I’ve been quite busy lately and neglected the blog. I enrolled on Coursera for a very interesting FPGA course, in what seems to be a FPGA specialization from University of Colorado Boulder. I have always had somewhat a reserved attitude towards FPGAs mainly because I believed that these are hard to understand and need a …
Continue reading FPGA Course
Author:AP
Error opening serial port
Encouraged by the latest developments, today I started building a new application that will allow remote connection to Kenwood TH-D74, remote control and APRS data transfer. However, while building and running the app I got the following error: [debugger]Error opening serial port … Operation not permitted(1).[/debugger] If you encounter this, be aware that it is …
Continue reading Error opening serial port
TH-D74 BLE or “Bluetooth Low Energy”
Struggling to understand how Universal Unique IDs work (see here) I was wrongly assuming that Core Bluetooth is a framework from Apple that covers all aspects of communication with devices via BT. I was WRONG ! scanForPeripheralsWithServices method and, in general, what I tried to do, for almost a week, is NOT good for my intended …
Continue reading TH-D74 BLE or “Bluetooth Low Energy”
Using UUIDs and Bluetooth
I did some more steps towards accessing Kenwood TH-D74’s services via bluetooth. I struggled for some time understanding how discovery based on UUIDs work. I was not aware that, for each service profile, there is a standard Universally Unique Identifier (UUID) documented in Bluetooth SIG specs. Specifically for Serial Port Profile (SPP) service, the UUID …
Continue reading Using UUIDs and Bluetooth
Why unsupported central manager state ?
Several days ago I received a Kenwood TH D74 portable transceiver. Although I have a Yaesu FT60 and some other smaller and unimportant transceivers, I don’t have any transceiver that is APRS capable. What’s more important, this transceiver is BT and USB capable, providing serial communication, which opens some interesting opportunities. Today I opened XCode …
Continue reading Why unsupported central manager state ?
Kenwood TH-D74
We first met — I think — in the summer of 2015 during the Hamfest in Friedrichshafen. At that time I had a mobile Kenwood transceiver TM-D710 which was quite nice by its own. However, after several months using the TM-D710 I got increasingly annoyed by some of its shortcomings, most of them purely subjective (but I …
Continue reading Kenwood TH-D74
Shelter for stray cats
Winter is finally here and the weather is suddenly much colder. I bought two styrofoam boxes, the types used for carrying fish, and I made two shelters for the stray cats. Hope will be warm and cosy. It just struck me that this is the 100 post I published on this blog. Nice. I have …
Continue reading Shelter for stray cats
Disable iPhone automatic backup
[red_box] Warning ! Backups are important. Don’t blame me if you experience any issues due to the fact that you waived automatic backup of your iPhone. You acknowledge that you do this at your own risk ! Also, read the disclaimer. [/red_box] My new iPhone X is beautiful, a bit too expensive for what it …
Continue reading Disable iPhone automatic backup
Abandoned Posts
Over the past seven years (the age of this blog) I started writing several articles that I never finished. It’s time to trash them completely or just add them to a list for future afterthoughts. Who knows ? So, from older to newer: “Weller WD 1000 M Review – Part III – Software”, January 18, 2013 — …
Continue reading Abandoned Posts
Beacon with SiLabs module
This is a beacon project started by my friend YO5VAE. He faced some issues while programming of the Si4463-based module and I thought I might give a hand. I resoldered the entire project on an empty Arduino shield to allow expansion of the project with some additional modules. Below are some pics, but probably the …
Continue reading Beacon with SiLabs module