Finally, some success. I have been able to interpret the row of numbers. It's not much but it's a start. If anyone else has one of these chatboards, I beg of you to try and see what you can do. As they say in Tasmania, two heads are better than one.
BTW: just used a resistor divider to go from 5V to 3V TTL, worked fine.
Here is the code I used for this:
#include <SoftwareSerial.h>
#define rxPin 7
#define txPin 6
#define ledPin 13
// set up a new serial port
SoftwareSerial mySerial = SoftwareSerial(rxPin, txPin);
void setup() {
// define pin modes for tx, rx, led pins:
pinMode(rxPin, INPUT);
pinMode(txPin, OUTPUT);
pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);
// set the data rate for the SoftwareSerial port
mySerial.begin(9600);
Serial.begin(9600); //Opens serial port with data rate of 9600bps.
Serial.flush(); //Clears serial port.
for(int i=0;i<20;i++){
char someChar = mySerial.read();
if(someChar == 84){
mySerial.println("OK");
}
}
}
void loop() {
char someChar[12];
char number;
for(int i=0;i<11;i++) {
someChar = mySerial.read();
_ if(someChar == 34){_
* i++;*
_ someChar = mySerial.read();
number = someChar*;
i++;
someChar = mySerial.read();
if(someChar == 34) {
mySerial.println("OK");
}
}
}
//Serial.println(someChar);
delay(90);
Serial.print(number);
}*_