Serial Port Logging and play back

Projects General Guidance
1

Hi everyone,

I need some advice or suggestions. I am relatively new to Arduino. So far I have started on a GPS dead reckoning system which is going OK at the moment which will be part f a bigger project.

What I am looking for being a complete novice.

I have a radio which I can conect to my PC via USB (USB-Serial). From there my software reads the data from the serial port and I can measure all recieve levels that the radio is getting. This I can do locally since I have the software and dongle/ license.

What I am thinking of doing if possibl is to have som sort of logger which I can send to a user in a diferent country whereby they could attach a logger to their radio push a button and record all serial data to a log file. This log file can the be emailed to me where I will be able to playback the file into my serial port and th software should be able to do the rest.

What I need to know is would this be at all possible? Secondly if possible what components are best suited to the task?

Ultilmately I would like the logger to work in such a way that I could unplug it from the radio once I have logger for a period of time. I would then plug it into my PC activate play and the software must think the data is coming from a radio.

2

afrikaan:
I would then plug it into my PC activate play and the software must think the data is coming from a radio.

What sort of data is being produced by the radio - is it speech or music or what?

What software are you hoping will think the data is coming from the radio?

Are you hoping to illegally bypass the need for a dongle / license?

...R

3

Sorry I should have been a bit more specific. The radio is a 2way radio the data I assume is RS232 binary I am guessing. I have no understanding how serial ports work. I am currently reading up on it.

The info being recieved will be things like coordinates, recieve power, time, base station conected etc.

No I am not trying to bypass the dongle. I am the dongle owner. I work for a large network (we own the oftware) povider and we have thousands of users across the country. Rather than me driving to user in order to test the networ where he/ she may be I was thinking of finding a way to log the data from their radio and analyse it back at base. Thus cutting down on travel costs.

At present we log all data to a PC.

Here i an eample of the data recieved

#Time : 14:24:47
#Date : 24.09.2018
#Scout Ver.: 18.16.1
#Radio Id : 340129376
#Radio Type: ABC
#Radio ISSI: 123
#Radio TEI : 000
#Radio SN : 123
#Radio MN : xyz
#Radio SW : R2 ‚v
#Radio CP : 2.29
#Loc_DB :
#Alias_DB :
#Sync: ,14:24:47.100,46802-35-04-1
#Callinfo:,0,7,0,0,0
#Channelinfo:,3617,1,-1,9997439,0
14:24:47.067 42800A158C80B6D203000001F5
14:24:47.088 428132148CA0B6D220009810981129E
14:24:47.108 42820A158CA0B6D203000001D7
14:24:47.148 428332148CC0B6D22000E0D0E0D100100A280A154B
14:24:47.149 42840A158CC0B6D203000001B1
14:24:47.202 428532148CE0B6D22000981098112280A159B
14:24:47.212 42860A158CE0B6D20300000193
14:24:47.261 428732148D00B6D22000E0D0E0D1001000A280A1518
14:24:47.262 42880A158D00B6D2030000017C
#$GPRMC,122814,A,6235.7028,N,00941.5491,E,003.8,085.0,240918,002.1,E*73
14:24:47.325 428932148D20B6D220009810981128E9F62000108000030A280A1581
14:24:47.326 428A0A158D20B6D2030000015E
14:24:47.385 428B32148D40B6D22000E0D0E0D10010800000023003DE7D00000A280A15C2
14:24:47.386 428C0A158D40B6D20300000138
#$GPGGA,122814,6235.7028,N,00941.5491,E,2,10,1.0,545.0,M,39.9,M,,40
14:24:47.435 428D4C6F0000020100000000000A0603000000033E210902000000000003E1
14:24:47.445 428E3C6F000093010000000000009404000000000048900000000000C020000FFFFFF006B
14:24:47.445 428F346F0000180200000000072E1703000000030031A01000000000003F5
14:24:47.465 4290346F000028020000000007542703000000033E243000030032A01000000000003ED
14:24:47.465 4291346F0000380200000000076E3703000000033E3D400000000000003AF
14:24:47.465 4292346F0000A802000000000751A703000000030F1000000000003E5
14:24:47.466 4293346F00005001000000000000002618000200000000001A19020000FFFFFFACDD
14:24:47.475 4294246F0000010100000000000000A03010000000000040501000000000001D7
14:24:47.476 429532148D60B6D22000981098112911F83B6F0557E9A472F22006200A280A1588
14:24:47.476 42960A158D60B6D20300000102
14:24:47.495 429732148D80B6D22000E0D0E0D10010800003DE7A00000A280A1588
14:24:47.496 42980A158D80B6D203000001EC
#$GPGSA,A,3,01,03,08,11,14,17,18,22,28,32,,,1.7,1.0,1.43B

4

I'm still a bit unclear about this (from the Original Post)

Ultilmately I would like the logger to work in such a way that I could unplug it from the radio once I have logger for a period of time. I would then plug it into my PC activate play and the software must think the data is coming from a radio.

If the data has been emailed to your PC why would you need to plug anything into your PC?

Assuming the user at the other end has a WiFi connection one of the ESP8266 or ESP32 boards should be a good fit for collecting the diagnostic data from a radio and emailing it or forwarding it to your own website where you could access it with your PC. (I'm assuming an ESP8266 or -32 can send an email).

...R

PS ... If your radio uses RS232 signal levels you will need a MAX232 to convert to TTL signal levels.

5

as I understand it currently your dongle plugs into a PC and you analyse the incomming serial data from a radio?

you wish to create a logger which you can send to end users to record information from their radio
would this logger require a specific USB dongle similar to yours? if so what is available in the way of drivers, e.g. you must have a driver for your PC, is it Windows or Linux?
If there is a Linux driver would a Raspberry pi be a suitable system for the logger where the information could be written to a file on the SD card to be emailed to you later.

or have I missread the requirements?

6

My thoughts

afrikaan sends "logger" to user

User gets "logger"

User plugs "logger" to "radio" using "radio interface"

User pushes button

"Logger" starts logging data, presumably via RS232 from "radio interface"

User pushes button, "logger" stops logging

User disconnects "logger"

User connects "logger" to user PC using USB port

"Logger" shows up like a regular USB thumb drive

User copies "log file" from USB drive, email it to afrikaan

See "logger" below

aaa.png

7

Ultilmately I would like the logger to work in such a way that I could unplug it from the radio once I have logger for a period of time. I would then plug it into my PC activate play and the software must think the data is coming from a radio.

Perhaps a variation of the "logger"

bbb.png

8

It just occurs to me if the radio has an Rs232 interface all the remote user needs is a USB-Rs232 cable so he can connect to a PC. Then any of the common PC terminal programs (such as PuTTY or RealTerm) could capture the output and save it to a file that could be emailed. No need for a "logger"

...R

9

it would be useful to know what is the function of the dongle, e.g. is it decoding information in some proprietary format?
I assume it is more than a USB-RS232 device which gives us a COM: port
would the users require a dongle or could the raw data from the radio be recorded using a USB-RS232 device for later playback thru a dongle ?

10

@hzrnbgy Your description of what i am looking for is spot on.

The reason why i want to be able to plug the logger into the pc as well as the option of emailing the logs is for when I am capturing reststricted data in this case the data would be logged and encryted on th SD card. The SD card would be in a sealed unit which could be shipped back to to home PC for decryption and analysis.

Where there is no restriction on the data a simple emailed file would be fine.

Thanks for all the responses they really got me thinking in the right direction and helped with my google searches.

To make things as simple as possible I have come across the Sparkfun Openlog Artemis board which seems o be an all in one which will do exactly what I need.

11

I should never have mentioned dongle in my original post it has detracted the convesation. The Dongle has nothing to do with what I was trying to achieve.

12

as @Robin2 asked in post #7 do you need a logger?
your user connects the radio to a PC with a USB-RS232 serial converter (costs a few £) and using a suitable terminal emulator, e.g. teraterm, realterm, etc, logs the incomming data to a file. The file can then be emailed to you.

13

USB-to-serial is probably the cheapest, but

asking some users to figure out which COMM port the USB-to-Serial converter is using can sometimes be an exercise in futility.

14

This sounds like a commercial application. Perhaps you would be better posting your requirements in the Gigs & Collaboration section.

15

hzrnbgy:
USB-to-serial is probably the cheapest, but

asking some users to figure out which COMM port the USB-to-Serial converter is using can sometimes be an exercise in futility.

I usually write a program which scans each serial port in turn looking for the information which the device transmits - saves the user having to try each serial port in turn

16

markd833:
This sounds like a commercial application. Perhaps you would be better posting your requirements in the Gigs & Collaboration section.

I don't think the OP is asking anyone on the Forum to create anything for him. He is just seeking advice.

...R