Ok, so I ordered some of these from sparkfun to play around with for my project:
And I don't get it. Using the VirtualWire.h library and using the examples given by them as well as examples on sparkfun and examples on the web, I can't get the receiver to receive anything at all.
Based on a lot of what I read, I was expecting to get a lot of garbage signals if anything, but I'm not receiving a single thing. I ordered 5 transmitters and 2 receivers to test out with, and I've tried all 5 transmitters, and both receivers to no avail.
I'm pretty sure I got everything wired correctly, just doesn't make any sense.
On the receiver, I have both Vdd pins going to 5 volt, all 3 grounds going to ground. I've got a piece of wire connected to the anteanna, and the Data Out pin going to digital pin 11 on my arduino uno (this is supposed to be the default rx pin).
For the transmitter I have Vcc going to the 5 volt, ground to ground, and Data In going to Pin 12 (supposed to be the tx pin).
I've tried every variation of the wiring that I can think of including other digital pins, swapping the rx and tx connections around, and nothing seems to work.
Is it possible that I got 2 bad receiver units from sparkfun? Like I said I was expecting to receive a lot of garbage if anything. I don't know if there is anyway for me to test the receivers or the transmitters to make sure they are even working correctly.
Magnets wouldn't damage anything on these would they? Because I also ordered some rare earth magnets from sparkfun and they were all packaged in one box together.
Anyone have any suggestions?