HF150 Control Program

Do you posses the wonderful Lowe Electronics HF-150 communication HF receiver. I hope so because it is a cracking piece of kit by any body's standard.

One thing that has been lacking for this great little receiver is cheap, low cost or free software to control it and greatly enhance its usability. This is even more true since the late 1990s as small, light weight and cheap laptop computers have become readily available and become the perfect partner for the highly portable Lowe HF-150 receiver.

This is why I have written my HF150 Control Program. I started writing it back in 2009 exclusively for my own use. In late 2011 I decided I would like to go public with it and make it available to others besides myself.

Needless to say taking any program from a private use only toy with no documentation, no help and many personally understood functions to a publically available program which hopefully works for everybody has been challenging and fun (well most of the time! ?). To those who have provided feedback, bug reports and function suggestions I want to say thank you and especially so to one Dutch gentleman.

So here we are. I hope you find the program of assistance and value to you and your Lowe HF-150 receiver.

If you have any question or suggestions then please email me.

The program is currently Freeware.

Note! I check all my software before uploading with Malwarebytes and Microsoft Security Essentials. In addition I use VirusTotal.com to confirm as they have over 60 scanner engines. Despite these actions you may find that your software will flag my software because I use a source protection obfuscator which confuses it. Please report to me via Email any cases where you find any issue with downloading my software. When I receive such reports I download myself and revalidate. I then contact the anti virus software vendor with a false positive report. It can take them 48 hours or longer to process and update their definitions. Meanwhile you can also use VirusTotal.com for yourself and decide if you want to create an exception in your software.

Current Release - V1.1.0.0 - 12 April 2012
The current release version, files and MD5 checksums are as detailed in the table below:

Version	File	MD5 Checksum
V1.1.0.0	HF150_V1.1.0.0.zip	9683BC4EE6376A25BA8BDC6B59523E0C HF150-V1.1.0.0.zip
	HF150-Manual.html	F60879A569DC5291050F1B8A9EF82F70 HF150-Manual.html
	HF150.exe	950B2B2117389D4138919CA2D8FDBB39 HF150.exe

This release now brings the program into what I consider to be a "really fit for purpose" state.

The biggest change is that I have removed the direct HF-150 Receiver Memory Recall and Store functions.   The very important HF-150 Memory Load function still remains.

The functions were removed because they were causing user confusion and data display problems due to not being able to directly read the HF-150 Receiver memory contents. Any user confusion or lack of clarity in any program is very undesirable.

There have also been some important bug fixes and some additions/enhancements.

Finally the User Manual now has a nice Contents Index with links to the associated content.

Details below.

Function Removal:
R01 - Removed HF-150 Memory Recall and Store functions. HF-150 Memory Load function remains.
        Functions removed because it was causing user confusion and data display problems due to not
      being able to directly read the HF-150 Receiver memory contents.
Bugs:
B25 - Memory keypad buttons still active when HF-150 Load is selected
B24 - Memory input field not consistently cleared
B23 - Memory Tuning List and User Tuning List restored window contents not scrolled to last position
B22 - Stop and Start User Timed Tune clock with form loading & closing
B21 - Country number formatting using a , for a decimal . corrupts frequency data
B20 - Memory display not showing exact current memory data after a recall (was doing a memory match call)
Additions/Enhancements:
A27 - Notepad size now shown in Bytes, KB or MB as required
A26 - Memory Display to depict exact tune status
A25 - Memory Manual/Fast Tune and Memory Scan to be reflected in Local Memory Tune window
A24 - Save and Restore frequency & memory scan settings
Other:
User manual updated with Contents Index and links

Download

To download the program please goto HF150 Download.

Documentation

To read the user manual read then please goto HF150 User Manual.

Software and Hardware Requirements

The program it is written in .NET Visual Basic as a portable application that has no install program and does not make Windows Registry changes.. This means that basically it will only run on a Windows PC that has .NET installed. I've not researched the Linux and Apple platforms to see if they can support .NET based applications. If they do and you can get this program to work on any other platform, e.g. Linux and under Wine then please let me know and I will put the details here for others to see.

The HF-150 receiver does not have a true RS-232 serial interface port. Instead the Lowe IF-150 Serial Interface Adapter is required. The adapter takes care of the conversion between true RS-232 data flow and that PPM (pulse position modulation) data stream used by the receiver.

Screen Shot

Everybody wants to know what something looks like so here is screen shot for Version 1.1.0.0.

HF150 Control Program Screenshot

Software Control Functions and Features

Here is a list of the main functions and features supported by the software

Mode Control of all eight tuning modes with direct select buttons, skip up/down buttons and a text display of currently selected mode together with button highlight
Clock Display with simultaneous GTM and UTC display
Scratch Pad rapid save - saves all current tuning settings allowing one to tweak something and then instantly revert back to the saved settings
Frequency Bar with auto scaling to give an analogue view of where you are in the frequency band
Tuning Display showing frequency in kHz and MHz together with additional Mode and Band display
Frequency Control where frequency can be manually entered using the on screen keypad or by typing in the display, stepping in small or large increments which are user settable, and a Band Change control to fast tune to a chosen band
Memory Control for sixty local program memories with on screen keypad or by typing in the display. Independent store/recall and memory stepping with optional Fast Tune. Loading of Receiver Memory load from local program memory
Memory Display showing memory number, stored frequency, mode and band together with text comment
Memory Match Display showing how close a currently tuned frequency is to a memory stored frequency
Tuning Control to select Manual Tune, Frequency Scan or Memory Scan. Scan range and auto pause times are adjustable together with Start, Stop and full Pause functions
User File Tuning allowing a user created and maintained file to be opened and contents tuned to by entry selection
User Timed Tuning allowing a user created and maintained file to be opened and contents automatically tuned to based on times in the file
Local Memory Tuning with memory file opened and location tuned to by entry selection
Com Port Control to select serial communications port
Notepad Area which records Startup and Shutdown times. In addition text can be manually entered into the notepad and a double mouse click will put date, time and current frequency and tuning mode stamps in the notepad ready for additional manually entered data

Bug Reporting

At the bottom of this page, in the program and in the User Manual you will find my contact Email address.

I will do my best to fix any bugs that you hopefully do not find. If you are reporting a bug then please give me as much information as you can. Operating system (e.g. Windows XP/Vista/7), sequence of events or actions that you went through, and anything else that may assist me.

I cannot guarantee to fix all bugs, nor agree a time frame for any fixes. Having said this, as previously stated I will do my best. I do guarantee that I will acknowledge your bug report as soon as I can, providing I can contact you via a valid Email address.

If you do not wish to be contacted then say so in your bug report. I will then just note the problem and delete your Email and associated address at my end. See my Privacy Policy (link at bottom of the page).

Function Requests and Suggestions

At the bottom of this page, in the program and in the User Manual you will find my contact Email address.

I welcome any Function Requests and/or Suggestions. I cannot guarantee to implement them, nor a time frame if I decide to. If you are contacting me to suggest function or make suggestions then it will be to both our benefits if I can respond to you via Email.

If you do not wish to be contacted then say so in your Email. I will then just note the request/suggestion and delete your Email and associated address at my end. See my Privacy Policy (link at bottom of the page).

Contact Information

If you want or need to contact me about this program then please Email: hf150 AT nick HYPHEN bailey DOT co DOT uk

Previous Releases

Previous release version, files and MD5 checksums are as detailed in the table below:

Version	File	MD5 Checksum
V1.0.3.0	HF150_V1.0.3.0.zip	B5432DB05ADEE948AB92023681124A55 HF150_V1.0.3.0.zip
	HF150-Manual.html	711A813C0B90E1A1315FDFE9F6608EA6 HF150-Manual.html
	HF150.exe	C0778E9C3F0B8C8BC6CDAC23DCFD4286 HF150.exe

Version	File	MD5 Checksum
V1.0.2.0	HF150_V1.0.2.0.zip	63B96E1DF5C815CF60D35D948A8008A3 HF150_V1.0.2.0.zip
	HF150-Manual.html	5FE9C09F50E6D149744F0E85A9484626 HF150-Manual.html
	HF150.exe	1599B681717DA797E4900509001B9BE2 HF150.exe

Version	File	MD5 Checksum
V1.0.1.0	HF150_V1.0.1.0.zip	DDBC061E0CC0A7A296DCFA6B22F3D493 HF150_V1.0.1.0.zip
	HF150-Manual.html	DAEC82C4B6580C634334D39E4D752B37 HF150-Manual.html
	HF150.exe	D24BDC4EB57C390F70F02B7A4FB7AF23 HF150.exe

Contact Information

If you want or need to contact me about this program then please Email: hf150 AT nick HYPHEN bailey DOT co DOT uk

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