SECTION 7 INTRODUCTION Weather the unit was purchased built and tasted or as a kit, its function is defined by the software program residing in the EPROM. The program is specially developed for the SUPERSCAN 2001 by Martin G3OQD. The first EPROM produced was version 1 followed by updates up to the current status of issue 1.3 at the time of writing this introduction. Software development is an ongoing thing and there will be software updates from time to time to cover all the new modes and perhaps introduce some new ones and more importantly exploit the high potential of circuit design embedded in the system, such as the mouse interface and the text overlay. The current software supports all of the modes in current use. The latest issue EPROM is always supplied with the system (kit or fully built) at the time of purchase. Acquiring subsequent EPROM updates is a private arrangement between the user and G3OQD. The instructions in this section cover all the information to operate the system. Please read them carefully while applying them to the unit. If you discover any software fault or If you have any queries or comment please direct them to Martin or to me JAD. Please enjoy using the SUPERSCAN 2001 and in the course of using it you come up with any new idea for future development I appreciated very much if you let me know about it. OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS FOR SUPERSCAN 2001 EPROM V1.2A INSTALLATION 1.0) The EPROM should be installed with the arrow pointing away from the edge of the PCB, and with the end pins closest to the PCB edge. The link "L2 " should he put closest to the EPROM. 1.1) When powered up the 2001 should, after a short pause, display a test card with your callsign in a box at the top of the screen. Adjust the monitor so that the 'B' on the black square on the grey scale and a 'W in the white square are both just visible. RECEIVING SSTV OPERATION 2.0) Receiving can be either manual or automatic. The manual mode is the default power up state and is indicated by the "stnby" LED being continually on. Pressing the "Receve" key will enable reception in the currently selected mode. 2.1) The automatic reception mode is selected!deselected by pressing the "stnby" key, which will cause the LED to flash when in the automatic mode. When in automatic, the S2001 will automatically switch to receive in the correct mode when a Vertical Interval Signal has been received from another S2001 or compatible system. 2.3) If the VIS was received incorrectly or when receiving SSTV from a station not using VIS, it is still possible to automatically set the S2001 to the correct line rate. This is done by pressing the "Receve" key when in automatic, this will cause the receive LED to flash every time a line sync pulse is correctly received. After two, or more under noisy conditions, similar sync pulses have been received consecutively, the S2001 will switch to the correct speed and start receiving. 2.4) The more popular colour modes will be completely selected, but some other modes may require the resolution (120/128 lines or 240/256 lines) and colour/monochrome to be selected manually if not already set correctly for the mode currently being received. If unsure about the mode being received it is best to pre-select the Robot 72Sec. colour mode before selecting automatic mode. The automatic mode will detect all SSTV mode speeds except for the A VT modes, so if in doubt use the built in SCOPE facility which is available in the special function "Menu". When the automatic speed selection has been selected only two front panel keys are active. Pressing Receive again starts reception in the currently selected mode and the Standby key will abort. 2.5) To obtain "Quad" mode (four pictures on one frame) reception press the receive key a second time once a picture is has started being received, this will also de-select the Quad mode if previously selected. TRANSMITTING SSTV 3.0) To transmit the SSTV picture displayed on the monitor screen, press the "Send" key, which will cause one frame to he transmitted in the selected mode. To send one frame after another press the send key a second time whilst the send LED is still on, to stop the continuous frame send function, hit the send key one more, then after completing sending the current frame the unit will return to standby. Pictures may be generated by either a colour camera using the "INPUT Camera" key ("DISPL Camera" enables previewing), or by down loading from a computer using the "INTFCE Comptr" key. 3.1) A monochrome camera can also be used to produce colour pictures by using colour filters (Wratten Red No. 25, Green No. 58 and Blue No. 47B) in front of the lens and snatching frames sequentially into the "Red", "Green" and "Blue" Memories. MODE SELECTION 4.0) When first powered up the 2001 will be in the Robot 72 Sec. colour mode by default. The speeds are selected as follows: 1 = 36/72Sec., 2 = 24/36Sec., 3 = 12/24Sec, and 4 = 8/12Sec. Note: the first figure is monochrome, selected by pressing either "Red", "Green" or "Blue" keys, and the second figure is colour frame times. 4.1) To select/deselect "Martin" colour modes press the already selected "INPUT" key (LED on) once, all three colour memory LED's will be light when New Modes are active. The speeds are as follows: 1 = M1, 2 = M2, 3 = M3 and 4 = M4. 4.2) To select/deselect the "S" (Scottie) colour modes press the currently selected Speed key (LED on) once, which will cause the Speed LED to flash when the "S" modes are selected. The speeds are as follows: 1 = SI, 2 = S2, 3 = S3 and 4 = S4. 4.3) The "DX" mode is selected!deselected from within the "S" mode described in 4.2 above, by pressing the "Mode" key. The "DX" mode must be pre-selected before the VIS signal will be recognised to automatically start reception in the "DX" mode. This is because the "DX" mode shares the same VIS code as the "AVT I88Sec." mode which will automatically be selected if any mode other than "DX" is currently selected. However, the automatic speed selection function described in section 2.3 will completely select the "DX" mode. 4.4) The "Martin", "S" and "DX" modes are New synchronous modes and use a special start up system to allow them to free run once line sync has been established. Note: Use "INPUT Tape" for non-synchronous. Either manual or automatic selection of the new synchronous modes will cause the sync search mode to be started which is indicated by the receive LED flashing in response to every line sync pulse received. Once line sync has been established, normally within one or two lines but longer under noisy conditions, the receive LED will be continuously on, and the received picture written to the screen. Once in this condition reception will continue until the bottom of the screen is reached and then stop, so that if the SSTV signal stops it is necessary to reset the unit back to standby before another picture can be received. If necessary the unit can be re-synchronised by pressing the MEMORY "Colour" key which will reset the frame to the top of the picture and put the unit into the sync search mode. Whilst in the sync search mode the unit will respond to any valid VIS received, so it is possible to leave the unit running in this mode whilst waiting for a signal so that reception will be initiated by either a VIS or a signal from a station using a system not using VIS. 4.5) The "SC-1" modes are selected/deselected, from the Robot mode by pressing the already selected Speed key. The three colour LED's will flash alternately to indicate the SC-1 colour mode is operating. The SC-1 speeds are as follows: 1 = 32/96Sec., 2 = 16/48Sec., 3 = 16/48Sec. and 4 = 8/24Sec. Note: the 48Sec. speed on speed 3 is 128 line and is sometimes called "quasi 48Sec" to distinguish it from the normal 48Sec 256 line mode on speed 2. The SC-1 mode uses a not too reliable system for maintaining colour sync, if loss of colour sync occurs, press MEMORY "Colour" as necessary to obtain correct colour sync. 4.6) The "SC-2" modes are selected!deselected, from the SC-1 mode by pressing the "MODE" key. The Memory Red and Blue LED's will be on and the Green LED will be off indicating the SC-2 colour mode is operating. The SC-2 speeds are as follows.-l = 180Sec., 2 = 120Sec., 3 = 60Sec., and 4 = 30Sec. To add the special grey scale/colour bars at the top of frame, press the already selected speed key twice. The Superscan 2001 will start automaticaly when receiving an SC-2 signal from another Superscan 2001 or a Robot compatible syatems having the SC-2 mode fitted, but will need to be started manually or by using the automatic speed selection feature, when receiving signals from the Wraase SC-2 scan convertor. 4.7) AVT modes, are selected/deselected by pressing the "MODE" select key. The screen will display speed and mode when the AVT system is in operation. The speed is selected by using the normal "SPEED" keys, the corresponding AVT speed being indicated at the top of the screen. To toggle the "Narrow" mode press the "MEMORY colour" key and when monochrome is selected press the selected "Colour Memory" key. Note: that in monochrome only the 125Sec. speed is available (AVT standard), if the speed keys are pressed they will change to indicate the speed that will be selected when returning to colour. To toggle the "QRM" mode press the already selected "OUTPUT" key (probably "Voice") The AVT mode is only selected from Robot mode, selecting any other mode will override AVT but the LED on "Output colour bars" will remain on. This allows rapid switching from any of the other modes to either AVT or Robot depending on the state of the AVT indicating LED. 4.8) Receiving AVT mode can be either automatic (the preferred method) or manual. When using the automatic mode, as indicated by the "Standby" LED flashing, the correct speed and mode of operation will normally be selected by reception of one of the three VIS codes, which is followed by a 5 second header, before the picture starts. However, if signals are weak or is QRM present, causing all three VIS's to be missed, it is still possible to receive the AVT picture correctly. To do this simply push the "Receive” key once to push the 1200C into receive, picture reception should then start as soon as the digital header (sounds similar to RTTY) has finished. If the picture fails to start, you must press the "receive" key again to manually start reception, but now it will be necessary to shift the picture to the correct position on the screen and to correct the colour sequence. This is achieved by using the "Green" key to toggle the colour sequence to give the correct colours over the largest complete area of picture. Now, the picture can be shifted either left or right by pressing "Red" or "Blue" respectively, as many times as necessary. When conditions are poor it is better to pre-select the AVT mode being sent, if possible, as the A VT header only contains limited information about the picture and will not select/deselect either "QRM" or "Narrow" and does not distinguish between 94Sec. and l88Sec. If you have missed both the VIS signals and the digital header you should use manual receive (Standby LED not flashing) which will go immediately to receive, allowing you to change speed as well as set up the picture phasing as described above. To avoid problems with AVT mode manual reception, the "quad receive" mode has been omitted from the A VT mode only. 4.9) Transmitting in AVT mode is the same as for other modes, but it is necessary to carefully select the correct mode and speed before pressing "Transmit", as there is a 5 second lockout, while the digital header is being sent, before it is possible to abort the transmission by pressing "Standby. There is no continuous transmit function in AVT so repeatedly pressing "transmit” will have no effect. The displayed picture will show just the part of the picture that will be sent in the particular A VT speed selected, this should be considered when composing pictures for transmission in AVT mode. 4.10) Fax receive is selected when either of the New Modes are active by pressing the "Red" colour key. FAX speeds are as follows: 1 = 60 rpm, 2 = 90 rpm 3 = 120 rpm and 4 = 240 rpm. The most popular speed is 120 rpm and is used by most amateur Fax. FAX reception will initially be in Low resolution of 256x256 pixels, but by pressing "Receive" a second time, High resolution 1024 x 768 pixels will be selected with the picture now using all the display memory. You can scan horizontally through the four display memories while receiving FAX, using the "Page" memory keys, but it is necessary to wait till the end of reception to scan vertically through the three colour memories. The monitor display becomes a movable window into the high resolution FAX image displaying one sixth of the image at a time. Phasing of a FAX transmission is possible during reception (preferably in the Low Resolution mode), by pressing the "Comptr” key to shift the picture left, and the "Print" key to shift right. Note: the "Comptr" and "Print" keys only provide phasing during FAX reception, otherwise they have their normal functions. Phasing will be maintained provided that the reception is not interrupted by pressing the "Stnby" key until end of transmission. SPECIAL FUNCTIONS MENU 5.0) Pressing the "Menu" key will open up the menu window which makes many special features available. The menu will overlay the displayed picture non-destructively, except for certain functions, and will disappear revealing the original picture after use. 5.1) The functions available from the overlay menu, which has a layout that mirrors the actual front panel, are as follows: Test patterns - Grey scale, Resolution bars, Test card and Colour Bars, all of which will erase the original picture! 5.2) The Scope function allows an SSTV signal to be accurately tuned even if the station has not previously been heard on speech. The receiver should be tuned until the video part of the signal is between the calibration lines of 1.5KHz (black) and 2.3KHz (white) the sync pulses should extend down to 1.2KHz. When conditions are very noisy the display will more difficult to interpret but changing the scan speed to match the expected mode will help as the scope will trigger on the 1.2KHz sync signal when correctly tuned so that the sync will appear at the "0" calibration point on the time scale. The default "interpolated" display will give a clearer display but the non-interpolated display has a faster refresh rate. The scope display can be stored and used to send back to the station being received if required. 5.3) Coupled to the Scope is the Alignment Tone generator which can be used to produce a ten different useful tones (on when selected) which can, in conjunction with the Scope, if used by the receiving station, be used to obtain perfect alignment between SSTV stations. 5.4) Text screens can be produced by choosing the "CHARACTER GENERATOR" which allows the default screen to be edited, or erased and a new text screen created. The Character Generator is fully menu driven, and will soon be mastered, with a little practice. The text display screen can display 8 characters I line and 8 lines but only the first 6 lines (or 3 if large characters are selected), will be display, except when writing to the screen in SC-1 mode where the text format is 8x8 (8x4, large characters) on a square format as appropriate to the SC-1 mode, but the smaller square format text can also be used for other SSTV modes, providing the SC-1 mode is selected at the time of writing the prepared text to the screen. To finish an editing session, press QUIT, which will clear the overlay screen and display the text just created, if necessary the "CHARACTER GENERATOR" can be selected again for further editing. Once a text screen has been created it can be written onto any displayed image by simply pressing the "DISPL Memory” key. The text message will remain in memory while the 1200C is powered up, or permanently if the battery backup is fitted, and may also be down loaded from an external computer and edited if necessary. MEMORY SELECTION 6.0) The 2001 contains four high resolution display memories, which are selected by pressing either "Page 1" or "Page 2" keys. In the high resolution mode (both Page 1 and Page 2 LED's on), pressing "Page 1" will cause the active memory to increment from memory 1 to memory 2 and pressing again will increment to memory 3 then memory 4 and then finally back to 1. Pressing "Page 2" will have a similar effect but this time the displayed memory will decrement. When in low resolution (only Page 1 or Page 2 LED on), there are eight memories available, four are selected by pressing "Page 1" and the other four by pressing "Page 2". Note: initially the extra memories will just display mid grey until overwritten. EPROM V1.3A OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS (SUPPLEMENT TO V1.2A) 1) Introduction: The VI.3A EPROM combines all the functions of the V1.2A EPROM and those of the latest mouse controlled Eprom. The features of the mouse controlled Eprom are ONLY available with an ATARI mouse connected to the Superscan 2001 otherwise the V1.3A EPROM will work exactly the same as (he V1.2A EPROM. 2) Installation: The V1.3A is a direct plug in replacement for the V1.0 EPROM, but the link L2, on the main PCB must be moved to the position furthest from the EPROM. Also the stactic RAM at IC79 must be a 32K byte device, for example a HYUNDAI HY62256ALP-10 or equivalent. 3) Operation: 3.1) These instructions only describe the new features of V1.3A, and should therefore be read in conjunction with the instructions for the V1.2A EPROM and those supplied with your latest mouse controlled Eprom. 3.2) To keep operation of V1.3A as simple as possible, five separate SSTV systems are selectable from the mouse. To select the required SSTV system, simply click on the SSTV system "LOGO". Clicking on the left hand side increments the SSTV system and on the right hand side decrements the SSTV system in use. Thus no more than two clicks will ever be required to switch from any mode to any other. Within each SSTV system the corresponding speeds and modes available for that particular system may be selected from the mouse. 3.3) The available SSTV systems are as follows: 1) ROBOT - Speeds - 8/12, 12/24.24/36* and 36/72* Modes - Monochrome/Colour, (R, IR* and SIR*). 2) MARTIN - Mode MM - Speeds - M1, M2, M3 and M4. Mode SM - Speeds - S1, S2, S3 and S4. Mode DX - Speeds - D1 Mode FA(x) (select monochrome - either R, G or B) Speeds - F1=60rpm, F2=90rpm, F3=120 and F4=240rpm. 3) AMIGA - Modes NO=Normal, QR=QRM, NA=Narrow, QN=Narrow and QRM Speeds Al=188sec, A2=94sec, A3=90sec and A4=24sec. 4) WRAASE - Mode SC-1 - Speeds - 8/24, 16/48, 16/48 (256 line) and 32/96. Modes - Monochrome/Colour. Modes SC-2 - Speeds - C1=180sec., C2=120sec., C3=60sec. and C4=30sec. 5) SCOTTIE - Mode SM - Speeds - S1*, S2*, S3 and S4 (R, IR*, SIR*) Mode DX - Speeds - D1 (R, IR or SIR). 4) Notes: The IR and SIR modes are special to the mouse controlled EPROM modes and Robot modes. Only speeds marked with a "*" can use IR or SIR. Other New modes, including AVT, use the more reliable "Fully Synchronous" system, so do not require either IR or SIR. The "DX" mode must be selected prior to automatic reception of a DX mode signal. This is necessary, because, unfortunately the DX mode uses the same VIS code as the AVT 188 sec. therefore if an AVT 188 sec. signal is received rather than the expected DX, the S2001 will not receive correctly, but any other mode will be received correctly. The "S" and "DX" modes can be received Fully Synchronously, in the MARTIN system, or received using SIR, IR or just R in the SCOTTIE system.