[time-nuts] Loran-C Simulation

[gandalfg8 at aol.com]

Hi Paul,

Thanks for your reply, I did know you were still here and had considered writing direct, but felt the subject might be of interest to others too:-)

Given the demise of the SXB I was expecting there might have been at least a few other projects by now,
especially with all the Austron kit that must still be out there and with FS700s going for very reasonable prices a few years ago,
but it seems that, so far at least, yours is still the only option, so perhaps there's not as much interest as I was expecting after all.

Writing code really isn't my thing, I have written database software for monitoring systems but that was around 25 years ago,
and earlier more technical efforts in Fortran and machine code were probably another 25 years before that!
I've been threatening to learn to code for the PIC and then the Arduino for ages now but it's not happened yet,
and with the ever intrusive to do list never getting any shorter I'm not holding my breath.

Having said that, I did take a look at your Basic code and must admit is does look pretty straightforward, even to me,
and I have recently bought some Arduino modules, although again for a project running somebody else's code,
so once I have the IDE loaded I might have a play anyway.
I would expect quite a well drawn out learning curve though, which given my current progress might well turn out to be infinite:-)

We are indeed very lucky to have Anthorn still running but I can't help feeling it could be running on borrowed time
and would like to be prepared just in case.

Nigel, GM8PZR




Nigel I am still here and agree the SXB is long gone. But I shared the code
and it was in basic.
An arduino with higher speed will do a fantastic job of replacing that very
simple code. It is indeed simple.
I have no plan to do that conversion but maybe I will some day.
The real trick was the timing chain that offloaded the control proc.
I do imagine that all of that can be done in one arduino.
I just picked up 3 of the stm32 units for $0 pretty much and they run at 75
MHz.
The SXB was 8 bit so it was a bit messy with some of the counts and such
that were needed.
Hope that inspires you or anyone else that wants to take a run at it.
It does work and runs my LORAN C stuff just fine.
Lucky you to have at least one site running.
Regards
Paul
WB8TSL