Why Develop This ?

I wanted to Maximise the potential of my PCR-1000, sure I could receive either NOAA 14&16 or 12&15 - I wanted to receive them both.... plus the Russian Sats.... but how ?

I looked into using TalkPcr - you can do it this way, by setting up timed frequency changes - but I was rather bad at entering in all the data - plus it changes so often -there just had to be another way of doing it.

After I did a bit of Internet surfing I came across 2 Unix based PCR-1000 control programs that looked interesting - however in the process of porting them over to NT, Win98, Win2000 things started to come apart - mainly due to the BSD implemntation of sockets, and Ports..... back to the drawing board.

In the past I have "talked" to GPS Units, and Echo/Depth Sounders - so I thought it could not be that difficult to talk to the PCR ... ummm. I am still not 100% sure that I understand how it actually does talk - but we now have an agreement it does not anoy me, and I try not to do something too stupid to it.

My Background

I am a professional Software Engineer, so creating Windows applications is something that I should be able to do - In the past I used to work on VMS system a lot and the similarities between NT and VMS still make me laugh when people think that this is "new" technology.

I am however a beginner in the Radio Ham world, I am trying to find time to sit my UK RAe exam - and I will get there one day - honest.