In this case, older technology is definitely better suited for my needs.

So I’m all set for Field Day, at least for my radio gear. No one will be able to accuse me of running the latest and greatest stuff. I’ve definitely turned the calendar back about ten years or so.

Of course, all good things must come to an end, at least as far as the wireless carriers are concerned. PdaNet has since disappeared from the Android Market (at least for Verizon customers), and stories are appearing now about carriers pressuring users of tethering apps to pay the monthly fee for the carrier services. Coincidentally, LifeHacker recently carried a story about an update to PdaNet that includes the ability to hide your tethering usage. Of course, if PdaNet no longer appears in the Android Market, you can’t get the update, right?

Well, not so fast. The PC installer for PdaNet (there are two parts–one for the PC and one for the phone) will actually update your phone with the correct version of the Android app! The beauty of this is that even if your carrier decides to delete PdaNet from your phone, you can readily reinstall it by reinstalling the corresponding PC app. No need to try to track down the .apk file and install it manually. It’s also worth noting that you don’t need to root your phone in order to use PdaNet (although you do have to enable USB debugging, which is easy to do).

The full version of PdaNet is currently priced at $15.95 and works like a charm. Updates are free for life, too, apparently. I don’t know how well it masks the tethering usage, but I guess I’ll find out eventually.

Last fall I finally replaced my crappy LG Venus cell phone with a way cool HTC Incredible phone running Android. As you would expect, it’s capable of playing pretty-much any type of music file, either with the included player or one of many third-party apps you can find. What it lacked was a straightforward way of getting music onto the phone. Verizon included a CD with some PC software and a synchronization application, but it was clunky and horrible, and it completely ignored the fact that my entire music collection (like those of millions of other people) was stored in iTunes. I needed a better solution.

A quick web search identified a couple of candidates:

• iTunes Agent–a free PC application that will sync iTunes playlists with almost any type of removeable drive (like what my Android phone looks like when you plug it in to a PC’s USB port). It worked okay, but it didn’t seem to handle playlists all that well, and album art wasn’t being copied to the phone. (This app may have improved since I tried it, in all fairness.)
• Double Twist–a free media player for Android that includes a synchronization app. I found the PC application to be difficult and non-intuitive to use, and the media player itself didn’t really offer me anything I needed above what the built-in player already did.

I ended up using iTunes Agent because it was better than nothing, at least until I upgraded to a new notebook computer. I never ended up reinstalling iTunes Agent when I installed iTunes on my new notebook.

For whatever reason, yesterday I decided to check around and see if there were any new developments in this area. What I found was a great little app called iSyncr by JRT Studio. It’s $2.99 in the Android Market, but it works like a charm and is well worth that amount of money. It installs itself in your phone’s internal storage, its SD card, or both. When you plug your phone into your PC’s USB port (there’s a Mac version, too) and mount one or both of those as external disk drives, when you explore those drives you’ll see a small PC application called iSyncr.exe. Simply double-click that application to launch it on your PC, and you’ll see the following window pop up:

You simply check/uncheck the playlists you want to sync, and hit the Sync button. The Options button will bring up the Options window:

You can see that there is also the ability to “reverse sync” music you’ve purchased through Amazon.

To make it short and sweet, iSyncr does exactly what it says it will do, and it’s easy to use. Once I’d completed the sync of my phone with iTunes, all of my music and my playlists were there, ready to go. Can’t ask for any more than that.

Well, actually, I can–how about being able to sync wirelessly? JRT Studio has an answer for that, too–the iSyncr WiFi Add-On! It’s an additional $0.99 (can you afford it?), and it includes a server app you run on your PC or Mac to listen for sync requests from your phone. You can set it to sync at regular intervals or only when told. Additionally, it will reverse-sync your phone’s photos and videos if you’d like. That covers everything as far as I’m concerned–music, photos, and videos are the three things I want to be able to transfer between my PC and my phone. And it works–no muss, no fuss. These two apps were easily the best four bucks I ever spent on software.

As I was messing with all this, I found myself wondering why Google didn’t have its own version of iTunes. Apparently, it’s on its way.