wow that is awesome! I have a ts2000, would it work for that rig? I will be getting my hands on a braille display. not rue how many cells yet,but it is from a palmate a friend of one has and no longer uses. this is exciting and just n time for field day
Michael Thurman
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On May 1, 2014, at 1:05 PM, Jim Shaffer <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Let's try this message format.  Honestly I'm getting pretty disgusted with 
> the way this list can't manage to handle our messages without throwing a lot 
> of garbage in them.
> --------------------------------
> Well my pan adapter project has born fruit.  It is working pretty well.  I 
> specify a frequency range and pan increment, usually 1 KHZ, and it creates a 
> braille graph of the band activity.  The braille graph is on my 40 cell 
> Pacmate display.
> 
> I use the characters “a b l p q =” to show the relative signal strengths. 
> Those characters are dot 1, dots 1 and 2, dots 1, 2, and 3, etc.  A single 
> dot 1 is the noise floor.
> 
> I put up a new pan graph every 3 band scans, in other words, I scan the band 
> 3 times, and then generate the braille, scan another 3 times and generate, 
> etc.  I generate the graph using the maximum value I got from those 3 scans. 
> This hopefully minimizes missing a CW op whose key just wasn’t down when I 
> scanned the last time.
> 
> Here is a sample display.  Note that if you’re not using a braille display, 
> this won’t make much sense.
> 
> aaaabbbaaalqap=baaaaabbbblbaaaalllaaqaaa
> 
> The “q” and “=” show strong signals, the “p” less strong, etc.
> 
> With the TS-590 at 115200 baud, I can scan around 40 points per second, or 
> 40 khz per second scanning 1 khz at a time.  That seems to be fast enough, 
> well for me at least.
> 
> Oh, and perhaps the most important feature of this is that when I see on the 
> graph a spot I want to go to, I just click the routing key, the program 
> stops panning, and sends the rig to the corresponding frequency.  This 
> frequency is approximate, depending upon how many KHZs are represented by a 
> cell, but it’s in the ball park of the signal I’ve spotted.
> --
> Jim, KE5AL
> From: Jim Shaffer
> Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2014 11:12 PM
> To: For blind ham radio operators
> Subject: re: Braille Pan Adapter
> 
> Well, I’ve done a proof of concept, and it works!  I don’t have it in any 
> shape to really be very useable yet, but I can make my TS-590 scan and 
> return s-meter readings fast enough to do a reasonable job of showing a band 
> or band segment.
> 
> Stay tuned.
> --
> Jim Shaffer, KE5AL
> Pflugerville, TX
> www.jjshaffer.net
> www.pgramblers.com