Other Parts Discussed in Thread: CC1101
We are in the beginning stages of trying to replace another RF chip with a CC1101 in an existing design. We are connected via SPI and are comfortable with that interface. The host processor is a PIC18F series that performs in that existing design (also using SPI to operate the RF chip).
We have two of the RF04 boards, each connected to its own PC with the smart rf studio on each. On each RF04 board is one of the 434 MHz eval RF boards.
One of the dev boards is set up to transmit via the smart RF studio, the other is sucessfully receiving the packet from the transmitter. We are currently sending and receiving one byte.
We have a third 434 eval RF module that is connected via SPI to "our" processor. We can successfully program and read back registers from the eval RF board. Power is 3.3V from a precision bench supply, current consumption is 14mA or so to the eval board. SPI signals are good (rail-rail). SPI speed is not too fast, about 1usec per bit. We seem to be able to write and read sucessfully on the connection.
Our goal is to try to make this third unit receive the same data byte as the board on the RF04 demo board. We have used the values exported by the Smart RF software to initialize the CC1101. We then have tried to read several of the register that may tell us how many bytes it has stacked up, the radio state, etc.
Our issue must just be a basic issue with understanding. We found a bunch of code examples, and tried to duplicate that as much as possible. We do the initialization and (the returned status is generally a 7F during those commands). After all the bytes are sent we send an SRX command (a 34h I think, I don't have the doc in front of me right now). After that we repeatedly read the MARCSTATE and we always see the radio in the state 16h ("settling"). Whatever we do we cannot get it out of this state.
When never really see any length in the FIFO, if we try to read it anyway we see a counter of some sort (increases by one each time).
So I think we just have some sort of general misundestanding of the basics of the control that we are now basically stuck on. Any light shed on this by some experienced types would be helpful.
Thanks in advance.
