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This is my one piece of electronics gear purchase (other than a small network switch) that I made yesterday at Dayton. The rest was components or literature.

This is designed for a broadcast booth, and listens to multiple inputs such as radio, TV, weather radio, etc. for the SAME burst sent during a weather alert or other emergency services notification. It's capable of spitting it out as serial data, as an interrupted audio alert, or as a screen crawl for video. (Don't think mine has that option.) It was $20, appears functional, and as soon as I can program it, will go into my rack.

The only odd thing was the manufacturer used a center-ground on the power input, instead of using the outer shell. It's made here in Ohio, and I actually looked at the company once for employment. Kind of a neat piece.

This is my one piece of electronics gear purchase (other than a small network switch) that I made yesterday at Dayton. The rest was components or literature. This is designed for a broadcast booth, and listens to multiple inputs such as radio, TV, weather radio, etc. for the SAME burst sent during a weather alert or other emergency services notification. It's capable of spitting it out as serial data, as an interrupted audio alert, or as a screen crawl for video. (Don't think mine has that option.) It was $20, appears functional, and as soon as I can program it, will go into my rack. The only odd thing was the manufacturer used a center-ground on the power input, instead of using the outer shell. It's made here in Ohio, and I actually looked at the company once for employment. Kind of a neat piece.

(post is archived)

[–] • 1 pt

What is the end use here? You'll program it with what intent?

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One of it's functions is to listen to things like commercial weather radio and other terrestrial broadcasts for the emergency alert data bursts, and then decode them for use elsewhere. In this case, my intent is to grab them with a SBC, and disseminate them to other parties. I realize there are commercial services that will do that for you (weatherusa.net for example,) but I'm a big fan of having the information available even when things like the internet go down. If NOAA and WLW Cincinnati go off the air, it's not going to matter.

[–] • 1 pt

If those are down, what is the chance the broadcasting source would be transmitting? Just a ponder. Sounds like a really cool project.

[–] • 1 pt

WLW Cincinnati is one of the main EAS entry points for the radio network in the USA. They're required to be on the air as long as possible, regardless of the situation. If that station goes down, then one of two things has happened:

The land the antenna sits on has become more valuable than the broadcast, or

Bend over and kiss your ass goodbye.

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Motorola MC68HC11

Nice to see a classic 8-bit microcontroller powering this thing. Of course given its circa 1997 vintage, that choice wasn't a big stretch. Nowadays there would be some ARM processor or PIC or maybe even something like an ESP-32 powering such a device so it's definitely interesting to see a classic micro instead. Would have been more fun if it were a Zilog Z-80 or even and Intel 8031/8051/8052 which were definitely still common in the late 90s (and today). Nice find!

[–] • 0 pt

As far as I know, you can buy a new one that's identical to this.