AR1000 Installation Instructions Courtesy of Michael Paull at [email protected]
 
 
PROgramit installation for the AOR AR-1000 scanner

First things first, we're dealing with some mighty small components and solder pads, so if you don't have a fine tip soldering iron, a dead steady hand, great eyes and soldering experience then DON'T ATTEMPT THIS! Also, I take no responsibility for your or my accuracy, I have checked the details and believe it all to be correct. 

You cannot mount the PROgramit hardware inside the scanner it will have to be mounted in an external box. In fact, there is barely enough room to fit a multipin connector, unless you've got access to a greater range than I do. However I wanted to use a readily available connector and ended up choosing a female high density (vga type) DB15. You may want to open the scanner up and get an idea of what your options are. 
 
The other piece of information you might want to be aware of is the AOR AR-1000 (or 1000XLT,same thing with expanded freq range) are not entirely suited to the PROgramit hardware or software. Don't despair, it will work! Just not all of the functions will be available, let me explain... 

HARDWARE: 
If you've had a look at the 74HCT22106 IC used in the project you'll see it provides eight "X" inputs and eight "Y" inputs, any combination of which can be "connected" to give up to 64 switches. This matrix system is ideal for emulating the keypad on most scanners as rarely does a scanners keypad matrix exceed this 8 x 8 arrangement, except the AR-1000/XLT does... It's layout is; 
 
- Y1 Y2 Y3 *
X1 1 2 3 *
X2 4 5 6 *
X3 7 8 9 *
X4 0 CLEAR ENTER *
X5 SEARCH DOWN *
X6 PROGRAM LIMIT LIGHT *
X7 BAND INC WFM -
X8 L/O A/F - -
X9 - D/H -
X10 MANUAL SCAN - *
X11 - LOCK TXW -
 

Looking at other scanners circuit diagrams they keep to an 8 X 8 limit by making use of more rows (Y inputs), AOR for some reason didn't. So, in order to be able to emulate every key on the keypad we'd need 11 X inputs and three Y inputs, and the IC only supports a max of 8 X inputs. So we need to decide which keys are important, I've put an "*" next to the ones I've selected for the AR1000.DAT file supplied. I've not included the Lock/Out, Am/Fm, Delay/Hold and LoCK keys, and I have no idea what TXW does, on the circuit diagram its enclosed in brackets. As none of the frequencies I listed to are AM i left it off, however I included the W/FM to override any defaults. I saw no great loss in not including the l/o, d/h and lck keys. Thats the hardware limitations.. 

SOFTWARE 
-------- 
The only hassle I've found so far is with the bank programming. This is because the AR1000 divides its 1000 channels up in 10 banks of 100 channels, each starting with ch0 going up to ch.99, in banks 0 - 9. So the very first memory channel is BANK 0, ch 00 ( bank 000 ) and the last is BANK 9, ch99 ( bank 999 ). Memory channels are accessed by pressing the BANK key and the channel number. This means that the 100th memory channel is actually BANK 0, ch 99. This is the first problem, the banks are numbered 1 to 10 in the software. The second is the channel numbers in the software are from 1 to 1000, when we need them in 0 to 999 format. As well as this for channel numbers less than 100, we need leading zero's. So if our PROgramit channel map was going to program 469.400 into the scanner in bank 0, ch5 it would come out as 005, not 5. So, we really need the ability to specify if the bank and the channel numbers should start at zero or one and if the channel numbers less than 100 need leading zeros. 

My way around this was to set the software up for 1000 channels and 10 banks and only use channels 1 to 99 in the channel map, and the first bank cannot be used. Perhaps if we're lucky John may make some changes so we AOR scanner users are catered for.. Ok, if your still willing to install, read on! 

Remove the two screws from the top of the back case and two from the battery compartment. Remove all knobs from the top of the scanner by pulling them off the shafts. 

Once the back case is off you'll see the "main" pcb which is held in place by three screws. Before you remove the screws you must unsolder the brown ground wire which is soldered to a pad next to the UP/DOWN control, otherwise you won't be able to lift the pcb up enough to get to the next pcb (called the BAND pcb). 

The next pcb, the "band" pcb is held in place by three spacers, unscrew these and unsolder the black ground wire near the top of this pcb. Next disconnect the 6way connector on this pcb and the various connectors (sw,band,cpu,pll) on the "power supply" pcb making note of which plugs went to which sockets. 

The main and band pcbs should now be able to be moved out of the way exposing the "cpu" board. Now would be a good time to look at the image file supplied to familiarise yourself with the layout. The keypad like most scanners has diodes on the columns and resistors on the rows. For some of the connections I soldered onto one side of the component (which side is important, check the image file) and others I found a point somewhere along the track (usually a through hole) to solder onto. 

As per the image file, the way I wired the interface up was; 

PROgramit       CPU Line 
------------------------ 
X0              60 
X1              61 
X2              62 
X3              63 
X4              64 
X5              65 
X6              66 
X7              47 
Y0              50 
Y1              51 
Y2              52 

As you can see there is almost no free space in the case, so I cut a hole on the bottom of the case and mounted a vga type female high density DB15 and connected the keypad wires to it. There is so little room anywhere for a long multipin connector the only space I found to reliably mount the H/D DB15 was on the bottom of the scanner below the battery compartment. This requires that you remove the "power supply" pcb, and you should be very very very accurate with your measurements or you can end up wrecking your case. After the connector is installed the solder pins will only be a couple of millimetres away from the power pcb, so its best to run the wires through the cut hole and solder them onto the connector first. My connector is held in place with the DB type nut and thread so the scanner end of the scanner lead can be screwed in place. The only hassle to mounting the connector on the bottom of the scanner is it wont stand upright any more, as mine rare did anyway it was no great loss for me. If you want to stand it up you'll need to source a different multipin connector and/or be more creative. 

I then mounted the PROgramit hardware in a separate box with a high density male DB15 (for scanner connections) on one end and a DB25 female (for the pc connection). To hook the scanner up I built a small db15 male/female lead, and the pc side uses an off the shelf db25 male/female lead. This also means you can use the one interface for any scanner, in fact mine hooks up to my AR1000 and Tandy/RS PRO-2011. 

Reassembling the scanner is the reverse of pulling it apart (duh), making sure you resolder the various short earth wires as you go and reconnecting the multipin connectors that abound in this scanner. Before you plug your interface in check the scanner powers up, if it doesn't re-check that you connected *ALL* the internal connectors and ground wires. If that's not it make sure you haven't broken any wires, this can happen with stray wires getting crushed between spacers and the sides of the casing. If it does work turn everything off, plug in the interface and scanner, install the software and copy my AR1000.DAT file into the scanmod directory. It's all self explanatory from here... 

The software is awesome, makes managing a 1000 channel scanner easy!

 
 
 
PROgramit to AOR AR1000 interface details
 
Keypad to DB-15 connector arrangement. 
Column/Row
Y0(9)
Y1(10)
Y2(11)
X0(1)
1
2
3
X1(2)
4
5
6
X2(3)
7
8
9
X3(4)
0
./CLEAR
ENT
X4(5)
SEARCH
DOWN
*UP
X5(6)
PROG
LIMIT
LIGHT
X6(7)
BANK
INC
W-FM
X7(8)
MANUAL
SCAN
 
Numbers in brackets correspond to pin numbers on scanner's DB15 connector. 

 

Not all keypad functions are available because the AR1000 keypad matrix exceeds the 8 X 8 arrangement of the 74HCT22106. The scanners matrix is 11 X 3, so some sacrifices had to be  made. Missing are the Lock Out, AM/FM, Delay/Hold and Key Lock functions. I included the main keys necessary to allow the software to program the scan and search banks as well as the basic functionallity to allow "real time" programming under software control. 

One function supported that there is no key for is *UP, it has the same function as turning the UP/DOWN control in the UP position, or the opposite to pressing DOWN key. The schematic says that there is no button at X4,Y2. 

PROgramit to scanner cable. 
SCANNERCPU PIN
SCANNERDB-15
I/FACE DB-15 
I/FACE IC
60
1
1
X0
61
2
2
X1
62
3
3
X2
63
4
4
X3
64
5
5
X4
65
6
6
X5
66
7
X6
47
8
X7
50
9
Y0
51
10
10
Y1
52
11
11
Y2
N/A
12
12
N/A
N/A
13
13
N/A
N/A
14
14
N/A
GND
15
15
GND
 

Pins 12,13 and 14 on scanner connector not used. A straight through high density DB15 male/female cable can be used, such as those used for VGA extension leads. 

PROgramit 15 pin connector pin-outs. 
DB-15
Function
1
X0
2
X1
3
X2
4
X3
5
X4
6
X5
7
X6
8
X7
9
Y0
10
Y1
11
Y2
12
Y3
13
Y4
14
SPARE
15
GND
 
 

 
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