Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Screaming for help

I wonder if readers could help me locate a couple of software utilities I need for current projects?

Screamer 1.7 PIC boot loader (or successor.) This was developed by or for Sparkfun, who have version 1.6 on their website. Unfortunately it only allows serial ports COM1 - COM6, which is not convenient for me due to all the COM ports dedicated to radios and TNCs on my shack computer. Forum posts mention a version 1.7 that lets you enter larger COM port numbers but the links to it are now dead. The version 1.6 download includes VB6 source code so I could fix the problem myself except that I only have VB.NET which is totally incompatible with it (don't you just love Microsoft?) So does anyone know where I can find a copy of Screamer 1.7 or later?

Programming software for Friendcom FC-201SA UHF Transceiver Module. I purchased one of these a few months ago but have only just got round to using it. However it is operating on its default frequency of 430.000MHz. There is a serial interface that can be used to set the frequency in each of the 16 channels and also set the channel. The manual describes the module's command set but I don't really want to spend days writing a program for it. The manual also mentions programming software but it was not supplied when I purchased the module from Elcom Research and their website is now defunct. I can't find the utility on the download page of the Friendcom website and the email I sent to Friendcom did not receive an answer. Does anyone know where I can find a copy of this software?

In case anyone has what I'm looking for and is thinking of emailing software to me, please contact me first. Google doesn't just block executable attachments, it blocks the entire email so I'd never even know you'd written. The trick is to put it into a zip file and then change the file extension to something other than zip.

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