My book, Raspberry Pi Pico for Radio Amateurs, has three purposes. Firstly, it is aimed to teach the features of the Raspberry Pi Pico to beginners. Secondly, I offer numerous software projects that amateur radio operators will find interesting. Lastly, I cover many amateur radio projects featuring the Raspberry Pi Pico. Let's take a closer look.

Why Pico?

Although the classical HF and mobile equipment are still in use by large number of amateurs, the use of computers and digital techniques have now become very popular among the amateur radio operators. Nowadays, anyone can purchase a €4 Raspberry Pi Pico microcomputer, which is slightly bigger than a matchbox, and run many amateur radio programs on this computer.

Several authors have written books and published projects for using the Arduino in amateur radio projects. Although the Arduino can be used in hardware based projects, its features, such as its speed and memory, are rather limited. The Raspberry Pi Pico is an alternative to Arduino because of its large memory, high throughput, and rich on-board peripheral support.The Pico is programmed in this book using the highly popular MicroPython programming language, which is an efficient implementation of the Python programming language that includes a small subset of the Python standard library and is optimised to run on microcontrollers and in constrained environments. Over the years, MicroPython has attracted many professionals and hobbyists from various platforms who see the potential and convenience of the language.

Pico for Radio and Beyond

My book is aimed for the amateur radio enthusiasts, for electronic engineering students, and for anyone interested in learning to use the Raspberry Pi Pico to build electronic projects. It is suitable to both beginners and experienced engineers. I take you step by step through the process of installing the operating system, and I offer detailed descriptions of the commonly used Linux commands. Some knowledge of the MicroPython programming language is required to understand/modify the projects given in the book.
 
FM radio module designed using the Raspberry Pi Pico.                                                                                 

Projects, Projects, and More Projects

The book contains 310 full-color pages with more than 600 figures. Over 35 amateur radio projects are given in the book in addition to more than 15 amateur programs and 20 general MicroPython programs. The description, block diagram, circuit diagram, and full program listings are given for all the projects. All the projects have been tested to be fully working.

Curious about what I cover? Some example projects developed in my book include:
 
  • station clock
  • station temperature and humidity
  • station geographical coordinates
  • waveform generation
  • voltmeter
  • ohmmeter
  • ammeter
  • capacitance meter
  • transistor amplifier design
  • FM radio
  • relay sequencer
  • active filter design
  • Morse code exerciser
  • frequency counter
  • RF meter
  • radio station
  • audio amplifier

This book is a very useful source of reference for anyone interested in amateur radio, and it is a must-have for all practising amateurs as it includes useful electronic projects for amateur radio stations.