Linux Driver for the
RadioShack 12-258 S.A.M.E. Weather Radio
Project Status
This project is effectively dead. Radio Shack stopped selling this radio years ago and they are becoming quite rare. Although the code for this project has been deployed on my own server and has been receiving local S.A.M.E. messages from the local National Weather Service office, reliably, for several years now, it is unlikely that development will continue for the following reasons.
- The functional implementation of the hardware via the USB protocol is pretty poor, in my opinion. The host computer must continuously poll the device, monitoring the raw data from the FSK decoder. Originally, I expected that the alert functionality would be implemented as an interrupt. But that is not the case.
- I have only one radio and it is currently in-service. I don't care to take it out of service in order to do more development.
- My time and effort would be better spent implementing my own FSK decoder in hardware with an IC-based FSK decoder and a micro-controller
What is implemented?
- alpha-quality code, written in C. It works perfectly in debug mode, but not in daemon mode. Likely, this is an issue with the child process not inheriting the usb connection. This is not an insurmountable problem. It's just that without a backup unit I have nothing to test code fixes with.
- Monitoring of alerts, sending alert messages to connected clients.
- Sample Java client code
What is not implemented (and probably never will be)?
- The previously mentioned daemon mode
- Configuration of the radio via USB
- Makefile and other distribution files