I am new to this group and would greatly appreciate any suggestions as to how to go about the hardware and programming for the following.

The lights are meant to replace burn barrels to make landing at night legal.
This is not a high end application. The runway is really a cow pasture that has been groomed a little to make it possible to land light aircraft.

I have a military surplus set of runway lights. I would like to replace the boards in them (with breadboards) and use a crystal in the civil aviation range. Is there a simple way to do this? They are usually activated by 5 clicks on the assigned frequency.

I really know nothing about the electronics but here is what I think I would need.

1. The crystal set up to a specific frequency. (Lets just say 122.5)

2. A counter that would be set to 5. (For the 5 standard clicks required to activate the ARCAL)

3. A switch that will trigger the lights when it gets the signal from the counter.

4. A timer that tuns the light off after 20 minutes.

5. An LED light with a battery pack for each light.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated even if the suggestion is that this is a very complicated circuit that is well beyond the ability of some one with basic wiring knowledge.

 

Sounds like a really interesting little project for someone, I'd imagine you will need a number of pcbs with radio receivers and controllers to activate the individual lights. I'd love to be involved but I'm in the UK and I would get someone local if I were you so that you can develop the board and evaluate the solution on the ground in situ.