Introduction:
The Solar Activity Monitor is designed in the UK and displays Solar-Terrestrial Data which is already available online and used in many websites.
This data is provided by Paul L Herrman, N0NBH who has given his permission for the data to be used for this device.
The Solar Activity Monitor is sold as hardware which displays the data. The data is provided by a third party.

Solar-Terrestrial Data:
Data and the explantion for all the various parameters that the Solar Activity Monitor offers can be found at Paul’s website https://www.hamqsl.com
Please use his website to get familiar with what the various parameters are and usefullness it would provide on your display.

Diagnostics:
Serial communications is available for diagnostics or should you wish to connect the Solar Activity Monitor to your own project for further processing of the data.
A programme on your PC is required to receive the data.
Baud rate: 115200

Design:
The Solar Activity Monitor has been designed specifically for the RF environment with RF filtering on the 5V line and various RF protections including focus on power supply line decoupling.
Design consideration has been given to reduce noise emitted from the device.
The PCB is double sided with a ground plane on both sides threaded together to give the best possible chance of minimising problems in an RF environment.

SAM device and Server
The Solar Activity Monitor (SAM) contacts our cloud server, owned by the company, every 15 minutes to retrieve Solar-Terrestrial Data. The cloud server retrives from the internet, every 15 minutes, Solar-Terrestrial Data and stores it in a database. There are many SAMs making many connections to the company cloud server which eleviates the traffic to Paul L Herrman’s server. The SAM does not communicate with Paul’s servers but only with our company cloud server.
Permission by Paul has been given to use his data.

Over The Air Updates:
The Solar Activity Monitor has been designed to update itself using OTA technology. Once an update starts you will be informed on the screen. Please do not disconnect the power whilst it is updating. If an update fails the device reverts back to the previous version and will update the next time it is switched on.
Updates will include bug fixes or new features.

Technical Parameters:
Volts: 5V
Current: 135mA normal opperation, 193mA at boot up.
Wifi: 2.4GHz at 10mW
Connector type: USB-C
Baud rate: 115200