Hi Matthew: For the last few days I have been doing some reverse engineering on what's literally a "Black Box". It's a beacon transmitter that I estimate can operate for abut 80 hours from a couple of 9 volt batteries (22 ma Tx current). I think it's signal was designed to be received by a satellite in geosynchronous orbit, i.e. about 22,000 miles above the Earth. If you scale these numbers back to your application I would expect that you can easily cover 300 feet with much less power drain. The black box uses some so far unknown micro controller to generate the PR code used for the spread spectrum signal. So it may be possible to just use a PIC for this in the transmitter. I have not yet learned how to decode the signal. Have Fun, Brooke Clarke, N6GCE -- w/Java http://www.PRC68.com w/o Java http://www.pacificsites.com/~brooke/PRC68COM.shtml http://www.precisionclock.com Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 21:47:55 -0400 From: Matthew Miller To: piclist@mit.edu Subject: [EE] Low power RF module recommendations Message-ID: <20040924014755.GD25116@naxs.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii MIME-Version: 1.0 Precedence: list Reply-To: "Microcontroller discussion list - Public." Message: 71 Hi, For a project, I'm researching all of the low power RF modules I find mention of. I've looked at the offerings of Linx Technologies and Xemics. They both have nice products, but I want to be able to compare more products. Can anyone here recommend other products? If you know of a company let me know. Even if you haven't used the stuff tell me name of the manufacture. Specifically, what I'm looking for operates in the 300-400MHz band and has a range of at least 300ft (90m) and it should be fairly low power in the <=10mA range. Thanks for any pointers. Matthew. _______________________________________________ http://www.piclist.com View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist