Important Notice!
05/02/2022: SOLD OUT! No more HamPods available.
The final HamPod was sold today. . It has been a wonderful project but sadly has come to its conclusion. Thank you to everyone over the years!
11/30/2021: A few HamPods still available.
There are currently 3 or 4 HamPods available for purchase. I decided to go ahead and assemble the last remaining boards I was planning on keeping for future needs. There will be no more after these are gone. Please contact me if interested.
07/27/2021: HamPod production has ended.
I want to let everyone know that I am working on winding my way out of the HamPod project. I have come to this difficult decision for multiple reasons. Notably, I have Retinitis Pigmentosa and my vision has severely deteriorated to the point where this has become very difficult to execute several aspects of producing the HamPod. I have been offering these for over 10 years and will have made 200 units when my current production run is gone. I do everything from designing the circuit, PCB layout, parts procurement, PCB assembly, box cutting, programming, final assembly and testing. Of course, critical help and support from my wonderful wife all along the way. This decision also includes the SteppIR antenna controller product.
Like most other electronic devices, lately several parts are either out of stock or difficult to find and have continued to increase in price when available over the years. Also, recently shipping overseas has become the dominant destination and trouble with Customs has become an issue causing me to switch carriers and that resulted in greatly increasing my documentation requirements and shipping costs to the customer.
When I started, I had no idea that this would turn into a full time endeavor that has practically taken over my life at times and because of that, many things have been shoved to the side. I feel I need to attend to those things with the minimal remaining vision I currently have before it is totally gone.
Along the way, there have been several others that have voiced the intent to create an alternative product. I was always hoping that would happen so that we could benefit from a better device and I could move on but that never happened. Maybe now if I step away, it will make room for that to finally occur. Technology has progressed substantially in the last 10 years and a potential improved solution is out there. Since the HamPod is a serial only device, it was limited to supporting equipment with that interface. Now more new products are dropping their serial ports and using Bluetooth, USB and Ethernet so a new design is needed. Computers are also far more prevalent in the shack now than when I started and more accessible applications are being created more often at an increasing pace.
It pains me to know that there will be some that will not be able to obtain a HamPod and I am saddened by that. While overwhelming at times, it has been an extremely rewarding time being able to do this for all those years and also for the many new friends that I now have all over the world.
I also want to thank everyone that has helped and encouraged me throughout this project. Especially those that did purchase a HamPod and offered heart warming feedback. That was the main motivation that provided the drive to produce just one more run, then another, and another.
My intent is to sell the remaining units I am currently building and to try to finish my list of firmware commitments I have made. I will also be available to provide support and bug fixes when possible for as long as I can.
So again, thanks to all for the great journey, especially those early adopters that put faith in me and the HamPod in the early years!
Thank you,
Rob Santello K6DQ
08/18/2021: SOLD OUT!
Sadly I quickly sold the remaining 9 HamPods I had available when I notified the blind community that I needed to cease HamPod production so there are no more available.
I did not expect this level of interest and I have been asked by several if I would be able to make a few more.
I made a list over the last 2 weeks of those that commited to purchase one so I will make one final run of 10 more hampod's.
It will take about a month to acquire parts and start assembly.
Current count = 10 so have ordered parts and circuit boards.
Will likely take a month to assemble the first ones. Others will follow as soon as possible.
09/01/2021: Circuit Boards arrived.
The final batch of 10 bare circuit boards arrived so assembly has begun.
I will notify those that expressed an interest in these last 10 when they are ready to ship.
11/09/2021: All but 2 have been shipped.
Welcome to HAMPod!
Accessibility for Amateur Radio
What is HamPod?
Finally! A device to enable blind and visually impaired operators to be able to use their equipment almost as well as a fully sighted user! Even better, all this accessibility without the need for a personal computer. Each HamPod is custom designed to work specifically with the supported gear to provide an efficient and enjoyable experience. The HAMPod series of Amateur Radio station accessories are stand-alone, micro-processor based text-to-speech devices designed to provide speech output and accessibility to common station equipment such as transceivers, antenna controllers and rotor controllers, SWR/Power meters and other equipment capable of serial data exchange. In addition, with the HamPod SteppIReader, we are able to grab the data as it is sent to the LCD display. The voice synthesizer utilizes the popular "Double Talk" voice synthesizer and is customizable to your personal preferences. The standard HamPod is equipped with two serial ports and most configurations will support two individual devices. Click on a link in the navigation bar above to see about specific device implementation
Important Update Note!
As of 02/01/2019, the HamPod is now shipping with a new version of the Microchip CPU processor which has twice the flash memory available for firmware. This is needed to accommodate some combinations of firmware builds that require the extra memory space. When downloading firmware from these pages, you need to be sure to get the version for the processor chip currently in your HamPod. Firmware versions that starts with v1.xx is for the older CPU while v2.xx if for the new CPU. Check the manual for your HamPod to see how to access the version number. On most radio firmware, you can do this by attempting to send a frequency of 777 to the radio.
HamPod front view
HamPod rear view
HamPod Hardware Description
The rear of the HamPod has two male DB9 serial ports and a DC power jack. The firmware is upgradable in the field through one of these ports by connecting to a computer to flash the firmware in the HamPod when an upgrade is available. The power jack accepts 9 to 15 volts dc and has a positive center pin. There is a 16 button keypad on the top of the unit on the left side and the speaker grill is on the right. New versions have a 3.5mm headphone jack on the right side. The dimensions are 5.3" x 4.0" x 1.5" plus about 3/8" of additional height for the keypad
Currently supporting Speech output for:
Elecraft K2, K3, K3S, KX3 and new KX2 transceivers
Elecraft W2 SWR/Wattmeter
Elecraft KPA1500, KPA500 Amplifier and KAT500 Antenna Tuner
ICOM and Kenwood transceivers, several models
Ten-Tec Orion transceivers
SPE Expert 1.3K-FA, 1.5K-FA and 2K-FA amplifiers
Yaesu FT-857 and FT-897
Yaesu FTDX101D/MP, FTDX5000, FTDX1200, FT-450, and FT-950
SteppIR Antennas (Both original and SDA-100 controllers)
HyGain Rotor controllers using the Idiom Press Rotor-EZ interface
Green Heron and M2 Orion 2800 rotor controllers
Most rotators when equipped with the ERC4 or ERC-M, Alfa Spid, and ProSisTel Series D & D-Pro controllers
Elecraft W2 and Array Solutions Power Master II SWR/Watt meters
Aeroflex IFR 1200A Communication Analyzer
More device support is currently under development.
Price: $295 plus shipping.
Please visit these other related Web Sites
that graciously support HamPod development.:
Active Elements
Ham Radio and Vision
Elecraft
SteppIR Antennas
Green Heron Engineering
Array Solutions
PRO.SIS.TEL
M2 Antennas
Easy Rotor Control
Idiom Press
Universal QSY'er
Win4K3 Suite Software
Contact: Info at HAMPod.com