The group is undertaking a major refurbishment of the logic and hardware for the repeaters.
For the last 10 years the logic and video sources have been based on using Amiga computers, but these have now reached their limits in terms of the facilities available on them and the machines are also coming to the end of their useful lives.
The first step of the refurbishment has been the design and production of the video switching and IO control mechanism - The MATRIX is the result. The group will be using a 32x32 Video and Stereo switching matrix with a total of 64 IO control lines which should see with enough inputs and outputs for quite some time!
The next step is to design the additional control hardware and also the software which will now be PC based - two suitable rack mount PC's have been donated to the group for this purpose. This is obviously quite a major step and we want to ensure that the basis of the repeater logic has a sound and flexible basis, to achieve this we would like to seek the views and inputs of as many users of the repeaters as possible. Over the next month or two there will no doubt be a lot of discussion "On Air" about what is needed and what people like or don't like. This type of discussion is not easy to log and record, and some will prefer not to pronounce their thoughts in this way. Hence we will also be seeking your views via the pages below, by or even in hand-written form if you would prefer, just drop me (G8DHE QTHR) a note and I will include your thoughts in the tables and graphics below.
System diagrams extending down to the level of individual circuits - click the modules to dig deeper!
Code for this and other projects has been developed using WIZASM.