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The RB-USB-RIM a USB to radio interface module used with Linux based PC software (AllStar) to create a PC based repeater controller with advanced VOIP linking capabilities. The RIM adds a few options over other USB to radio interfaces such as:
- Missing pulse detector for "PC control" sense. If the RIM loses communication with the PC, an output can be set via solder jumper to pull an output pin low or allow it to go "open collector" high. This output can be useful to enable a secondary outboard controller or "in cabinet controls" to take over control of the repeater.
- The input to the missing pulse detector is jumper selectable between the USB "heartbeat" LED and I/O 1. The USB "heartbeat" LED is flashed by ACID/XIPAR to signal USB communications are taking place. I/O 1 is the "heartbeat" pin used by the PCRepeater Controller software. [FreeStar]
- Enhanced PTT handling - The heartbeat and PTT outputs can be internally jumped to allow the missing pulse detector to automatically disable the PTT line in the event of a stuck PTT due to PC communications failure.
- Solder jumper settable COR / CTCSS input logic w/LED indicators.
- 8 GPIO pins to the outside world - Use of these is limited only by your imagination and/or software. (Unfortunately there was no board space for buffering of these I/O.)
- 4 stage solder jumper settable discriminator audio input attenuator. No more external voltage dividers necessary to knock the radio's audio down to the CM119's input level!!
- 15V op-amp operation without an external supply - The RIM has a 5 to 15V charge pump on board to run the rail-to-rail op-amp filter stages. Using a higher supply voltage and rail-to-rail op-amps will allow for output voltages of ~14.5Vp-p which *should* be more than sufficient to drive *any* radio's input circuitry. The final op-amp stage has a solder jumper selectable hi/low output range setting.
- 5 pole low-pass filtering of Tx audio outputs - 5 poles of filtering greatly reduce the harmonic content of the RIM's output channels. The "knee" of this 5 pole filter is set at 10kHz for both the Main and Auxiliary audio output channels.
- External EEPROM connections. The external serial EEPROM can be used to store radio/repeater settings. This way if there is damage to the RIM, all that is needed is to replace it with another unit. No audio adjustment procedure necessary. (Software implementation dependant)