Web-Based Control for a CB Radio
Article excerpt
There was a time when a CB radio was a simple affair: a small box with a channel selector, volume, and squelch controls. No longer it seems, because they can …read more
There was a time when a CB radio was a simple affair: a small box with a channel selector, volume, and squelch controls. No longer it seems, because they can now be multi-mode devices that equal the capabilities of amateur radio rigs if not surpass them. [ThatCrazyDcGuy] has one, an Albrecht AE-5900, which has the interesting feature that it can be entirely controlled from its microphone. This led to a web-based interface for the rig, through clever emulation of the microphone.
The communication between rig and microphone is a serial line, for which an FT232 USB-to-serial interface is pressed into service. A USB sound card handles the audio along with some little transformers for isolation, and a USB hub joins everything together. The whole is mounted on perfboard in a small enclosure, and plugged into a Raspberry Pi which acts as a server. This is running a Python script that expose a web front end to control the rig. We like the way this has been done, with minimal intrusion into the radio itself.
Far less so than this CB to 6 meter conversion we featured a while back.