Help for the Blind?

[JJim]

Hello guys. I am new to this forum and this is my first post here. I have been talking with a fellow on the radio for a while now and often wondered why he seems to be on "ALL OF THE TIME". Finally I was talking with somebody else when they told me that he is a 76 year old who went blind about a year ago from Glaucoma. After hearing that I felt even worse for him since I like him very much and realize that the only enjoyment he has in this world is talking on the radio since he does not "need to see" to do that.

However, one thing I have noticed is that every now and then he changes channels to surf around and he gets lost. He has a hard time finding his home channel. Sometimes he just clicks each channel shouting for someone or listening for a familiar voice. (He is too embarassed to ask anybody what channel he is on.) After "eyeballing" (and I apologize for using the term) him I felt even more sympathy for him since he is really a nice guy. So far, I have fixed his D104 Silver Eagle, programmed his police scanner, bought him a new antenna for the scanner, and some simple little things around his house for him since he cant.

Now, since I have bored you with my long windedness. Is there any kind of mod that I can do to his radio to, perhaps, get it to beep once or twice when he gets to a specific channel? I have sent an e-mail to Cobra asking them and have gotten no reply after 2 weeks. He has a Cobra 2000. Any kind of mod or even other suggestions would be a real help.

If anybody could help me here I would REALLY appreciate it. If anybody is ever in the Phila. / Camden County section of NJ, go to channel 19 and shout for Papa Bear. Talk with him for a min. or so and you too will come to like him as well.

Thanks again guys
Jim

 

[riq165]

Have you considered changing the channel selector knob? Something like on the 142, 148 etc... put some kind of rough marking on one side of the flat to distinguish up from down. He would know about what channel he was on when the knob was straight up and down then he could count the offset. Not perfect or a supper elegant solution but it might help, and is not difficult to do.

73,

riq165

 

[Carl]

some of the hf rigs have a voice that tells you the frequency. thats a pretty spendy fix though

 

[Switch Kit]

Carl is right ,I also think there is a decent talking SWR meter out there that tells you the freq your on ,power ,reflect and swr ....if he just kept that in line he would know where he was at ,at a push of a button. Cost ? 100.00 to 200.00

 

[nomadradio]

The talking freq counter is the only "off-the-shelf" solution available. Can't remember who makes it.

This fella doesn't know morse code, does he? There was an outfit that caters to QRP (low-power) ham fanatics who sold a counter with morse-code output. VERY low power, since it had no visual display. Only a handful of chips, so very friendly to a battery-powered back-pack radio.

Any kind of hack to the radio would be a new and untried setup. That, and you'd need a tech that understands the engineering, to boot.

In my experience, any mod you haven't done at least six times is still "experimental".

I have a little experience with designing-in voice announcements into toys for custom-design clients. It's expensive.

If you spend $1500 or $2500 to develop it right, you'll need to sell a lot of them to recover the development cost. When Kenwood or Yaesu does this, they recover their costs by selling thousands of radios.

I like the idea of a 'beep' that sounds when the channel selector is set to one channel. That could be done with literally "a few" chips. Even using the cheapest of several methods, that one would cost somebody $500 or more to build and install the first one. If you made a profit of five bucks on each one, you'd only have to sell 100 more of them to break even. But only after somebody digs into a pocket and finances the cost of 100 units.

Dang, you'd think some out-of-work engineer whose job got shipped to Bangalore would tackle this just to stave off unemployment boredom.

Or maybe not.

Great idea, though.

I still like the "bump" on the channel knob suggestion. You could glue one "bump" onto the front panel, and another onto the knob. Line them up, and he's there. At least this guy won't be crying that his face plate no longer looks "mint original". Seems like the appearance of this kind of radio brings more money than the way it works.

73

 

[EDUK8TR]

JJim,

I too understand your frustrations in dealing with a sight impaired operator. Snakecharmer CDX-44 one of our members and a local friend of mine is also blind. Jim has a SS3900 that he has bascially memorized the band and freq. positions by the clicks of the channel selector. He also has a Yaesu 757GX that has an accessory called a QSY'er which is basically a telephone type keypad that beeps with each button pushed. It connects to the radio via the CAT (Computer Assisted Techology) molex outlet on the back of the radio. Once you have pressed the coresponding numbers for the freq, pressing the # key inputs the freq into the radio. These are no longer in production and there are two different models for Yaesu 757GX and 757GXII. I have found them on E-bay on occasion but they are hard to find. Another option is the Millenium QSY'er this is what might help your friend. Of course it will involve setting him up with a compatable radio to use it with.

Hope this helps

 

[nomadradio]

Hmm. A 74HC688 chip will compare two sets of eight binary inputs. An output pin goes low when the two sets of eight are the same.

Put a dip switch on one set of inputs. Tap into the 7 bits feeding into the 8719 chip and feed them into the other set of input pins. A tiny led on each pin of the PLL chip would indicate which way you should set each of the seven dip switches. When the channel selector (and any 'extra-channel' toggle switches) are set to agree with the pattern on the dip switches, it goes "ping", if that's what you hook that output pin up to. Since most DIP switches come in sets of eight, not seven, the extra one could be used to turn it off, if it got annoying.

It would still be a borderline nightmare to install. Minimum of nine wires to hook up. Probably more like 10 or 11 wires. Those seven LEDs would probably consume enough power to make separate power/ground leads necessary.

Now, to talk somebody into hooking it all up on a piece of Rat-Shack perfboard to try out. He (she?) can have one of my "Ping" on key-up boards to use as the noise maker.

Tom Sawyer seeking Huck Finn to paint a fence, more or less.

73

 

[EDUK8TR]

JJim,

I spoke with Jim CDX-44 and he suggested that your friend do what he did. Get some small stick on plastic or rubber drawer bumpers. You can find them at most hardware stores. What ever channel your friend wants as "home freq" stick one "bump" on the channel dial and line one up on the radio face. When these are aligned, he is on this freq. and then can move from that point. He can always go back to the "home freq" when ever he needs to figure where he is at and needs to go from there.

Hope this helps!

 

[JJim]

Thank you

Thanks guys for all of the input and suggestions. We decided to try Eduk8ter's idea first (I like using the K.I.S.S. method) and "Bingo" Ed, the owner of the radio" loves it. It seems to working just fine so far and he has not been lost for any period of time.
Thank you Eduk8ter for the idea.

Again, thanks to all for replying!

73's
JJim

 

[CHARLEYMARBLES]

KUDOS to JJim for taking the time to help a fellow HUMAN 8) 8)

JJim the world could use more like you sir just so you understand some of us still appreciate folks like you

Here's to hopeing you'r good deed's are repaid. Even thought I'd bet all the money I'v got that you allready feel paidinfull everytime you hear ED on the air.


KUDOS KUDOS KUDOS KUDOS KUDOS KUDOS


CHUCK