1 The Radiotrack radio driver
2 ===========================
4 Author: Stephen M. Benoit <benoits@servicepro.com>
11 This document was made based on 'C' code for Linux from Gideon le Grange
12 (legrang@active.co.za or legrang@cs.sun.ac.za) in 1994, and elaborations from
13 Frans Brinkman (brinkman@esd.nl) in 1996. The results reported here are from
14 experiments that the author performed on his own setup, so your mileage may
15 vary... I make no guarantees, claims or warranties to the suitability or
16 validity of this information. No other documentation on the AIMS
17 Lab (http://www.aimslab.com/) RadioTrack card was made available to the
18 author. This document is offered in the hopes that it might help users who
19 want to use the RadioTrack card in an environment other than MS Windows.
24 I have a RadioTrack card from back when I ran an MS-Windows platform. After
25 converting to Linux, I found Gideon le Grange's command-line software for
26 running the card, and found that it was good! Frans Brinkman made a
27 comfortable X-windows interface, and added a scanning feature. For hack
28 value, I wanted to see if the tuner could be tuned beyond the usual FM radio
29 broadcast band, so I could pick up the audio carriers from North American
30 broadcast TV channels, situated just below and above the 87.0-109.0 MHz range.
31 I did not get much success, but I learned about programming ioports under
32 Linux and gained some insights about the hardware design used for the card.
34 So, without further delay, here are the details.
40 The RadioTrack card is an ISA 8-bit FM radio card. The radio frequency (RF)
41 input is simply an antenna lead, and the output is a power audio signal
42 available through a miniature phone plug. Its RF frequencies of operation are
43 more or less limited from 87.0 to 109.0 MHz (the commercial FM broadcast
44 band). Although the registers can be programmed to request frequencies beyond
45 these limits, experiments did not give promising results. The variable
46 frequency oscillator (VFO) that demodulates the intermediate frequency (IF)
47 signal probably has a small range of useful frequencies, and wraps around or
48 gets clipped beyond the limits mentioned above.
51 CONTROLLING THE CARD WITH IOPORT
52 --------------------------------
54 The RadioTrack (base) ioport is configurable for 0x30c or 0x20c. Only one
55 ioport seems to be involved. The ioport decoding circuitry must be pretty
56 simple, as individual ioport bits are directly matched to specific functions
57 (or blocks) of the radio card. This way, many functions can be changed in
58 parallel with one write to the ioport. The only feedback available through
59 the ioports appears to be the "Stereo Detect" bit.
61 The bits of the ioport are arranged as follows:
66 +------+------+------+--------+--------+-------+---------+--------+
67 | VolA | VolB | ???? | Stereo | Radio | TuneA | TuneB | Tune |
68 | (+) | (-) | | Detect | Audio | (bit) | (latch) | Update |
69 | | | | Enable | Enable | | | Enable |
70 +------+------+------+--------+--------+-------+---------+--------+
73 ==== ==== =================================
75 ==== ==== =================================
77 0 1 volume + (some delay required)
78 1 0 volume - (some delay required)
79 1 1 stay at present volume
80 ==== ==== =================================
82 ==================== ===========
83 Stereo Detect Enable Description
84 ==================== ===========
87 ==================== ===========
89 Results available by reading ioport >60 msec after last port write.
91 0xff ==> no stereo detected, 0xfd ==> stereo detected.
93 ============================= =============================
94 Radio to Audio (path) Enable Description
95 ============================= =============================
96 0 Disable path (silence)
97 1 Enable path (audio produced)
98 ============================= =============================
100 ===== ===== ==================
101 TuneA TuneB Description
102 ===== ===== ==================
103 0 0 "zero" bit phase 1
104 0 1 "zero" bit phase 2
105 1 0 "one" bit phase 1
106 1 1 "one" bit phase 2
107 ===== ===== ==================
110 24-bit code, where bits = (freq*40) + 10486188.
111 The Most Significant 11 bits must be 1010 xxxx 0x0 to be valid.
112 The bits are shifted in LSb first.
114 ================== ===========================
115 Tune Update Enable Description
116 ================== ===========================
117 0 Tuner held constant
118 1 Tuner updating in progress
119 ================== ===========================
127 Default: BASE <-- 0xc8 (current volume, no stereo detect,
128 radio enable, tuner adjust disable)
130 Card Off: BASE <-- 0x00 (audio mute, no stereo detect,
131 radio disable, tuner adjust disable)
133 Card On: BASE <-- 0x00 (see "Card Off", clears any unfinished business)
134 BASE <-- 0xc8 (see "Default")
136 Volume Down: BASE <-- 0x48 (volume down, no stereo detect,
137 radio enable, tuner adjust disable)
139 BASE <-- 0xc8 (see "Default")
141 Volume Up: BASE <-- 0x88 (volume up, no stereo detect,
142 radio enable, tuner adjust disable)
144 BASE <-- 0xc8 (see "Default")
146 Check Stereo: BASE <-- 0xd8 (current volume, stereo detect,
147 radio enable, tuner adjust disable)
149 x <-- BASE (read ioport)
150 BASE <-- 0xc8 (see "Default")
152 x=0xff ==> "not stereo", x=0xfd ==> "stereo detected"
154 Set Frequency: code = (freq*40) + 10486188
155 foreach of the 24 bits in code,
156 (from Least to Most Significant):
157 to write a "zero" bit,
158 BASE <-- 0x01 (audio mute, no stereo detect, radio
159 disable, "zero" bit phase 1, tuner adjust)
160 BASE <-- 0x03 (audio mute, no stereo detect, radio
161 disable, "zero" bit phase 2, tuner adjust)
162 to write a "one" bit,
163 BASE <-- 0x05 (audio mute, no stereo detect, radio
164 disable, "one" bit phase 1, tuner adjust)
165 BASE <-- 0x07 (audio mute, no stereo detect, radio
166 disable, "one" bit phase 2, tuner adjust)