nicsure

nicFW900 V4.00.08

Here's the new "stepped" TX Power system. I have set the default power calibration that I hope will be reasonably accurate for most on the HAM bands.

Make sure the first you do is to write the default power calibration SPI Settings from the SPI app using the calibration tab. This is essential as the power settings are now completely different and not compatible with previous code plugs.

The settings work in a similar way to previously in that every 5 MHz range can be configured, b...

How the new RT900 power system operates.

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RT900 Next TX Power System

Owing to the next level nastiness of the RT-900's TX circuitry it is next to impossible to have a nice ramp up of power like the H3 and 890 can do. You have to switch the PA Gain settings according to the power level which makes it impossible to come up with a system to calibrate every radio.

As a result the only real solution is to introduce power output stages. The stock firmware had Low/Mid/High but we can do better than that. I propose a 7 step output power step.

• OFF (...

  2025-05-07 08:10:11 +0000 UTC View Post

nicFW900 V4.00.07

Hoping this fixes the "N/T" issue experienced by many. I managed to trace it to the older TX power calibration system. I had left a remnant of the older system in place that I was unaware of, and this was interfering.

The power system will be changing again next release anyway, but I wanted to get this out to resolve the last problem.

I think the key tones seem to be a little too loud, I'll fix this next time.

I now have some idea what's going on

Multiple people are reporting a N/T issue after following the default load-out procedure. Now this is EXACTLY what I need people to do. It helps because I can be sure people are working from the SAME base settings, you have no idea how that simplifies things for me.

No matter what I do I CANNOT make the same thing happen on my radio. This makes absolutely no sense because every radio should be running the exact same code with the exact same configuration data, i.e. everyone's radio shou...

Changes RT-900

It is important to understand that the RT-900 firmware is not finished, the releases I put out are development snapshots and subject to change. If you're following along on the RT-900 ride you need to understand this and follow the correct procedures in order to post useful information/feedback. That means EVERY issue posted has to be from the context of the default code plug. Any changes from that default state have to be specified, as when I test anything posted, I do so from that de...

Why there is no MacOS/Linux support (and likely never will be)

First and foremost, I don't have a Mac, and I never will have.

MacOS is the most tiresome, troublesome and expensive OS on the planet developer wise. Quite frankly, I don't need or want that noise.

Windows is easy and free to develop on. Bish-bosh and you have an exe you can distribute. Try doing that on MacOS or Linux!! Hint: You can't.

There is currently no development platform that supports visual UI building & rapid deployment which can support all desktop O...

RT-900 Essential Setup Each Release

Must be done for every release.

nicFW RT-900 V4.00.06 B

Power output calibration system remains unchanged for this release. Next release will be different.

• This release implements a number of things and fixes "under the hood".

• Flashlight and "Red and Blues" implemented.

• Key Tones

• Long presses of keys A/B & VFO/MR implemented.

• LCD Brightness Implemented.

RT-900 is not suitable for variable power output.

Sorry, we'll have to resort to Low/Med/High like the stock firmware. Not my fault, it's just badly designed.

The stock firmware uses the following strategy:

• For Low Power: PA_Gain1=7, PA_Gain2=7

• For Mid & High Power: PA_Gain1=2, PA_Gain2=7

The bias (0-255) is looked up from a table based on the frequency & Low/Mid/High setting.

So it looks like the stock firmware changes the PA_Gains based on the amount of output power requested...

[Release] RT-900 nicFW900 4.00.05 B

• FM Tuner Implemented

• New TX Power Calibration System

Refer to the previous post's video for information on calibrating frequency ranges. A more detailed video walkthrough will be coming soon.

For now, the default range calibration is EXTREMELY crude. Later releases will improve on this. I'm hoping for some useful calibration data feedback too.

Use the SPI App to flash the default calibration.

Heads-up of coming TX Calibration system

Since this method is way more tricky and complex than previous solutions, I'd best get some info out about it before hand.

Next Power Tuning system RT-900

The output power of the RT-900 especially on UHF is all over the place. For that reason power tuning is going to have to take a different approach. You will have noticed the PA Gain 1 and PA Gain 2 settings in the menu, there will have to be three more so in total there will be 5 power tuning menu options.

• PA Gain 1

• PA Gain 2

• Low Threshold (lowest TX Power setting, usually around 120 ish)

• High Threshold (Highest TX Power setting, usua...

  2025-04-27 20:34:54 +0000 UTC View Post

nicFW900 V4.00.04

Updates:

• Rotary encoder implemented

• VFO/MR & A/B buttons correctly assigned.

• Menu 5 & 6 now control the experimental PA Gain 1 & PA Gain 2 (0 to 7) for experimental purposes and data collection regarding output power irregularities. These menus are a temporary feature.

• Logo fixed

• Various cosmetic fixes

• Firmware flasher in the SPI App now works.

  2025-04-25 04:02:27 +0000 UTC View Post

V4.00.03X Experimental Power Control

This version is more of a diagnostic version. It gives FULL control of the PA and output power (Register 0x36 of the BK4819)

Menu 4 (TX Power) Controls the VBIAS 0 to 255 (0V to 3.3V)

Menu 5 (PA Gain) Controls the PA parameters (0 to 255)
Bits 0-2 = PA Gain 2 (0 to 7)
Bits 3-5 = PA Gain 1 (0 to 7)
Bit 6 = Unused
Bit 7 = Enable PA (Thus only values over 128 will be effective) (1=On, 0=Off)
To figure out the overall PA Gain to test, take the two values of PA Gain 1 &a...

nicFW900 V4.00.02 Preview

Preview version, this is meant mainly for just browsing rather than actual use, but it is somewhat functional but it will be FULL of bugs and glitches. More functionality will be added as development progresses.

Make sure you have made a backup of your SPI Flash memory before using this. A video and apps to do this are available in the Library.

As with the 890, go through the tabs on the SPI app (logo doesn't work properly yet) and flash the fonts, skin, calibration, band plan, pr...

RT-900 Preview Flashing Process

Short tutorial on getting the RT-900 nicFW preview to "work".

Now somewhat functional.

Progress fellas. Visuals mostly sorted, underlying SPI flash, serial comms, BK4819 now operational. Hopefully be able to get a usable preview out soon.

RT-900 Code is Running (kinda)

My sincere apologies to all here for the time this is taking, but this radio is by far the hardest to code for yet. I seriously have less hair than I did when I started this.

Another progress post, but now I'm at the point where the core nicFW code is running on the 900 properly. There's still a lot of visual and UI corrections to do, but this is a significant milestone as I can now get visual feedback on the device itself.

RT-900 Port Progresses, skinning refinement continues.

Here's a preview of three different font sizing option skins. Using the 12 segment LED style font for this. Definitely got a lot more scope for skinning on this bigger display.

I now have 100% error free compilation with probably 90% of the code base. Of course error free compilation doesn't mean error free code, still a lot of work to do.

RT-900 Port Progress

Hi all

Conversion is still ongoing, it's much tougher than the H3->890 port due to the differences between the M0 and M4, why on earth couldn't Radtel have just used a Cortex M4? Sometimes, I just don't understand how these people think or come to these crazy decisions.

Here's the file converted so far

• @make.h

• xglobals.h

• bandplan.h

• bk4819.h

• dtmf.h

• rssi.h

• subtone.h

2025-04-17 19:18:42 +0000 UTC View Post

RT-900 First Skin Draft

As with previous nicFW releases for the H3 and 890, the 900 will also be skinnable. However, the 160x128 screen area gives more freedom than those other radios. I'm able to display the frequency FULLY in the huge font, the channel name in the medium 8x16 font (on other versions the channel name was just 8x8) and for this version, selecting "Large Channel Names" swaps the position and font of the channel name and RX frequency.

Of course this is only the default and will likely change bef...

RT-900 Flash Backup

In preparation for the eventual release of the RT-900 firmware, I would really advise everyone backs up their SPI flash memory.

Unlike the 890 where tools for doing this were already available, no such tools for the 900 exist, So I knocked something together.

This is a Windows application and an RT-900 firmware image. The firmware is just an SPI flash and UART wrapper, it does nothing else, it is meant to be flashed simply to allow the SPI Flash memory to be read from the radio an...

nicFW890 V3.00.17

This is to address a bug in the SPI App when importing .nicfont files. They should import into the correct character slots now.

The firmware is still version .16 and need not be updated if you are already running .16

This is the members only post for this version with comments enabled.

nicFW890 V3.00.17

This is to address a bug in the SPI App when importing .nicfont files. They should import into the correct character slots now.

The firmware is still version .16 and need not be updated if you are already running .16

This is a public post with disabled comments. A duplicate post will be made for members only with comments enabled. This is to make sure true supporters' comments do not get buried under the entitled ones.

nicFW TD-H3 V2.52.13

This is the members only post for the H3 nicFW release. This post may be replied to by members. Sorry, but since Patreon does not seem to offer a method to limit commenting on public posts to members only, this is the only way I could do it.

This is not a new revision. It's a replacement of the old post to prevent non contributors from commenting.

nicFW TD-H3 V2.52.13

Sorry, am reposting this as the last post got took over and DC flooded just like Facebook used to. So while this post is public and accessible to all, comments are disabled. A duplicate post will be made for members only so they ONLY can reply and comment.

This is to make sure true supporters' comments do not get buried under the entitled ones.

When reporting issue for fixing

Please note that when reporting issues to be fixed, it needs to be tangible. So NOT an opinion, but an actual thing. So no things like "I think it sounds less clear" etc..

It also needs to be specific. For example, saying "I get no transmit" is not enough information. How do you get not transmit? When you press PTT what happens etc.. What is displayed on screen? Think about what you're writing, think about ambiguities.

Issues need to be individual. Don't report multiple things in ...

RT-900 Update

Hey everyone,

I've been deeply absorbed in the RT-900 firmware port over the past few days and have made a ton of progress. It's still far from being usable, but I’ve been focusing on getting the core functionality in place first.

That said, this one's proving to be quite the challenge. The RT-900 is very different from the 890. Oddly enough, the 890 actually has a much better and faster MCU—it's based on an M4, while the 900 is running an M0. On top of that, the Radt...

RT-900 is cooking. [Update]

We have basic device init, interrupts running, background processes running, radio chip init, the SPI flash is giving me problems currently but I'll crack it.

This is almost a mirror of how the 890 port started and it progressed rapidly once I'd gotten to this stage.