HamDroid is now Hammaroid, and has been joined by a sister iOS application called “PocketHam”.

Hammaroid

Hammaroid is the tentative name for an Android-based logging (and other amateur radio features) program I’m presently developing.  The goal of Hammaroid is to provide a handheld logging solution for users of portable rigs like the FT-817/897, and to be accessible to novice hams but feature-packed enough for light contest logging.

Android-based devices are an excellent platform for DXpedition logging, which is part of my goal in creating Hammaroid.  It will use, but not require, Internet-connected features for callsign-lookup and other features.

Features

This is the tenative feature set, in the order of priority.

• Logging, with support for ASCII, Cabrillo, and ADIF export
• Packet Cluster support via Internet
• Callsign lookup via internet servers
• Section mapping, WAS/WAC support
• APRS support (either via “Bluetooth”, or connected to an Internet server)
• Computer generated CW support (see “Bluetooth”, below)
• Rig control of Yaesu FT-817, 897, etc. (see “Bluetooth” below)

Hammaroid will be released under an open-source license.

Bluetooth features

I am also working on a piece of Bluetooth hardware that is designed to provide linking features to hamDroid via a serial Bluetooth device.  This will be a simple-to-construct device that will consist of an Arduino-based microcontroller and a Bluetooth interface, and a matching serial stack for Android (tenatively on hold, Android is supposed to have a Bluetooth serial stack coming in ether Eclair or a later OS, so stay tuned).

PocketHam

PocketHam is a less aggressive ham radio logging application for iOS devices.  Unlike Hammaroid, PocketHam will not directly do rig control.  It will have all the basic logging and export features of Hammaroid.  At the rate I’m learning iOS developement, an alpha version of PocketHam will likely predate any alpha version of Hammaroid, as a lot of Hammaroid’s features have been put on hold until there is a working Bluetooth serial stack in Android (or I learn enough about Davlik to implement one myself).

I would like to release PocketHam under an open-source license, but I’m a bit at a loss as to how to do that and make the program available in the App Store.  If anybody has any ideas, I’d love to hear them.