Well, I’m back to the Arduino <–> Icom projects. I just acquired an Icom 7300 – and found (according to others, as well) that it and the 7610 bury a lot of functions in menus that aren’t quickly accessible from the front panel… so now I want an external controller for my Icom 7300 – VFO knob, voice keyer enable, and access to some items buried in menus. Realistically, it’ll be nice for the 706, as well… especially if i get menus and soft keys working.

Right now, it’s been a battle of re-learning arduino, and then sending commands to the radio to try things out. After a LOT of tests and code errors, i got the basic functionality working (mode changes, functions on and off, sending frequencies).

Next, i need a keypad to control functions on demand, a display to show things, and a read wire… not to mention figuring out softkeys. I want to make it menu driven, and definitely write configuration to the EEPROM, so it can be setup and left.

As I showed before, i could get the rotary encoder working, so that will need to be added…. and while I’m at it, since I’m building my “punch list” – I want to start using an Arduino Mega for more IO pins…. so i can have multiple serial ports (eventually, i want the Arduino to be in series with a PC For control purposes, but be able to do its own thing, as well).

Here’s the code as it stands…. I have the switch case built for the commands, and I started one for selecting radio CI-V address, too.

and then I worked up an excel file to map commands, plan EEPROM memory, and plan menu items

Today’s success was making the 706 do what I wanted, which means that other radios (7300) will be easy. I do need to play with some of the level adjustments, like setting RF power output, but I don’t see that being a major issue, once I get the number formatted into HEX