What is the OV-Melder?
The OV-Melder is a simple way to inform members (that is, everyone who owns an OV-Melder).
For example, about upcoming dates, current events, or important news regarding the OV itself.
"Sent" is done via a, in my opinion, really appealing PHP page.
Everything is then displayed on a 2004 LCD. So 80 characters are available. That is usually sufficient.
In the sender PHP, there are a few templates for recurring events, a small template for AWJ,
or if a meeting should be canceled. This is all editable in PHP with some basic knowledge,
so everything can be customized for the respective OV.
The message text, that is, the text that is displayed, is created using PHP. The separation after 20
characters is indicated by the character "]" ((right square bracket), but it is displayed as ")" on
the rendered page. When copying, "]" is copied correctly. HTML sucks! :-))
which the Arduino code evaluates. Thus the code is also suitable, for example, for a 1602 LCD
if you adjust a few little things here and there (-:
Is the OV-Melder only for radio amateurs?
Not at all. Essentially, the device and the software are suitable for EVERYONE.
Whether shooting clubs, workshops (for example, with a custom ID for customers "Your vehicle is ready")
or CB users ("Tonight at 7 PM radio round on ch19").
The only 'annoying' part is integrating it into the home WLAN network (using the
Wifimanager).
But you only have to do that once.
The story of the Melder itself:
The idea for the OV-Melder originally came from OM DD8VX. It was "published" in the CQDL 1-2024.
The published code was absolutely unusable in its original form. Also, there was no
working code provided despite inquiries. So I got to work. The initial idea was to get the existing code
running, but that was pointless. So I began to let the old code sink in and
wrote everything anew for the DARC o27. In the end, it amounted to over 1200 lines of Arduino code.
It worked as intended after a short time.
Mattes df6dp, Ralf df4dn, and Wolfgang dd1du tested it with me.
It worked for everyone, and the Melder displayed the messages, time, and weather. Fabulous!
And much more was added. Gradually, the code grew to the absolutely
final version "ovmelder_FINAL_v1" (-:
What is needed for basic operation? Well:
An ESP32 (ESP8266 should also work, just with adjusted code!) and a 2004 i2c-LCD are sufficient.
And some web space with PHP. All PHP/HTML together is about 360 kB.
The actual code sketch for Arduino has 24584 bytes with 740 lines (excluding comments!).
Here are a few pictures:
Preview for example on our OV page
The PHP page for sending texts with a preview,
showing how it would look, and some templates:
And this is how it looks at the end on the actual hardware:
The code, including the "Sender" PHP stuff and for Arduino IDE/Platformio, will be available soon at
github,
once everything is running reliably and I have tidied up the code a bit. The plan is until
now by March 1, 2024. And yes, there is also a corresponding manual as PDF. At least a rough one.
At this point, a huge thanks again to Christian
for the creative and technical implementation of the PHP page!
vy73 de Peter, do8pgg
Do you want to support me? Paypal handles it (-: