A station controller is a system of hardware and software that can monitor and control critical aspects of your station. A station can be a remotely controlled HF radio station, a repeater system on a mountain top or local monitoring and control of your equipment for a more integrated operating experience.
Typical Station Controller
Top row left to right: DIN rail relays, GPIO module, Coax Switch module, DC volt meter
Bottom row left to right: Raspberry Pi host adapter, 5 port data/power hub, 2 port RF Watt Meter module
Typical Station Controller
Top row left to right: DIN rail relays, GPIO module, Coax Switch module, DC volt meter
Bottom row left to right: Raspberry Pi host adapter, 5 port data/power hub, 2 port RF Watt Meter module
APPLICATION - RADIO SITE MONITORING AND CONTROL
Managing critical assets at remote sites is difficult, time consuming and expensive. Knowing the current health, or even more important, the status of equipment that is degraded or has failed is critical. You can easily spend a whole day just getting to a remote site. Wouldn't it be great if you knew before you left, what the failure was? Did the power supply fail? Did the PA on the transmitter fail? Did the antenna system fail? When a remote radio installation is degraded or off the air, it's hard to know what the problem is. Even better, it would be great to get an early warning when things start to fail.
SRS Station Controllers can tell you the current state of your critical assets including repeater systems, wireless internet systems, solar power and battery systems, HVAC units, door security, RF power and other critical measurements. You can also remotely actuate relays to change the site's configuration or turn equipment on and off.
APPLICATON - STATION MONITORING AND CONTROL
In today's modern radio room, you typically have several radios, antennas, power systems, amplifier and other radio accessories. A station controller lets you centralize the control and monitoring of this equipment. The control point could be a physical button panel at the operating position, a soft panel on a PC screen, a scheduled event or remotely controlled over the internet. At the flick of a button, your entire station come to life, you can switch radios and antennas or turn specific equipment on and off. You can also monitor critical station status including AC power on/off, DV voltages, RF power, etc.
HARDWARE ARCHITECTURE
The SRS Station Controller is a module hardware architecture. You can customize your system to meet your particular needs and grow as your needs change. The form factor is a set of board called "modules" that can be mounted in a chassis box, rack mount chassis or mounted to DIN rails on a typical "telco wall" type of configuration. This DIN rail mounting is commonly found in industrial automation applications.
The modular architecture allows you to build up your system over time by adding the modules you need. You can mix and match any combination of available modules or even design your own.
At a minimum, the system would consist of a host PC, typically a Raspberry Pi, but you can use any computer with a USB port that can run Node Red and at least one control module. This module can be the GPIO module, coax switch, RF watt meter, etc. Every module has it's own network address making it easy to have multiple modules of the same type on the network.
SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE
The master control processor is a Raspberry Pi running Raspberry PI OS. We provide a Node Red flow which serves as the main dashboard and control panel. We also publish the communications protocol to allow you to develop your own applications in any programming language you like or use one of our sample applications written in Node Red or Python.
DCN - Device Control Network
DEVICE CONTROL NETWORK
At the heart of the Sierra Radio Station Controller is the DCN. The DCN, Device Control Network, is the communications medium that allows all the modules to communicate. The DCN is a combination of physical communications medium and the command structure that runs on top of that medium.
Physical Communications Medium
Although the protocol is not an industry standard we publish the command structure and protocol so that others can design and build their own modules and systems. The communications data format is a simple ASCII text field sent "in the clear". Data encryption can be added as needed for over the air control systems. The packet format includes a from/to address scheme, payload and framing characters. Advanced users can even monitor and insert traffic on the control network with a simple dumb terminal program like Putty and a USB / DCN dongle.
At the heart of the Sierra Radio Station Controller is the DCN. The DCN, Device Control Network, is the communications medium that allows all the modules to communicate. The DCN is a combination of physical communications medium and the command structure that runs on top of that medium.
Physical Communications Medium
- All SRS SC modules include RJ45 jacks to connect modules in a network. These are not ethernet connections but our own communications protocol. We use RS-485 multi-drop serial wiring over CAT5 cable in addition to 12 volt power and ground. This makes is very easy to add modules to the system. Just plug in a CAT5 or better ethernet cable between modules and you are providing both power and data. One significant advantage to using RS-485 is the ability to transmit data over several hundred and even thousands of feet allowing you to remotely locate modules and still provide power and data in a single, inexpensive cable.
- We can also provide various data radio modules to transmit the DCN data over the air between nodes on the network. Currently we can provide boards that support the Haltec Meshtastic LoRa v3 modules as well as proprietary non-Meshtastic LoRa radio modules for reduced latency.
Although the protocol is not an industry standard we publish the command structure and protocol so that others can design and build their own modules and systems. The communications data format is a simple ASCII text field sent "in the clear". Data encryption can be added as needed for over the air control systems. The packet format includes a from/to address scheme, payload and framing characters. Advanced users can even monitor and insert traffic on the control network with a simple dumb terminal program like Putty and a USB / DCN dongle.
MODULE DETAILS
GPIO MODULE
HF COAX SWTICH MODULE
2 PORT RF WATT METER MODULE
5 Port DCN / Power Hub
Optional board to expand the DCN network and power distribution
Meshtastic Radio Module
Provides long range data transmission in the 868 or 915 MHz ISM bands
GPIO MODULE
- 4 Small signal (2A) SPST dry contract relays
- 4 Open collector outputs to control large relays with 12v coils
- 4 0-50 Volt DC volt meters
- 4 Opto-isolated digital inputs
- 2 Digital temperature probe inputs
- Control over DCN
- Optional LCD display
HF COAX SWTICH MODULE
- 4 Ports (single pole, 4 position)
- Frequency range: 0-60 MHz
- Power handling: 100 watts
- Insertion loss < 0.05 dB
- Connector type: BNC
- Relay type: Latching
- Control over DCN or manual pushbuttons
- Optional LCD display
2 PORT RF WATT METER MODULE
- Number of ports: 2
- Direction couplers supported:
- WaveNode HF-1 (HF 0-2000 watts)
- WaveNode LP-1 (HF 0-60 watts)
- WaveNode UHF-1 (VHF/UHF 0-300 watts)
- PTT input to monitor transmitter status
- PTT out to key transmitter
- Control over DCN
- Optional LCD display
5 Port DCN / Power Hub
Optional board to expand the DCN network and power distribution
Meshtastic Radio Module
Provides long range data transmission in the 868 or 915 MHz ISM bands
- Module supported: Heltec LoRa Meshtastic V3
Pricing and Availability
Several systems have been shipped to beta sites and will be in field testing through early 2025. We expect minimal changes to the design at this point and are expecting volume production starting in Q1 2025 with inventory available before the Dayton Hamvention in 2025.
Pricing is to be determined. There will be a standard commercial product price for hardware modules and a special amateur radio discount price list.
Pricing is to be determined. There will be a standard commercial product price for hardware modules and a special amateur radio discount price list.
For More Information
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Station Controller Deep Dive by Kyle AA0Z On Kyle's YouTube live stream Kyle is joined by George, KJ6VU, designer of the station controller and Mike Walker, VA2MW, an expert on remote station operation. We talk about the station controller hardware, software and the Device Control Network. Kyle also shows off his installation of the station controller at his remote station. |
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Closer Look at the Station Controller by Morten, LB0FI Morten, LB0FI, host of Norwegian Hamventures and the European Ham Radio Show on YouTube, shows off his Station Controller in his station connected to a Flex Radio. |
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Interview with Mike K8MRD on Ham Radio Tube. We talked about PackTenna antennas and then did a dive into the station controller project starting at 40 minutes into the show. |
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Interview with Josh on Ham Radio Crash Course Josh invited me on to talk about remote station control and dive into the problems we are trying to solve and how the system works. |
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Ham Radio Workbench Episode 226 - Designing the Station Control System In this podcast episode we take a look at what is required to build a remote station beyond the radio. We also take a deep dive into George's design of the Sierra Radio Systems Station Controller. Topics include the system architecture, hardware design, Node Red as the software dashboard and the Device Control Network (DCN) that connects all the system modules. |
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Ham Radio Workbench Podcast - Discord Channel This channel is focused on the Station Controller and repeater control systems. |