Interfacing GSM With Arduino:: Booting The GSM Module!

Interfacing GSM with arduino:

A GSM Module is basically a GSM Modem  (like SIM 900) connected to a PCB with
different types of output taken from the board – say TTL Output (for Arduino, 8051 and
other microcontrollers) and RS232 Output to interface directly with a PC (personal
computer). The board will also have pins or provisions to attach mic and speaker, to
take out +5V or other values of power and ground connections. These type of
provisions vary with different modules.
Lots of varieties of GSM modem and GSM Modules are available in the market to
choose from. For our project of connecting a gsm modem or module to arduino and
hence send and receive sms using arduino – its always good to choose an arduino
compatible GSM Module – that is a GSM module with TTL Output provisions.
SIM900 GSM Module – This means the module supports communication in
900MHz band. We are from India and most of the mobile network providers in
this country operate in the 900Mhz band. If you are from another country, you
have to check the mobile network band in your area. A majority of United
States mobile networks operate in 850Mhz band (the band is either 850Mhz or
1900Mhz). Canada operates primarily on 1900 Mhz band. Please read this wiki
entry on GSM Frequency Bands around the World.
Check the power requirements of GSM module – GSM modules are manufactured
by different companies. They all have different input power supply specs. You need to
double check your GSM modules power requirements. In this tutorial, our gsm module
requires a 12 volts input. So we feed it using a 12V,1A DC power supply. I have seen
gsm modules which require 15 volts and some other types which needs only 5 volts
input. They differ with manufacturers. If you are having a 5V module, you can power it
directly from Arduino’s 5V out.
Note:- GSM Modules are manufactured by connecting a particular GSM modem to a
PCB and then giving provisions for RS232 outputs, TTL outputs, Mic and Speaker
interfacing provisions etc. The most popular modem under use is SIM 900 gsm modem
from manufacturer SIMCom. They also manufacture GSM Modems in bands 850, 300
and other frequency bands.
Check for TTL Output Pins in the module – You can feed the data from gsm module
directly to Arduino only if the module is enabled with TTL output pins. Otherwise you
have to convert the RS232 data to TTL using MAX232 IC and feed it to Arduino. Most
of the gsm modules in market are equipped with TTL output pins. Just ensure you are
buying the right one.

Booting the GSM Module!
1. Insert the SIM card to GSM module and lock it.
2. Connect the adapter to GSM module and turn it ON!
3. Now wait for some time (say 1 minute) and see the blinking rate of ‘status LED’  or
‘network LED’ (GSM module will take some time to establish connection with mobile
network)
4. Once the connection is established successfully, the status/network LED will blink
continuously every 3 seconds. You may try making a call to the mobile number of the
sim card inside GSM module. If you hear a ring back, the gsm module has successfully
established network connection.
Okay! Now let’s see how to connect a gsm module to Arduino!
Connecting GSM Module to Arduino
There are two ways of connecting GSM module to arduino. In any case, the
communication between Arduino and GSM module is serial. So we are supposed to use
serial pins of Arduino (Rx and Tx). So if you are going with this method, you may
connect the Tx pin of GSM module to Rx pin of Arduino and Rx pin of GSM module to
Tx pin of Arduino. GSM Tx –> Arduino Rx and GSM Rx –> Arduino Tx. Now connect
the ground pin of arduino to ground pin of gsm module! So that’s all! You made 3
connections and the wiring is over! Now you can load different programs to
communicate with gsm module and make it work.
Note:- The problem with this connection is that, while programming Arduino uses serial
ports to load program from the Arduino IDE. If these pins are used in wiring,  the
program will not be loaded successfully to Arduino. So you have to disconnect wiring in
Rx and Tx each time you burn the program to arduino. Once the program is loaded
successfully, you can reconnect these pins and have the system working!
To avoid this difficulty, I am using an alternate method in which two digital pins of
arduino are used for serial communication. We need to select two PWM enabled pins
of arduino for this method. So I choose pins 9 and 10 (which are PWM enabled pins).
This method is made possible with the SoftwareSerial Library of Ardunio. SoftwareSerial is
a library of Arduino which enables serial data communication through other digital pins
of Arduino. The library replicates hardware functions and handles the task of serial
communication.

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