DCS-BIOS - How to send a freuency value directly to a UHF radio?

[yoreh]

Hello,

i have a UHF radio witch i would like to use in my cockpit. to my understanding it's a fairly "stupid" device, witch sends a binary representation of a given frequency. would it be possible to take this binary string and send it somehow to the same device on the virtual cockpit, thus keep sync with the hardware radio and the software radio?

 

This is the unit -

 

 

Regards,

Yoreh

[FSFIan]

Yes, this is possible.

 

1. Figure out the data format of the binary string (binary coded decimal? gray code? ...)

2. Read the value from the physical UHF radio from an Arduino sketch

3. In your Arduino sketch, figure out the position of each of the three frequency selector knobs from the value you got from your physical UHF radio

4. send those selector positions to DCS with DCS-BIOS

 

If you want help with that, we should meet up on Discord some time. I plan to hang out in the DCS-BIOS Discord server on Sunday. PM me if you want to set up another time.

 

I am pretty sure we can get this working in about an hour.

[yoreh]

Ian;3326788']Yes, this is possible.

 

1. Figure out the data format of the binary string (binary coded decimal? gray code? ...)

2. Read the value from the physical UHF radio from an Arduino sketch

3. In your Arduino sketch, figure out the position of each of the three frequency selector knobs from the value you got from your physical UHF radio

4. send those selector positions to DCS with DCS-BIOS

 

If you want help with that, we should meet up on Discord some time. I plan to hang out in the DCS-BIOS Discord server on Sunday. PM me if you want to set up another time.

 

I am pretty sure we can get this working in about an hour.

 

Thank you Ian, i'll PM you when i'll wire it up.

[yoreh]

Ian;3326788']Yes, this is possible.

 

1. Figure out the data format of the binary string (binary coded decimal? gray code? ...)

2. Read the value from the physical UHF radio from an Arduino sketch

3. In your Arduino sketch, figure out the position of each of the three frequency selector knobs from the value you got from your physical UHF radio

4. send those selector positions to DCS with DCS-BIOS

 

If you want help with that, we should meet up on Discord some time. I plan to hang out in the DCS-BIOS Discord server on Sunday. PM me if you want to set up another time.

 

I am pretty sure we can get this working in about an hour.

 

Hi i'm currently working on an Arduino sketch to load the frequncy values from the physical UHF radio. at this point my sketch presents a decimal number for each selector, that is the same number showed on the pysical radio display.

now, i need to figure out how to send this data to dcs via DCS-BIOS. i have looked in the control reference and only saw "inc/dec" commands related to those selectors... didn't find any way to send a specific selector positions.

 

Any help would be appreciated,

Yoreh.

[FSFIan]

Unlike in the A-10C, the UHF Radio in the Huey does not have any commands to directly set a dial to a specific position. It only has commands to increase and decrease the selector position, so that's all that is exposed by DCS-BIOS.

 

That makes this problem more complex, but not impossible to solve. You'll need to figure out the current position of the selector in the sim from the exported UHF frequency, then figure out if the selector position needs to increase or decrease and send the appropriate command.

 

I can help you with that after Christmas when I get back to my apartment where I have access to my DCS rig and Arduino boards.

[Regnad517]

That will be pretty sweet when you get that up and running yoreh!

[yoreh]

That will be pretty sweet when you get that up and running yoreh!

 

 

Thank you Sir! that will surly add some effect...

 

 

Ian;3334893']Unlike in the A-10C, the UHF Radio in the Huey does not have any commands to directly set a dial to a specific position. It only has commands to increase and decrease the selector position, so that's all that is exposed by DCS-BIOS.

 

That makes this problem more complex, but not impossible to solve. You'll need to figure out the current position of the selector in the sim from the exported UHF frequency, then figure out if the selector position needs to increase or decrease and send the appropriate command.

 

I can help you with that after Christmas when I get back to my apartment where I have access to my DCS rig and Arduino boards.

 

 

Thank you Ian, can you explain a bit on this exported frequncy data?

 

Marry cristmas to you all

[Hansolo]

Yoreh this may be of assistance to you https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=3336218&postcount=180

 

Here I try to get a TACAN up and running in the A10C with DCS-BIOS. The TACAN in the A10C also can only use Increase and Decrease. The code can probably be done more neatly but it sound like a similar situation you want to handle

 

Cheers

Hans

[yoreh]

Yoreh this may be of assistance to you https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=3336218&postcount=180

 

Here I try to get a TACAN up and running in the A10C with DCS-BIOS. The TACAN in the A10C also can only use Increase and Decrease. The code can probably be done more neatly but it sound like a similar situation you want to handle

 

Cheers

Hans

 

Hans, that is amazing! this is exactly my situation and your solution looks very elegant!! i will take a closer look at your code and try to adopt it to my setup.

Thank you very much for pointing me in the right direction. :thumbup:

[yoreh]

So i decided to adopt Hans code with the port registers and actually it worked out pretty good, thank you very much Hans!! . i am now in a position that i can present the frequency on the serial monitor / 7 segment module.

Here is a small video to demostrate that.

 

 

As for transfering the data to DCS Huey... i understand the logic, but still unable to translate that into Arduino code. I will try to get in touch with Ian to solve this issue.

 

PS.

Anybody know how to post videos directly inside the post?

[Bullant]

Anybody know how to post videos directly inside the post?

 

Like this

 

 

You need to put the youtube video ID (in this case 5rihkRSPqUI) inside YOUTUBE tags.

 

Thumbs up for the period appropriate background music as well ;)

[yoreh]

Thanks.

[Hansolo]

Sweet yoreh. I am glad you got first part of it working :thumbup: Top job Sir.

 

Cheers

Hans

[yoreh]

success!!

 

Thanks Hans. could not have done it without your help :)

 

and finaly, after long struggle with the code... it's working!!!

 

 

still need to hook up all the switches but this should be pretty straight forward.

when everythig will be done i'll post the code here.

Cheers,

Yoreh

[Kpdretired]

Yoreh, I just bought the same radio head, can you give me an idea of what else I'm going to need in terms of hardware to do the same?

Edited January 20, 2018 by Kpdretired

[yoreh]

Yoreh, I just bought the same radio head, can you give me an idea of what else I'm going to need in terms of hardware to do the same?

 

For the hardware You'll need an Arduino. if you want to go with Hans method (using port registers), than you'll have to go with the Arduino Mega. You'll also need some wires and soldering equipment.

 

As for the software part, i'm gonna post the code here in the near future as soon as i finished with all the switches and knobs on this radio. i can also provide the truth tables for the selectors but you'll have to check them with your selectors to make sure they are the same.

 

Cheers,

Yoreh

[Kpdretired]

Thanks, I'm completely new at this so I'll probably be pestering you with questions