Zero Retries is an independent newsletter promoting technological innovation that is occurring in Amateur Radio, and Amateur Radio as (literally) a license to experiment with and learn about radio technology. Now in its fourth year of publication, with 1900+ subscribers. Radios are computers - with antennas!
My thanks to Paul Elliott WB6CXC for being a Renewed Annual Paid Subscriber to Zero Retries this past week!
My thanks to Prefers to Remain Anonymous 39 for becoming a New Founding Member to Zero Retries this past week!
My thanks to Chuck Hast KP4DJT for becoming a New Annual Paid Subscriber to Zero Retries this past week! KP4DJT shared this public message:
I was just reading your Bits Oughta Be Just Bits, and fully agree. In looking at the common products out there I also like products that use TDMA so as to also obtain more usage out of the bit stream. I was hoping that M17 would go that route. But in my view bits is bits and whatever you can stuff in a data stream should be free to go.
My thanks to Prefers to Remain Anonymous 38 for becoming a New Annual Paid Subscriber to Zero Retries this past week!
Paid subscriptions offset some of the costs of publishing Zero Retries weekly, and support some additional services and projects such as Zero Retries videoconferences that will debut this Fall, the forthcoming Zero Retries email list, and other ongoing expenses.
Financial support is a real vote of confidence for continuing to publish Zero Retries.
Pacificon 2024 in San Ramon, California, USA on 2024-10-18 thru 20 in 13 weeks. Tina KD7WSF and I plan to attend Pacificon 2024 (which makes it “major” to us). I have offered to do a presentation about Technological Innovation in Amateur Radio, and (I think) my proposal has been accepted.
Have a Good Idea Suffering from Censorship or Apathy? Route Around It!
There’s a (now in-) famous phrase that many of us remember vividly from the early days of the Internet:
The Net Interprets Censorship As Damage and Routes Around It
I interpret this phrase very generally to mean that if there is something that you’d like to see in the world, but it isn’t there, either for reasons of active suppression… or just apathy / lack of inclusion… by people or entities that you think should be “doing something” about your idea… do it yourself!
The tools for “do it yourself” have never been better, including publishing on the Internet, or creating hardware, or creating software, or creating groups of like-minded folks.
We are not dependent on them to make good things happen in the world! In this issue of Zero Retries, the respective activities of MM0RFN and KB6NU are but two examples of that truth. Both of them saw a need and decided that they would give it a try to create the change they wanted to see in the world, and both of their activities are materially improving Amateur Radio from their individual efforts! The existence of Zero Retries is entirely an example of “I got tired of cool stuff in Amateur Radio not being mentioned by them…” and decided that I could do something about it.
Another (near future) example is an email list about a cool subject that I’d like to see more activity in, but the creator / moderator of that email list is completely unresponsive to requests to help restart the conversations there. So, I’m going to route around that email list and create a new one with the same focus. Some will criticize the creation of a second email list as “forking the conversation” or “unnecessary duplication”. Those criticisms would be valid - if the original email list was active and responsive. But it isn’t, and I’ll be stating that prominently when I start the new email list - “calling ‘em as I see ‘em”.
Thus seeing all the examples of individual empowerment here in Zero Retries, I encourage all of you Zero Retries Readers to do the same. We are not passive victims of the “Same Old, Same Old” effect that’s so pervasive in Amateur Radio! Step up out of your comfort zone and be a co-conspirator for progress in Amateur Radio (and adjacent areas to Amateur Radio such as radio experimentation that doesn’t require an Amateur Radio license, like Meshtastic and SatNOGS).
If you have an idea that you’d like to see in the world… maybe it’s just something simple like a new Packet Radio Bulletin Board System (PBBS) in your area1, but don’t know any like-minded folks in your area to help out, drop an email (or a comment) to me here at Zero Retries and I’ll publish your name, contact info, and your idea and perhaps some co-conspirators for your idea will get in touch.
Now I Know About Scheduling Publication…
In the 30 minutes prior to Zero Retries auto-publishing at 15:30 Pacific, there was an announcement that the 2024 Digital Communications Conference had been canceled. That was obviously Zero Retries Interesting and I scrambled to include it in this issue. But, I didn’t “unschedule” the auto-publication and thus as 15:30 happened, Zero Retries 0161 was auto-published in its current state, mid-edit. Fortunately it doesn’t look too bad, just the headline under ZR > BEACON didn’t quite make it into the email version. Now I know how to manage this situation in future issues.
One Zero Retries subscriber who attended HAM RADIO 2024 confirmed that they did not see any Zero Retries Interesting new products at the conference. But in that brief mention, I did not mean to say that there wasn’t any Zero Retries Interesting activity at HAM RADIO 2024.
Ample Zero Retries Interesting Activity in Europe
I should have clarified that there is considerable Zero Retries Interesting activity ongoing in Europe including:
AMSAT-DL and AMSAT-UK are active in Amateur Radio space activities,
And much more that doesn’t come readily to mind as I compose this article.
I’m sure those activities had an (ongoing) presence at HAM RADIO. I was soliciting information about new products, projects, etc. that were exhibited at HAM RADIO 2024, of which a few have now emerged.
At Ham Radio 2024, the International amateur radio exhibition, last week in Friedrichshafen, Germany, the Software Defined Radio Academy (SDRA) celebrated its 10-year anniversary. Founded in 2014, the SDRA has become a new platform for the exchange of knowledge surrounding software defined radio. In the early years, the academy’s lectures were recorded with primitive camera technology, but today a video team takes the recordings to a completely different level. The SDRA's YouTube channel now has 150 uploads, 4850 subscribers, and many more views of the videos.
The winners of the Ulrich L. Rohde Award, created in 2022 for innovative research in the field of software defined radio, were also announced:
The GNU Radio project for its good software solutions for software defined radio (SDR) technology. GNU Radio is a free software development toolkit that provides signal processing blocks to implement software-defined radios and signal processing systems.
The DARC-AJW team for the SDR questions in the new questionnaire and the standardization of education. According to group leader Matthias Jung, DL9MJ, posting on X, the team’s work “focused on integrating SDR into the German amateur radio exam and educational materials.”
Rob Robinett, AI6VN, with Paul Elliot, WB6CXC, for their fundamental work and influence on scientific research in other areas.
Christoph V. Wüllen, DL1YCF, with Laurence Barker, G8NJJ, for fundamental work on stations.
Dr. Rohde, N1UL, has been an avid amateur radio operator holding several licenses in the United States and Germany. He has been licensed since 1956 and involved in technology and systems and has received worldwide recognition. In 2015, he won first place in the ARRL DX Contest in the Northern New Jersey Section. He also operates N1UL/MM on his yacht, the Dragonfly, and is Trustee of the Marco Island Radio Club, K5MI.
I normally would not use an entire article’s contents in Zero Retries, but to excerpt just the names would lose the context, thus I opted to include the entire article, with full attribution credit to ARRL.
Kudos to all the winners of this Zero Retries Interesting award, especially to Zero Retries contributor Paul Elliot WB6CXC!
Given the lack of RF engineers (indeed electronic engineers in general), the recent HAM RADIO Friedrichshafen, included a job fair where 4 major technology firms were looking for suitable people to train to fill the large number of open positions that they (and other companies) have.
TetraPack One Year Followup
As I was browsing the BrandMeister website for the above, I discovered this Zero Retries Interesting announcement:
Discover today’s extraordinary unveiling from the Brandmeister TetraPack team at HamRadio 2024 in Friedrichshafen. Dive into the remarkable new features revealed in their latest project update by downloading the presentation deck here!
Supported TETRA TMO features
Group calls
Simplex and duplex individual calls
Phone calls
Short text messaging and geo-positioning
Packet data access
Bridging with BrandMeister
Group calls (any talk-group > 90 available across both networks)
Bridging talk-groups with “classic” ham-radio technologies (D-STAR, System Fusion, etc.)
Simplex individual calls and SMS bridging
SMS services via APRS/MQTT/API
Geo-positioning to APRS/MQTT/API
Supported radio-access technologies
Motorola CompactTETRA (CTS)
Motorola Dimetra (EBTS/MBTS/MTS)
TETRA is a trunked radio system for public safety / government use. Digital Mobile Radio (DMR) is also a trunked radio system, but is intended for private / commercial use. Both systems were developed in Europe by European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI).
This is a dense presentation of (what seems to me to be) a very ambitious project. I can’t begin to do it justice in offering a compact description of this project, just a few points I think I gleaned from a quick browse:
Adapting TETRA for Amateur Radio justified a separate online network (TetraPack) that is separate from, but interoperable with the BrandMeister Network. Thus TetraPack users can converse with M17 and other Amateur Radio digital voice users via TetraPack “peering” with BrandMeister.
A TETRA base station (repeater) can scale beyond other systems. TETRA provides 4 time slots in each 25 kHz channel, and additional 25 kHz channels can be “ganged” into a TETRA base. One of the time slots is a “signaling” (control?) channel, but only one signaling time slot is required regardless of the additional 25 kHz channels used.
Tetra uses a different CODEC - ACELP which provides superior voice quality compared to DMR or P25. Per Wikipedia: The ACELP patent expired in 2018 and is now royalty-free. Thus ACELP is effectively open source (?) - no royalties due (such as the case with DMR and other Amateur Radio digital voice systems that use the DVSI AMBE CODEC chip).
This was kind of neat - It is possible to have full-duplex conversations, so your radio behaves like a cellular phone.
From a few bullet points, data seems to be supported as part of the system:
Basic web-based browsing is possible (comparable to WAP)
The “ganging” of 25 kHz channels seems like a very powerful capability for Amateur Radio that would allow multiple Amateur Radio groups to share a common Base Station (Repeater) infrastructure (and the cost of same) at a good location. Perhaps a repeater that gangs 4x 25 kHz channels into a single 100 kHz repeater that could provide up to 15 individual timeslots for use by different clubs, different user groups such as one devoted to travelers passing through, different activities such as data and text chat, regular nets that don’t “monopolize” the system, etc.
Attending HAM RADIO is on my “bucket list” and I hope to do so in within the next few years.
Back to the Future: Are Hackers the Future of Amateur Radio?
By Dan Romanchik KB6NU
Editor’s Note: This article was originally posted KB6NU’s Ham Radio Blog by Zero Retries Pseudostaffer Dan Romanchik KB6NU. It amplifies on a central theme of Zero Retries, that if Amateur Radio is presented to the current generation (which skews “technical” more than previous generations) and specifically presented to techies… Amateur Radio looks pretty interesting. But a “presentation of Amateur Radio” must be relevant to that audience, and KB6NU absolutely nails that in his excellent set of slides for the referenced presentation at the HOPE Conference. KB6NU’s article is getting a lot of traction, including a prominent mention on Hackaday, and to date has garnered 98 comments.
Last fall, under the aegis of Ham Radio Village, I was awarded a grant to take my one-day Tech class on the road. Ham Radio Village believes that more people in technical fields should have amateur radio licenses and that amateur radio is underrepresented in the hacker, STEM/STEAM, and maker communities. Currently, there is little outreach to these communities about the benefits of amateur radio in their fields.
Enter the “ham radio evangelist.” In October of 2023, we applied for and were awarded an $18,000 grant to reach out beyond the boundaries of traditional amateur radio communities, including scientific, engineering, hacker, maker, and STEM/STEAM focused conferences where attendees might have an interest in amateur radio (e.g., DEFCON, GRCon, Maker Faire, IEEE Communications Conference).
This grant provides funding to both educate these communities about amateur radio and to streamline the process of obtaining an amateur radio license. If accepted, HRV will give a talk about amateur radio, teach a one-day Technician Class license course, and offer a Volunteer Examiner test session at an event. These activities will provide these new hams with a lifelong hobby that aligns with their professional and technical interests. And, it will also enable these new hams to bring their experiences and ideas to amateur radio, thereby advancing the hobby.
HOPE couldn’t have gone any better
HOPE XV was the first event at which we evangelized ham radio. In my mind, it couldn’t have gone any better.
On Friday, I gave a talk entitled “Ham Radio for Hackers.” (Click here to see the slides.) I wandered in about 10 minutes before the talk was to start at 1:00 pm. There were already so many people there that I thought I was in the wrong room.
Adding to my confusion, was the fact that the slide announcing the previous talk was still up on the screen. I turned around and started heading out, but caught myself before I left the room. This had to be the place, and indeed it was.
In the talk, I explained some of the basics of amateur radio, discussed some of the projects that radio amateurs are currently hacking on, and then how to get a hacking, errrr ham radio license. I probably could have gone into a little more depth on some of the projects, but in general, I think that the talk was very well-received.
Tech class yields 25 new hams
On Saturday, I held my one-day Tech class. I was concerned that attendance would be poor because:
They scheduled the class on Saturday, and there were lots of other interesting talks being held that day.
They scheduled the class to start at 10:30 am, which could have thrown off my timing.
As it turned out, the class went really well. The students asked lots of questions—which caused the class to run about an hour longer than usual—but they were all good questions. 25 hackers passed the test and got their licenses. There were some failures, but it’s unclear whether those people were in the class or not. We invited anyone to show up at 5:00 pm and take the test, whether they were in the class or not. I’m going to claim that 100% of the students passed the test.
I can say that all those who passed the test were very excited that they did. Many of them came up to me after the class and thanked me. I can also say that this group was much younger than normal. I’m guessing that there were only two students over the age of 50. There was a good number of women, too. I counted at least six women.
I really want to thank the VE team. Without them, this couldn’t have happened. They were:
Seth, N2SPG
Nicole, AD2IM
Ed, N2XDD
Grant, W4KEK
Vlad, AF7QV
A great start
I think that this is a great start to the ham radio evangelist program. Not only did we license 25 new hams, they all seem very interested in the hobby.
I also talked to a lot of different people about the program. One fellow, a young guy working with the Philadelphia Maker Faire, invited me to contact him about doing a class next spring.
So, onward and upward! I think the hackers at HOPE are just the kind of people we want to get into the hobby. They’re young and interested in hacking ham radio. It will be fun to see what they can do.
…
Editor’s Note: Again, KB6NU posted his slides for this presentation in another post on his blog, and each of them I wholeheartedly agree with the points he made to this audience.
In addition to his Amateur Radio evangelism, KB6NU publishes an excellent set of No-Nonsense Study Guides for the US Amateur Radio Technician, General, and Extra classes of license - recommended! KB6NU generously offers his Technician study guide as a free PDF.
What I've been up to in Open Ham Radio - July 2024
By Hibby MM0RFN
Editor’s Note: This was originally a casual, personal email from MM0RFN to me, and I thought it was so informative about the UK Packet Radio Network and associated projects that I encouraged him to make it into an article that could be cited in Zero Retries. MM0RFN generously agreed for this to be a full article in Zero Retries.
…
I do a lot in free software for ham radio, and Steve at Zero Retries encouraged me to take this email I sent him and translate it into something here.
We’re sorting out forwarding and routes in Aberdeen too, and working to grow the RF path to Inverness.
We’re still selling and shipping NinoTNC boards & controllers - see the current preorder happening here. New people are coming on air - it’s fun to see new bubbles of activity slowly appear. This month has seen a number of UK Foundation licensees (Technician equivalent) set up unattended ‘GB7xxx’ callsign packet nodes - a privilege that was previously restricted to Full (Extra) license holders only - they are limited to 5W ERP, but it’s made growing the network infrastructure hugely more accessible to all interested parties.
Packet Radio Guide
In the odd periods of quiet I’ve found, I’ve been fiddling with writing Hibby’s Packet Radio Guide (HPRG) -
as a method of documenting what I know in an accessible format for our new users to accompany my repository. This is largely written from a Debian/Ubuntu/Raspi perspective and makes the assumption you’ll install packages from my Repository, but hopefully the Beginners guide and Linux Primer will prove helpful. I’m slowly building out bits as creativity hits me, but the process of writing, thinking about presentation of information and focus is quite therapeutic!
Writing the guide has been a great excuse to focus on the ‘first timer’ elements of Linux - specifically why are things different from Windows, what do I need to learn, how do I edit text (as much as I love vim & nano, they aren’t really beginner friendly!) and I’ve been trying to incorporate elements of that.
Maxwell
HPRG has made me focus quite a lot on the new-user experience - resultantly I have been toying with the idea of starting a Debian based Distribution that contains a set of sensible default packages to get people on the air with the packet guide onboard as a help reference and recommendations of next steps for explorers. It feels like quite a natural progression for the repositories - pre-installed, just download and go.
I have the first live-tests of the project codenamed ‘Maxwell’ running in a VM and a laptop. I want a common interface and package set across both x86/64 and arm64/armhf architectures, so it’s predictably usable and understandable across laptops and Raspberry Pis. It’s not yet publicly available, maybe by the end of summer. I think there’s a lot to be said for something that ships both pre-prepared and documented and has a bit more focus/face than ‘the Debian Hamradio Team’ or ‘Ubuntu Hamradio’ and builds on the work I already do.
This project is beginning to get off the ground - I am simultaneously working on build infrastructure, live-cd build infrastructure, QA testing and learning hard. I’m focussing a lot on it - I find learning quite intoxicating and get into really tight iteration cycle where experiments and changes absorb all of my time and attention for days at a time.
EuroBSDCon
I am speaking about packet radio, open software and UKPRN at EuroBSD Con in September - https://events.eurobsdcon.org/2024/talk/VMBGCY/. This means I need to finish and test my FreeBSD port of BPQ32! I know it’s worked in the past, but I probably need to do some work to get it working again.
Debian Work
Hello! I’m a Debian Developer now, I’ve been once since January and have been contributing to the project since 2015!
I’ve been chipping away at bugs in Debian too! Cqrlog has been broken in Ubuntu for some time now - I’ve fixed the root cause and now it’s a work-in-progress to get the updates backported to older Ubuntus. This in particular has been on my todo list for a little too long, but Ubuntu’s SRU feels impenetrable to me as an outsider/upstreamer. Svxlink has been updated as well so that it doesn’t start all its services on boot - that was stealing soundcards from the OS and making a system unusable for anything requiring audio (including radio fun!) if you had installed the hamradio-all, hamradio-rigcontrol or hamradio-digitalvoice software collections.
WSJTX
Sadly, WSJTX, which we hold up as an example of ‘ham radio done right’ thanks to an open spec and open implementation is looking to ship binary executables with no code for their new ‘Superfox’ feature - this has already arrived in ~rc5 of their upcoming release that we’ve not yet added to Debian. I understand that it’s related to the DXPedition signing process by NorCal DXF - they will be the only group able to ‘approve’ DXPeditions (concerning for someone who’s not US based already - why do they get to be the sole arbiters of what’s real and isn’t?).
We’ll need to patch out the functionality to ship it to Debian as we cannot distribute this nonfree software, which is a great shame - our users will become second class citizens, as will Ubuntu users and other families like the Fedora users etc.
We manage to handle trusted cryptographic signatures to produce the Debian OS using only free software, but sadly the stakeholders of signatures in Superfox seem determined that obscurity and hiding the secret sauce is the correct way to combat DXPedition Piracy. The discussion is on their development mailing list around
Editor’s Postscript: My thanks again to MM0RFN for this great report, and his work on Hibby’s Packet Radio Guide. We’ve had Amateur Radio Packet Radio technology for four decades now, but it’s only been in this decade that we’re getting around to documenting the many better ways we can do Amateur Radio Packet Radio such as using the NinoTNC instead of “classic” TNCs such as the (still being sold) Kantronics KPC-3 Plus, using Raspberry Pi dedicated computers instead of desktop PCs, and modern operating systems such as Debian Linux instead of Windows (now, with interstitial advertising!). We’ve been able to do all of this, and many, many have done all of this, but what’s been lacking is a good reference on tying all of this cool stuff together. Thus kudos to MM0RFN for tackling this. Sometimes, what it takes to progress things in the world, in technology, and Amateur Radio, is for someone to decide that, well, if no one else is going to do it, I might as well try to do it.
Stana Horzepa WA1LOU on the TAPR aprssig (and several others) email list :
After careful consideration and weighing all available options, we regret to inform you that the 2024 ARRL/TAPR Digital Communications Conference (DCC), scheduled for September 20-21, 2024, has been cancelled. This decision was not made lightly, but due to logistical challenges, we believe it is in the best interest of all involved.
We understand the inconvenience this may cause and sincerely apologize for any disruption to your plans. We appreciate your understanding and support during this time. Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Well… this is a shame. Like the still-unannounced death of CQ Magazine, I think it’s now reasonable to “leap” to the conclusion that we’ve seen the last “ARRL/TAPR” Digital Communications Conference (in 2022, not counting the “Mini DCC” in late 2023).
Thus I think the “field is clear” to discuss the creation of a new, independent Digital Communications Conference, and to accelerate that discussion, I’ve created a new email list:
This group is to discuss the creation and operation of a conference similar to the long-running Amateur Radio Digital Communications Conference that was formerly sponsored / managed by ARRL and TAPR. The 2024 DCC was canceled by TAPR and (at the time this group was created) it doesn't seem likely that TAPR will be able to sponsor / manage future DCCs.
Like "Old DCC", some goals of "New DCC" are:
A conference held in person in North America, over a Friday / Saturday / Sunday
Rotate the location of "New DCC" to various cities in North America
While "New DCC" would be focused on the in-person experience, it would be live video streamed, and recorded for later archival viewing.
Presentation of formal papers / presentations will be a primary aspect of "New DCC".
A "New DCC" would have to be operated independently, perhaps creating a new organization solely focused on conducting such a conference.
Thus, (at least initially) lacking the resources of a sponsoring organization such as TAPR, financial aspects of such a conference will be a primary point of discussion; without financial resources, such an event cannot be scheduled.
Amateur Radio Newsline Report 2437 for Friday July 12th, 2024:
STEPHEN/ANCHOR: Between an eclipse in the spring and then flares and storms a few weeks ago, the sun has been getting a lot of attention lately. Now it's the moon's turn - and Travis Lisk N3ILS tells us how the moon is getting its day, at least in Texas.
TRAVIS: The Frontiers of Flight Museum in Dallas is once again marking "Moon Day" on the 20th of July, a date to celebrate the anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission's landing on the moon. According to the schedule of events, the moon will have its day in the sun at last through a variety of presentations. The Dallas Amateur Radio Club will show how hams communicate via EME, or moon bounce and AMSAT ambassadors will be present to demonstrate what radio communication is like through amateur satellites. The keynote speaker will be former NASA astronaut Gregory Johnson, whose experience piloting early space shuttle flights contributed toward the construction of the International Space Station.
The six-hour program is considered the year's largest space-related event in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
This is Travis Lisk N3ILS.
(AMSAT)
Because Amateur Radio Newsline is intended as an audio program, they typically don’t feature web links of the source of their info - in this case, only a reference to “AMSAT”. The closest match I could find on the AMSAT website was this:
Tom Schuessler is still looking for a few volunteers from the DFW area to assist with the “Moon Day event at the Frontiers of Flight Museum on Saturday, July 20. This is a general public STEAM day with seminars, activities and exhibitors relating to space exploration and astronomy. He will have the CubeSat Simulator, Fox engineering model, explanation of satellite orbits and if available in the time frame, outdoor satellite passes worked. Volunteers get free admission and lunch and a break area. Tom needs to know by probably middle of next week. Drop Tom an email at tschuessler [at] amsat [dot]org. [ANS thanks AMSAT for the above information.]
The activities relating to Amateur Radio (Earth Moon Earth communications! Amateur Radio Satellites!) at Dallas (Texas, USA) Frontiers of Flight Museum on July 20th (55th anniversary of humanity’s first steps on Luna) is even grander than what I had imagined (on a personal scale) for my idea I called “Neil’s Night” (Part 1, Part 2). I never realized any of what I discussed about Neil’s Night; the idea was much more ambitious than I ended up having personal bandwidth to implement. But I’m glad someone had the vision to combine the grandest adventure of humanity to date with hands-on involvement in Amateur Radio at a very public venue. Kudos to Tom Schuessler N5HYP and the Dallas Amateur Radio Club for stepping up to this challenge!
In fact, wouldn’t it be cool if aviation-themed museums (there are a number of them) that host “Moon Day” events made it a point to try to “work each other” on Earth Moon Earth communications?
ITDRC is a relatively new Communications Emergency Response organization that I think is relevant in this decade and beyond because its capabilities reflect current emergency communications needs for the public such as providing emergency Internet connectivity via Wi-Fi, etc. While ITDRC is interested in Amateur Radio experience (it’s one of the questions on their volunteer form), it’s not a primary qualification.
Thus I feature information from ITDRC occasionally in Zero Retries.
2024 has been a very busy year so far.
From tornadoes, to wildfires, to an unseasonably early Hurricane Beryl, catastrophic events have impacted a huge portion of the country in the last few months, sending our teams from coast to coast.
Since the end of April, ITDRC has responded to 15 significant events, providing boots on the ground connectivity and technology infrastructure support. With resources activated within 24 hours, we ensured response and recovery agencies across sectors could effectively mobilize to help communities impacted, and ultimately help survivors heal.
New Mexico Wildfires
On Monday June 17, 2024, the South Fork and Salt fires ignited on the Mescalero Apache Reservation. ITDRC has been actively engaged; coordinating with federal, local, state, tribal, non-governmental, and private sector entities to provide Information, Communications, and Technology (ICT) support to responders and the impacted communities.
May 2024 Severe Weather and Tornado Outbreak
ITDRC is providing support to communities in Florida, Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas after a dangerous storm system made its way across the US.
Hurricane Idalia
Teams are providing emergency communications, WiFi connectivity, and cell phone charging stations in shelters and command centers and performing assessments for unmet communications and technical needs.
If I was younger and more flexible, I would probably be involved in ITDRC. If you’re interested in ITDRC, their website is https://www.itdrc.org.
Jason Milldrum NT7S in Applied Etherics newsletter:
A few weeks ago, I ran across a guest essay from Wojciech Kaczmarski, SP5WWP on the Zero Retries Substack entitled What Stalls Amateur Radio Development? I don’t necessarily agree with everything written in this editorial, but I do believe in the general message that we need new ways of funding our FOSS amateur radio/hobby electronics endeavors, if we all want to continue to enjoy the fruits of many valuable hours of development from talented people in this hobby.
I’d like to note that this is not some kind of passive-aggressive way to nudge you to support me financially on this Substack. If anything, this is a way for me to attempt to hold myself publicly accountable so that I more fully live up to the ideals that I’m espousing here, as well as to try to put these ideas in front of more peoples’ eyeballs. I would encourage you to support projects and creators that inspire you the most. With that in mind, I’m going to pull some quotes out of the linked article so I can riff off them to add some of my own ideas. I encourage you to follow the link above to read the article in its entirety.
…
With that said, let me make some suggestions for concrete actions that you can take to help move things in a better direction:
The biggest thing you can do is provide that financial contribution to projects that you use regularly or simply want to see succeed. I’m working on changing my habits so that I can budget a bit more every month to contribute to creators and projects on a continuing basis.
If you find a problem with a project, be quick to offer positive feedback and help, and slow to offer criticism. Pointing out issues is necessary, but let’s not do it in a needlessly critical way, nor use them as a cudgel against the people working on the project.
In a similar vein, if you really feel strongly about something with one of these projects, put some skin in the game. Whether it is via your time or financially, your opinion means a lot more if you actually have something riding on it.
In general, try to patronize small creators and businesses more often. Please don’t buy clones off of Aliexpress and the like. None of us are getting rich off of this, and when some random overseas company free-rides on a small creator’s designs, it just hurts the prospects of future work being done.
One area where I know we need a lot more work is in social networking. YouTubers are already pretty good at this, but I think it would be beneficial if we all started supporting and cross-promoting each other more. I don’t know exactly how this should work in practice, so any suggestions would be most helpful.
It’s a huge cliché, but we’re going to have to be the kind of change that we want in this world. By learning some new habits, we can create a more self-sustaining ecology that will benefit all of us in the long run.
NT7S’ entire article is well worth a read and he makes additional points beyond what SP5WWP and I have made in Zero Retries.
Quisk is a Software Defined Radio (SDR) and is the software that controls my receiver and transmitter. Quisk rhymes with "brisk", and is QSK plus a few letters to make it easier to pronounce. QSK is a Q signal meaning full breakin CW, and Quisk has been designed for low latency CW operation. It works fine for SSB and AM too. Quisk is written in Python and C, and all source is included so you can change it yourself. The Quisk receiver can read the sample data, tune it, filter it, demodulate it, and send the audio to the sound card for output to external headphones or speakers. The Quisk transmitter can accept microphone input and send that to your transmitter via a soundcard or Ethernet. For CW, Quisk can mute the audio and substitute a side tone. Quisk offers these capabilities:
Quisk can control the HiQSDR.
Quisk can control Hermes-Lite hardware.
Quisk can control SoftRock hardware for both receive and transmit.
Quisk can control the SDR-IQ by RfSpace, and several other hardwares.
If you have supported hardware, then Quisk is ready for you to use. If you have other receive hardware, then you will need to change the file quisk_hardware.py to connect your receiver to Quisk. For example, if you change your VFO frequency with a serial port, then you need to change quisk_hardware.py to send characters to the serial port. The file quisk_hardware.py is written in the Python programming language, a very easy language to learn and use. I have tried to make Quisk easy to modify so it can be used for hardware other than my own.
Quad loop as a mono band antenna for 2m or 70cm, or a dual band version for both bands. Full wavelength loop, gain approx. 1dBD, includes BNC connector. The loop can be opened at one corner, which allows for fast and very small packing. SWR adjustment with a plastic screw at gamma match feed. Both antennas are mounted to the window with oversized suction cups, can be mounted either for horizontal or vertical polarization.
I saw this interesting antenna at a recent Amateur Radio club meeting and it seems a perfect external antenna for use in an apartment or condo or even a home where you cannot otherwise install external antennas. It’s very light weight and can be collapsed easily, so it’s even suitable for traveling. I’ve not seen anything similar from US Amateur Radio sources.
If you’re not yet licensed as an Amateur Radio Operator, and would like to join the fun by literally having a license to experiment with radio technology, check out Join the Fun on Amateur Radio for some pointers.
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TL;DR — I tried to deploy a new server instance on Vultr of a VirtualBox virtual machine running an AllStarLink node. Although Vultr documentation says it can be done, I did not succeed. Why do this? Because ASL 3 opens the door to having pre-made AllStarLink appliances that could be installed easily and consistently! Working on this project was going to be the focus of this issue, but instead I’m reporting that I believe it can be done but I haven’t been able to do it…yet!
A few issues back, I experimented with copying a virtual machine running an AllStarLink node to another computer. The emulator I used is VirtualBox and the only trouble I had after importing the .ova file to a different Windows machine was properly configuring networking. Other than that, it worked fine.
Node 588411 running in a virtual machine
What is VirtualBox? Says VirtualBox.org:
VirtualBox is a powerful x86 and AMD64/Intel64 virtualization product for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 3. See "About VirtualBox" for an introduction.
Now that ASL3 supports running on a virtual machine, the thought occurred to me: where are the pre-built nodes as virtual machines that can be downloaded? Imagine being able to simply choose the kind of node you want, download the appropriate image file, and import it into your emulator of choice. Honestly, that seems like a killer way to get some more nodes on the AllStarLink system.
I think it would be a great thing to take a node that is known to be working well and move a copy to a different system. Change a few key pieces of data and boom, you have an almost instant node.
I’m sure this idea may unsettle some hams who believe we should all build our stuff from scratch, as well as those who decry computer-based things as not being part of amateur radio. I confess that I find it really hard to imagine that any ham can completely avoid using any computer systems or knowledge sources in their amateur radio hobby, even it is only to renew their license with the FCC.
I respect that some folks want to lean on historic practices. I get it. I still have my Kenwood TS-520S around because it is a pleasure to operate. There are no computers attached to it or associated with it. It is relatively simple compared to many modern transceivers. Bonus: the receiver is great and the sound is delightful.
Perhaps my perspective is different than most. I believe that if it connects to amateur radio somewhere in the chain between sender and receiver, it’s part of amateur radio. I view amateur radio as a big tent with soft walls, not a narrow aisle bounded by diamond-sharp edges.
I also suspect that many amateurs want a simpler way forward, i.e., they would prefer a radio appliance, something they plug in and it just works. This is where some pre-made, known-good AllStarLink virtual machines could help build the AllStarLink community. Maybe it would help if I describe AllStarLink nodes as radio appliances instead of radios.
1.1 Importing a VM of a working node
What comes next rises to a level of arcane-ness that most people are not going to want to know anything about. Feel free to skip ahead. Otherwise, take a deep dive into this guidance provided by Vultr: Best Practices when Migrating to Vultr. Specifically, look for the VirtualBox section in that document. I offer this information not because you might want to do it, but rather, to prove that it can be done.
(In all truth, I got so frustrated with this process that I took an hour off for a motorcycle ride. That gave me a chance to reset my brain and approach this again with a fresh perspective.)
To bring a virtual machine instance into Vultr, you have to create a raw image file from the .vdi file in the virtual machine. To create that raw file, you use a command line tool called VBoxManage (in Windows, it comes as part of the VirtualBox application but can only be run from the command line). VBoxManage has a thorough online manual.
You have to extract the .iso file that is part of the virtual machines .ova template, then you convert it to a raw image file using VBoxManage. The raw image file then must be placed in a location that Vultr can reach to pull the file in.
1.2 You have to upload from a URL
During this journey, I discovered interesting things about how Vultr expects to access the ISO file. Vultr wants a URL. No direct upload service is provided. That’s a bit awkward. I went down various rabbit holes to get the image file to a cloud location that Vultr liked. Google Drive did not work, nor did OneDrive. Both of those services append some extra information on the end of the file’s URL and Vultr rejects URLs with appended information.
What to do? I tried to use a pCloud (a secure cloud storage service) account to accomplish this but uploads to pCloud are quite slow. Instead, I tried using one of my WordPress websites, modifying the upload limit and adding .ova as a file type. It still didn’t work.
You can, of course, sign up for Vultr’s Object Storage for $6/month. That $6 gets you 1 terabyte of storage and 1 terabyte of transfer bandwidth/month. I confess that I’m tempted. In fact, after a couple of hours of fighting with good ways to fulfill the upload requirement, I succumbed and purchased the object storage from Vultr. (If you want to try any Vultr services, please consider using my affiliate link, found on the Support page as item 4.)
By the way, using Vultr Object Storage is not quite as simple as it sounds. You need a client application to move files in and out of storage. I installed a freeware program called S3 Browser and configured it to use my Vultr Object Storage account. Then I created a bucket for my virtual machines. Once I had a bucket, I was able to upload my image file to the bucket. Note that for a large file like this, uploading to Object Storage takes quite a while. My upload of about 3 Gb’s took about 20 minutes over Xfinity cable. I like S3 Browser so I did go ahead and buy the lifetime S3 Browser Pro license for $39.99.
One benefit of using Vultr Object Storage is you get a URL to the file that Vultr likes. I also don’t mind having some extra bulk storage available. Figuring out where to put the image file has been the hardest part of this exercise!
1.3 Deploying a server with the image file
To deploy a server, you set up a new cloud compute instance on Vultr:
In Products, select Cloud Compute. I chose Cloud Compute - Shared CPU for this test, and selected Seattle as the server location.
Under Choose Image, select Upload ISO, then in My ISOs click the plus sign next to Upload ISO. Enter the URL where your image file is located. Your upload will take several minutes. If no errors are reported, you can proceed.*
Under Choose Plan, select AMD High Performance. Under that option, I selected the 25 GB NVMe option at $6/month. I also accepted the Auto Backups addition at $1.20/month.
*And the Upload ISO step is where I repeatedly failed. I tried to upload the .ova file. Nope: errors. I tried renaming the .ova file to an .iso file. Nope. I opened the .ova template and extracted the .vdi file, then used the VBoxManage to convert the .vdi file to an .img file in raw format. That should have worked but it didn’t.
I spent about eight hours on this on Saturday, and that is usually the time I am recording and editing the Random Wire Reflections podcast. I’m a day behind my self-imposed schedule.
I’m going to set this aside for now but the idea of being able to export and save working node configurations as virtual machines, and then importing one of those virtual machines into a cloud server seems like it should work. It also seems like having a library of working node configurations for various purposes would benefit the amateur radio community. It might take someone smarter than me to make this work.
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2. Did You Get Your Start with CB Radio?
It’s often very interesting to listen to amateur radio operators talk about citizens band (CB) radio. I often hear a sense of derision from other hams as they talk about “those CBers” and their bad radio practices. I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but I have to say there are plenty of hams who have pretty atrocious (oxymoron alert) radio practices!
I suspect that many of us who enjoy amateur radio now once had a CB radio. I did. When we lived in northern Nevada in the very early 1980s, you had a land line phone and a CB radio. There were no cell phones. With a fairly inexpensive CB and a mag-mount antenna, you had comms when the land lines went out and when driving.
Winter in northern Nevada can be brutal! We had a half-circle driveway and more than once I could not get it cleared of snow. The snow was a fine powder and the wind would howl across our homesite. I had a grain shovel for the snow. Starting at the top of the drive where the car and pickup were parked, I’d start shoveling. By the time I got to the bottom, the driveway was drifted in again. Rinse and repeat. One day I got so frustrated I started up the car and tried to go through a drift at speed, only to feel the car rise up in the air and settle down on top of the drift, high centered. That’s a lesson you never forget!
Reno was a four-hour drive to the west, Salt Lake City was a four-hour drive to the east, and Boise was four hours to the north. The countryside was largely empty and we could sometimes drive for an hour or more without seeing another vehicle.
CB was a lifeline on the highway. This was in the era of C.W. McCall’s popular song “Convoy.” In our 1/2-ton Chevy pickup, we looked like David to the large multi-wheeled Goliaths on the highway. Every long-haul trucker had a CB and many were willing to talk. I can’t count how often we whiled away the hours tagging along with a group of big trucks, listening to their conversations, and sometimes joining in. It was often humorous, occasionally a bit salty, and it helped us stay awake.
I had forgotten some of these memories until a conversation on an amateur radio net about how people got started in amateur radio. One set of life experiences I had that was generally positive was using a CB radio in the 80s. This didn’t cause me to get my amateur license but it didn’t hurt, either.
I wonder how many of us got our start in two-way radio with a CB rig?
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3. Hamshack Hotline Warning About BLF
Recently, I received an email from the Hamshack Hotline folks titled BLF and Speed Dial No No's. Well that is a bit of a teaser so I read the message. If you have a Hamshack Hotline number on a SIP phone, this message is for you.
Here’s the crux of the message about the Busy Lamp Feature, or BLF:
If you still use the speed dial with either parameter of "blf+" OR "sub=", your phone still sends the request to our server asking for the status of the remote extension(s), over and over and over, every second. Those requests still put a huge strain on the server.
And there are currently several, several hundred users on the HHUS server that have not stopped using those forbidden parameters in their speed dial setups.
So, HH will be turning on the IP Ban rule for users who are still using BLF.
You should also be aware that almost ALL soft phone apps have a BLF feature as well and set to "On" by default.
All HHUS users will need to turn off the BLF feature in their soft phone apps and in their hard phone(s) by 5pm eastern on Friday the 19th or the automated rule check that gets turned on will ban your IP address and your phone(s) will stop connecting to the HHUS server.
For those who were using the Busy Lamp Feature, Hamshack Hotline has published two pages to help you see who is online:
Their page at https://blf.hamshackhotline.com/ explains all this better than I can. I did log into my Cisco SPA525G phone to make sure my speed dial buttons weren’t configured in ways that would cause me to be banned!
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4. Tech Stack: My Daily Drivers
My technology stack is where my personal and work lives intersect. Described below are some of the items I use every day. The things that are backups or are only occasionally used may, or may not, be mentioned. This is not an exhaustive list of the technology I have on hand. Rather, it is just the top layer of my daily drivers.
4.1 Computing: the TomBook
I am really enjoying my Lenovo ThinkPad X1 laptop running Microsoft Windows 11 Pro. It is equipped with 32 Gb of RAM and an i7-3650U processor at 1800 MHz. That processor has 10 cores which, for my uses, makes it a beast.
At home, I have the laptop elevated on a desktop stand. I run a second monitor (Samsung) using a small docking station. To travel, I only have to disconnect the USB-C power and the USB-A dock.
With the laptop on the stand, I use a Logitech keyboard and a Microsoft mouse on my desktop.
When traveling I often take the X1 or an older Surface laptop (named, as you might imagine, the TomSurface).
4.2 Storage: the TomServer
My primary storage external to the laptop is a Lenovo ThinkStation P510 also running Microsoft Windows 11 Pro. This machine has 64 Gb of installed memory. The Intel Xeon E5-2690 CPU runs with 14 cores. Although it is a bit dated, the substantial memory and the large number of cores allow me to run virtual machines on this PC without any trouble.
The primary disk is a 1 Tb SSD. For storage, I’ve installed a 4 Tb SSD.
4.3 Storage backup: Synology box
My backup box is a Synology DS220+ with two 3-Tb hard drives installed. The Synology box is secondary to the P510 TomServer. I use FreeFileSync to maintain repositories for my various machines on the TomServer, and then once a week or so, I trigger a routine to copy those repositories to the Synology box. I also run iDrive (an app) on my machines that incrementally backs up changes nightly.
4.4 Linking machines: Tailscale
Tailscale is on almost every machine I operate. Tailscale allows me to easily make connections through my firewalls from near and far. To operate my Olympia, Washington machine from Portland, Oregon, I use Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) over Tailscale. When in Olympia, I can reach my Portland machines the same way.
My Raspberry Pi’s all have Tailscale on them. Even my Synology device has Tailscale. This software has been a tremendous help because I travel so much.
4.5 Network routers
Did I really mean routers, plural? Yes! My main router at home is a GL.iNET GL-MT6000 Flint 2 router. It feels solid. It has been pretty seamless to operate. Sometimes, I activate the VPN I configured on it, helping to protect everyone in the household who is connecting through it. I also run AdGuard Home on it for the same reason.
One of the great things about this router is Tailscale runs on it. That makes it even easier for me to reach into my home network when I’m away.
As a backup router, I have an interesting device called a Linkstar H68K. I wrote about it in May 2024. This unit is not running AdGuard or anything fancy. On those rare occasions I need to bypass some of the filtering on my home network, I simply switch my connection to the Linkstar.
I kept my older TP-Link router as a backup to the backup, just in case something surges and fries some equipment. By the way, I do have most of my networking gear plugged into an APC-brand uninterruptible power supply.
The other piece of home networking that is significant to mention is my use of NextDNS for filtering and for handling my DNS queries.
4.6 Amateur radio communications
Did you notice I did not say radios? That’s because some of my preferred methods don’t involve radio much, at least on my end. My Portland home has truly awful RF interference so I have gravitated toward digital systems. All of my systems are connected to larger systems elsewhere that do have significant RF-related aspects, so to me, these still fall into the realm of amateur radio.
AllStarLink
ASL was the first digital voice medium I adopted in a big way. I have several nodes at home, a couple that can travel with me, and one (node 57945) running on a Vultr cloud server.
DMR
I do have a DMR hotspot and radio that I occasionally fire up and use. I have it if I needed it but I don’t use it very much.
D-STAR
My Icom ID-5100A mobile radio does D-STAR. There just isn’t a lot of D-STAR traffic around me so I generally leave this machine off.
C4FM: RF and WIRES-X
For portables, I primarily use two radios: an FT-3D and an FT-5D. For mobile, I run a Yaesu FTM-300DR radio.
At home, I have a second FTM-300DR running as a WIRES-X Portable Digital Node. This machine is on unless we’re leaving for more than an hour or two.
I also have a hotspot running WPSD that is dedicated to Yaesu System Fusion. The FT-3D and FT-5D play nicely with the hotspot.
I would say that my two most-used digital voice systems are AllStarLink and C4FM. The audio clarity is really helpful, especially as my hearing slowly changes with age.
HF
For HF radio, my stalwart friend is a Yaesu FT-450D. I’ve used it in the shack and for POTA. I also have a Yaesu FT-891 which is certainly more portable than the 450, but I’m more comfortable with the 450.
Meshtastic
I also have several Meshtastic devices. As I learn more about this technology, it spurs my thinking about how it could be used. I’m curious about Meshtastic even though it doesn’t seem to have many uses that align with my radio hobby.
Those are the bits of my tech stack that I touch and use almost every day.
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5. On The Bench…
5.1 Yaesu FTM-300DR power problem
I had a problem with my Yaesu FTM-300DR operating as a mobile in the pickup truck. I would turn it on and 30 seconds later it would go dark. Rinse and repeat, over and over.
It was a very hot day and I thought, well, maybe the control head on the dash is getting too hot, so I moved it off the dash to a shaded part of the air-conditioned interior. That did not fix it.
I checked the antenna connection and it was tight at the antenna and at the radio.
What was left? If it wasn’t internal to the radio, the only likely thing left was power. I move this radio from rig to rig so I use a Powerwerx 12V plug adaptor for power. In this particular adaptor, there is a small screw collar at the tip of the plug that secures the spring-loaded tip. When I inspected it, I saw it was partly unscrewed. Once I screwed that back into place and reinserted the adapter, the radio stopped shutting down.
I know that using a 12V adapter isn’t a robust solution but since I move the radio from rig to rig, it has worked pretty well so far. I suppose it might be better to wire in an Anderson Powerpole pair and use that!
5.2 CoreMP135 by M5STACK
This is an industrial ARM-based device that runs Debian 12. That’s good enough to run AllStarLink, or should be. This little device isn’t much larger than two small matchboxes stacked on top of each other.
There are two operating system images available. One is for controlling devices and the other is a Debian 12 instance that is, unfortunately, limited. I say limited because the root filesystem is quite small. In the M5STACK implementation, the root filesystem is 100% full. I’ve fiddled a bit with fdisk and gdisk, but I think I’m going to have to try to mount the microSD card in a different machine to expand the root filesystem.
Why does this matter? I can run “apt update” as root but there is no room to install any updates. If I don’t have room for updates, I won’t have room to try to shoehorn AllStarLink on board, either.
I am feeling compelled to pull that out of the corner and open it up. I’ll bet some of the capacitors are shot. One reason I wanted to get a Heathkit is the layout likely has plenty of room for me to get in and work on it. If I muck it up, I’m not out much!
5.4 AllStarLink interface from phone patch
I’ve got some other old devices boxed up that I hope to modify someday. One is a Heathkit HD-15 phone patch that I’d like to use as the housing for an AllStarLink node. But as I thought about this little project, I realized that the Kenwood PC-1A Phone Patch Controller already has an 8-pin microphone receptacle so I ordered one in good shape from an eBay seller. It arrived on Monday so I’m including a few photos as my mind starts contemplating how to convert this into an AllStarLink audio interface.
Kenwood phone patch (knife is 3-5/8 inches long)
You can see the 8-pin microphone jack on the left of the photo. That is going to work well with one of my Kenwood MC-60 desk microphones! One of the two knobs will become a volume control. If I can, I’d like to monitor audio level through the monitor gauge, just for fun. I don’t know what to use the other potentiometer for. I welcome your ideas!
While I was at it, I opened up the box. Everything looks nice and clean inside. The 8-pin microphone connector looks to be in great shape. One rheostat is easy to turn and one is more resistant. I need to think about where to put an indicator LED on the front panel.
Kenwood PC-1A phone patch interior
A quick swipe with a lightly dampened microfiber cloth cleaned up the front panel enough to show this device is in “good enough” cosmetic condition for this project.
Kenwood PC-1A phone patch with front panel wiped clean
I’m not thinking of keeping the phone patch functionality so at this time, removing the board seems likely. There is plenty of room in the case for a CM108 USB fob, a small amplifier, and more. The rheostat on the back panel (missing the knob) could be removed and a headphone/speaker jack mounted there. The USB cable that goes to my physical node (a Dell Wyse 3040 thin client, a Raspberry Pi, or a mini PC) can come out the back panel where the existing cable passes through.
I have a couple of CM108 fobs coming from the U.K. around the end of the month. I chose to go this route because I’ve destroyed several CM108 devices while trying to solder the one very fine wire to one leg of the IC chip. Rather than go through that frustration again, I thought I’d try a CM108 that someone else has soldered. Fingers crossed.
Turning this into a sound interface for my AllStarLink desktop node should be a fun little build. I’m obviously starting to dream a bit about it!
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6. Tech Trivia: Drones Splash Down
I saw the headline and had to read the article because once upon a time, I almost lost a drone in a lake:
Fifty-five of 200 drones losing their GPS lock seems suspicious. But what piqued my interest was the drones operating over water. I had an incident two years ago where my DJI drone was hovering over the surface of a lake, and I lost control of the aircraft.
Later, I learned that not only does my drone use GPS for positioning, but it also uses the view of the surface below it. I think the lightly rippled surface, moving from the light breeze and reflecting the bright sun, confused the drone. When I told it to return home, it did nothing. When I tried to pilot it back to the dock, it went away from the dock. When I piloted away from the dock, it went farther away.
I was stumped and pretty worried because I had no control.
Finally, I turned off my controller and then turned it back on. That forced a new connection with the drone and about 30 seconds later I had control again. The drone still couldn’t find home but at least I could pilot it back to land for a safe landing.
I don’t know what happened with the SeaTac drones but losing control of a drone is not unusual. I’m glad no people were injured and no property was damaged.
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7. Closing
Well, not much RF-based radio is in this issue. I had wanted to report success on the proof-of-concept installation of an AllStarLink node on a virtual machine to a cloud server. There is more work to be done on that topic!
Hopefully, I’ll have a bit more on traditional radio in the next issue (issue 100 on July 26, 2024).
7.1 Future test of two consumer radios
I expect to have a couple of XHDATA radios in hand soon to review. One is D-608WB emergency weather radio. I’m looking forward to giving it a try. The other radio is not listed yet on the XHDATA website: the D-220. Here is what their rep said about the D-220:
XHDATA is planning to release a new portable D-220 radio. The D-220 radio has good reception performance and excellent listening sound quality. Not only does it receive the FM/MW/SW bands, but it will be surprisingly good value
XHDATA also describes the D-200 as a “high performance global band radio” with DSP.
The two radios are coming from China so I don’t really expect them to arrive before August.
7.2 Enjoying my virtual machine AllStarLink node
I'm really enjoying my AllStarLink node 588411 in a virtual machine on my home server. Node 588411 is currently connected to node 289802, and that node is connected to XLX303 C. (Check out the XLX303 dashboard.) XLX303 C is the WIRES-X node for Olympic Mountain Digital, and that is code for the repeater in my “home” community put up by Jeff N7NEE.
Locally, node 588411 is connected to my Cisco SPA525G SIP phone. To connect, I hit my speed dial button and hear the phone announce the connection to 588411. Then I pull up AllScan and connect to node 289802.
This morning, I heard Ben AB7I and Gary AC7VA in crystal clear audio. This is truly amazing technology.
7.3 Personal: I bought a new scooter
On a more personal note, I just bought a BMW C 400 GT scooter. This is a single-cylinder scoot that can run on the freeway but is happier around town. I have a 2008 Suzuki Burgman 650 that has carried me many thousands of miles around the Pacific Northwest but it has grown too long in the tooth to depend on. The BMW is loaded with technology so my learning curve right now is very steep. The bike, and my helmet, have Bluetooth, so I’m starting to noodle on how to add a ham radio to this package. It would be a blast to have some QSOs while motorcycling!
BMW C 400 GT scooter
Why did I include this? Because our conversations are better when we learn a little bit about each other.
I got this short review from my friend, Mike, K8XF. Mike is a former ships radio electronics officer, a great CW operator, and has a collection of dozens of straight keys, paddles, and bugs. Recently, he purchased a CT-73MX from Yury, UR5CDX, and I asked him to do a short review. As you’ll see, he highly recommends this key.
The CT-73MX from Yury, UR5CDX.
I enjoy using well built paddles that wont move around your desk. If you do as well, consider the CT-73MX from Yury, UR5CDX. This Ukrainian paddle has a square base and is chrome plated. I chose this model because it is heavier than the brass model. The plating is excellent, and this paddle can be adjusted for sending easily.
This paddle is not as expensive ($178) as a Begali and is built very well. For an additional charge, you can have your call inscribed on a small plate placed on top of the base in front of the paddle. I did not do that.
Yury makes several other models, so be sure to visit his website. His QTH is in the center of Ukraine and so far has not been hit by Russian drones. Yury ships all orders via Poland due to the war. Via Poland, it took over three weeks to receive this paddle.
Black-A-Tor Copse National Nature ReserveMany thanks to Lee (M0VKR) who shares the following field report and video: A QRP CW POTA Adventure on Black-a-Tor by Lee (M0VKR) It was another sunny morning when my wife Joanne and I set off for a new mini adventure. Our destination was Black-a-Tor on Dartmoor, Devon, a scenic location ideal for … Continue reading Lee’s QRP CW POTA Adventure on Black-a-Tor→
My Parks on the Air Activities - NOT about "The Numbers"
Parks on the Air has never been about numbers for me. I became aware of Parks on the Air (POTA) in June 2021. This was during the height of the COVID pandemic. At that time I was recovering from surgery and treatment for liver failure and treatment for Bladder cancer. My body's ability to fight any type of infection was basically non-existent, so social distancing was a MUST for me. I was not going to totally isolate myself from the world by staying indoors, knowing how vital exercise, fresh air and mental stimulus was vital to my recovery. Parks on the Air has been the BEST medicine for me over the last 3 years. I've been able to combine bicycling with my Ham Radio activities as part of my health treatment plan. What a great combination.
Lewis & Clark National Historical Trail Along the banks of the Ohio River at Waterfront Park Louisville, KY. USA
POTA is not about the numbers for me. Oh, I've had a few failed POTA activations over the years; but it is no big deal. WHY? Because I've been able to meet so many people; in part due to my ham radio POTA activities. I've met current and former teachers, current and retired nurses, doctors and other medical professionals, current and former military personnel, a retired Federal Judge, Boy and Girl Scout leaders along with kids from Scout Troops, inquisitive children, Nature and Wildlife conservationists and park staff, countless animals, dogs, cats, minks, river otters, deer, snakes, frogs, coyotes, giraffes, hawks, ducks, turtles, wild turkeys, aircraft pilots, other hams who've been inactive, numerous sunrises and sunsets, operating at night, and more than anything; thousands of other hams who've I been able to contact and some who've visited; like Ed / W4EMB, Marcos / K8ARE and Doug / N6UA.
Recently, I had one of several QSOs with a man I like to call "The POTA LEGEND", Bob Voss / N4CD.
During Hamvention 2022, Charlie "Red" / NJ7V got a chance to talk with Bob who at that time was one of the activation leaders for Parks on the Air (2022) Below is a link to that interview;
When I have contacts like those with Bob and other operators who I regularly communicate with and those operators who are NEW to CW pedaling along at 10 WPM, I get excited as that little kid who was introduced to the hobby in the mid 50's.
One of my other cherished Parks on the Air activations came about amazingly unexpected when I was calling CQ and got HUGE greeting from an associate of a park visitor.
I've come to understand that with my Parks on the Air activities in an urban setting, I never know what to expect.
Here's a short slideshow of some of the things I've experienced during my Parks on the Air activities. After watching; you may have a better understanding why for me, "Its NOT about the NUMBERS"
Earlier this afternoon, I looked out my office window and noticed that something didn’t look quite right. For one thing, there was an odd shadow on the office window. So, I put on some shoes and went out to investigate.
What I found was that my cobra antenna had come down. Further investigation showed that the problem was with the end insulator. After being up in the air for nearly nine years, it just gave out. I’d say that nine years is decent service life for an insulator made from a Dollar Store cutting board.
As a temporary fix, I think that I’m going to stick the support rope through the hole at the bottom of the photo and get it back up in the air while I ponder how to replace it. Any ideas for the type of material that I should use?
If you listened to the latest Ham Radio Workbench Podcast episode–our Field Day Debrief–you will have heard that my Field Day was a pretty low-key event. Originally, I had hoped to fly out to Oregon and hang with my friend George (KJ6VU) and his radio club, but there were just too many family activities happening … Continue reading Field Day: It’s all about the audio…→
Last fall, under the aegis of Ham Radio Village, I was awarded a grant to take my one-day Tech class on the road. Ham Radio Village believes that more people in technical fields should have amateur radio licenses and that amateur radio is underrepresented in the hacker, STEM/STEAM, and maker communities. Currently, there is little outreach to these communities about the benefits of amateur radio in their fields.
Enter the “ham radio evangelist.” In October of 2o23, we applied for and were awarded an $18,000 grant to reach out beyond the boundaries of traditional amateur radio communities, including scientific, engineering, hacker, maker, and STEM/STEAM focused conferences where attendees might have an interest in amateur radio (e.g., DEFCON, GRCon, Maker Faire, IEEE Communications Conference).
This grant provides funding to both educate these communities about amateur radio and to streamline the process of obtaining an amateur radio license. If accepted, HRV will give a talk about amateur radio, teach a one-day Technician Class license course, and offer a Volunteer Examiner test session at an event. These activities will provide these new hams with a lifelong hobby that aligns with their professional and technical interests. And, it will also enable these new hams to bring their experiences and ideas to amateur radio, thereby advancing the hobby.
HOPE couldn’t have gone any better
HOPE XV was the first event at which we evangelized ham radio. In my mind, it couldn’t have gone any better.
On Friday, I gave a talk entitled “Ham Radio for Hackers.” (Click here to see the slides.) I wandered in about 10 minutes before the talk was to start at 1:00 pm. There were already so many people there that I thought I was in the wrong room.
Adding to my confusion, was the fact that the slide announcing the previous talk was still up on the screen. I turned around and started heading out, but caught myself before I left the room. This had to be the place, and indeed it was.
In the talk, I explained some of the basics of amateur radio, discussed some of the projects that radio amateurs are currently hacking on, and then how to get a hacking, errrr ham radio license. I probably could have gone into a little more depth on some of the projects, but in general, I think that the talk was very well-received.
Tech class yields 25 new hams
On Saturday, I held my one-day Tech class. I was concerned that attendance would be poor because:
They scheduled the class on Saturday, and there were lots of other interesting talks being held that day.
They scheduled the class to start at 10:30 am, which could have thrown off my timing.
As it turned out, the class went really well. The students asked lots of questions—which caused the class to run about an hour longer than usual—but they were all good questions. 25 hackers passed the test and got their licenses. There were some failures, but it’s unclear whether those people were in the class or not. We invited anyone to show up at 5:00 pm and take the test, whether they were in the class or not. I’m going to claim that 100% of the students passed the test.
I can say that all those who passed the test were very excited that they did. Many of them came up to me after the class and thanked me. I can also say that this group was much younger than normal. I’m guessing that there were only two students over the age of 50. There was a good number of women, too. I counted at least six women.
I really want to thank the VE team. Without them, this couldn’t have happened. They were:
Seth, N2SPG
Nicole, AD2IM
Ed, N2XDD
Grant, W4KEK
Vlad, AF7QV
A great start
I think that this is a great start to the ham radio evangelist program. Not only did we license 25 new hams, they all seem very interested in the hobby.
I also talked to a lot of different people about the program. One fellow, a young guy working with the Philadelphia Maker Faire, invited me to contact him about doing a class next spring.
So, onward and upward! I think the hackers at HOPE are just the kind of people we want to get into the hobby. They’re young and interested in hacking ham radio. It will be fun to see what they can do.
This weekend was the IARU HF World Championship
contest and I was planning to participate. This is one of my favourite
contests. I made sure the software was all set up correctly before the weekend.
In setting up the hardware I didn't get around to setting up the foot pedal
and headset interface for voice contacts and I was only interested in CW
contacts anyway, so that didn't matter much to me.
I participated in the 10, 15 and 20 meter bands. In total I made 112 contacts,
indeed all in morse. 3 on the 10 meter band, 46 on the 15 meter band and 63
on the 20 meter band. To me propagation wasn't cooperating very well.
This is the reason I kept to search and pounce and did not try calling CQ.
The results according to my contestlogger tlf:
According to the log submission site: Raw Score: 302 Qpts x 47 Mults = 14,194 (112 QSOs).
I checked the difference in scoring between tlf and the scoring site: this
has to do with the counting of QSO points: contacts with one of the special
stations such as HQ stations or an IARU official counts as one QSO point,
even on a different continent. I have several HQ stations in the log and one
IARU official.
Looking at other contest plugins for tlf it should be possible to write a
plugin that does the scoring for the IARU-HF contest right by dealing with
all the one point cases.
For my own DX score I scored Alaska as a new entity (and US state). I hope that
one gets confirmed! I also have another station in Kosovo in morse in the log,
so maybe I will finally get that country confirmed in morse on LoTW.
by Teri (KO4WFP) After a five week break from POTA, it was time to get back in the game! I leave for my North Carolina camping/POTA trip Sunday, July 14th and frankly miss being out on an activation. To remedy that situation, Monday, July 8th, I headed to Tuckahoe Wildlife Management Area (WMA), POTA park … Continue reading Back in the Game for the POTA Babe→
I’ve been delving into the interesting world of Meshtastic of late, on the 868MHz as this is where most of the activity is in the north east of England.
Thankfully it looks like there is a now UK provider of RAKwireless components but prior to that I’ve been hitting up Aliexpress for the various boards.
While perusing I noticed a Solar Enclosure with integrated antenna which I thought I’d grab and try out.
Many thanks to Doug (KO4WDE) for sharing the following guest post: POTA and FBLA by Doug (KO4WDE) I have recently found myself fully immersed in the world of Future Business Leaders of America, as my wife is the chapter leader for the middle school where we teach. She started the program with just a handful … Continue reading Guest Post: Combining POTA with an FBLA national competition road trip!→
I wanted to take a few minutes to give an update on the repeater projects, since another month has rolled over. As a refresher for those not in the know - the repeater that I run died not long ago (I wrote about that here.)
When that happened a couple very kind individuals donated some money to help out, I started an official fund-raiser to fund repairing my machine, and some others as well, and I also opened up a shop selling merchandise to raise money for the same effort.
So first of all, the plugs - support some repeaters financially, or with donations of equipment, or by connecting an existing repeater to the Pride Network. Donations of cash, or commitments to connect existing repeaters to the Pride Network have the biggest and fastest impact!
if donations aren’t your bag, Buy some cool stuff to support the projects - the margins are smaller, but walking around town, going to club meetings, or heading out to a hamfest, while wearing the swag helps bring more attention to the effort, so can be very impactful in the long run!
On with the Update
First - the financial bit. We’ve got a couple hundred dollars socked away towards our stretch goal of acquiring a Yeasu DR2X via the Yeasu repeater program. if less than 10% of the folx who follow me on Mastodon donate 5 dollars each, or each purchase a clothing item from the shop, we’ll make the goal so…
I also wanted to share the update on what is currently on the air serving as the N3VEM repeater, since goal 1 in the effort was to just scrounge together whatever I could, really fast, to get back on the air. It’s nothing fancy, but it has us operational in the meantime. What I scrounged together was essentially a pair of Kenwood TK-840 mobile radios that I already had, the small notch-type duplexer out of the dead repeater, the small PC that was running Allstar for the dead repeater, and a new RIM-Lite interface from Repeater Builder to allow me to use the PC and the Allstar software as the repeater controller.
Goal 2
While we haven’t quite reached the $ level for milestone 2, We are likely staged for success there, thanks to a recent ham-fest haul - I was looking at a Motorola repeater that a radio shop was getting rid of. The folx said it would be good for GMRS but they couldn’t promise it would work down to the Ham Bands, so they’d give it to me for $40. I’ve been considering putting a GMRS repeater on the air for family use anyway, so I figured why not for that money. In the interest of them wanting to pack up for the day, while talking they said they’d throw in a couple Kenwood UHF TKR-820 repeaters for free, since they weren’t having luck selling them. This model is old, and programming can be finicky, but for free, we can likely make it work. I also bumped into someone who works for that radio shop, who is willing to give me a direct replacement for my dead GR1225, so all I need to do is make arrangements with him to pick that up. So between the 2 Kenwoods, the Motorola that might tune down to the ham bands, and the promised GR1225, we’ll be able to get a proper used machine back on the air if nothing else.
My dead GR1225, and one of the newly acquired Kenwood’s:
A second Kenwood, and a Motorola CDR500 sitting on a shelf in my utility space:
Goal 3
This is the big goal! essentially raise a minimum of $700 to allow me to use that plus pitching in some of my own cash out of pocket to get a proper, modern repeater on the air. Did I mention that donations or shop purchases will help with that?!
Milestone 2
Milestone two, the KJ7OMO Repeater, officially begins in September, but with the recent haul of equipment we should be off to a good start. At a bare minimum, I should be able to package up my current temporary machine into a nice little 4U or so sized box, and get it, along with a new antenna and some coax, shipped out to her to get her machine back up and running. I’m hoping though to be able to do something a bit better than that, depending on how this equipment and future donations work out.
Milestone 3
While nothing official has been decided, I’ll probably start looking in ernest into what comes next while we’re working on the KJ7OMO machine this fall. Again, it depends on how the equipment and donations work out, but I suspect one of these current machines can serve as the basis for whatever this ends up being. The NR7WL club has an Allstar node set up, connected to the pride network already, so something I’ve floated with the club already was that it might be nice to find a place to put up one of these machines so that that node has an RF side as well - TBD!
Anyway, that’s the update for now! Thanks for stopping by!
Zero Retries is an independent newsletter promoting technological innovation that is occurring in Amateur Radio, and Amateur Radio as (literally) a license to experiment with and learn about radio technology. Now in its third fourth year of publication, with 1800 1900+ subscribers. Radios are computers - with antennas!
Pacificon 2024 in San Ramon, California, USA on 2024-10-18 thru 20 in 14 weeks. Tina KD7WSF and I plan to attend Pacificon 2024 (which makes it “major” to us).
Glancing at one of the many obscure status pages for Zero Retries in Substack - Audience Insights, this statement got my attention:
Location
Zero Retries is read across 49 US states and 58 countries.
49 states??? I clicked into that section to find out who the holdout state was, and actually there are several Zero Retries “holdout” states (have no Zero Retries subscribers):
Alaska
Mississippi
New Hampshire
New Mexico
North Dakota
South Carolina
Vermont
Wyoming
I’m a bit skeptical of this metric, given that Substack only knows about email addresses and IP addresses when you read or click on an issue of Zero Retries. “Registration” with personal identifying information, like address, isn’t required for subscribing to Zero Retries.
Still, if you know of a co-conspirator that might be interested in Zero Retries, located in the Zero Retries holdout states, please put in a good word for Zero Retries 😄.
“According to these stats”, the most popular state for Zero Retries (14%) is California. Washington and Oregon are tied for second most popular state - 8% for each of them.
Worldwide, Zero Retries is still pretty obscure, though it’s making some inroads, with one subscriber each in:
Argentina
Chile
Hungary
Norway
Romania
South Africa
South Korea
Sweden
Switzerland
Again, these stats are highly suspect; despite a subscriber count of 1800+, per this report there are 275 subscribers in the US. And no subscribers in Peru - bummer! The map was skewed to the point where I couldn’t find several countries despite browsing the cursor in the areas where I know some small countries are located.
But it was kind of fun to look at this.
Thank you again, Zero Retries subscribers!
Beginning the Fourth Year of Zero Retries - With 1900+ Subscribers!
I once read a story1 about Steve Jobs that when he became CEO of Apple (again), he was checking out his new offices and came across a closet full of older Apple units that were being saved for an eventual on-premise Apple Museum. The story goes that Jobs told his assistant to get rid of them, donate them somewhere. The memorable part of that story, to me, is that Jobs reportedly said that “If you look backwards in this industry, you’ll get run over” (or “you’ll get killed”, or something to that effect).
I thought about that pearl of wisdom from Jobs this week as I approached the 3 year anniversary of Zero Retries (2nd Friday of July) and am now faced with how to deal with the legacy of securing hundreds of issues of Zero Retries into archival form. I was discussing with a trusted advisor to Zero Retries on how best, and most efficiently, to secure those past issues issues into a permanent archival form, safe from the vagaries of Substack. I felt like Jobs did upon seeing that closet full of computers; time spent dealing with the Zero Retries archive is time away from creating new material for Zero Retries, and of course the fun of Amateur Radio activities. But unlike Jobs, creating archives of Zero Retries is a unique task that falls to me (though the trusted advisor suggested outsourcing this task).
I don’t have any profound insights to offer for Zero Retries having been in continuous weekly publication for three years now; just a few minor insights.
The first is that I periodically need to emphasize to Zero Retries readers that most of what I’m writing about in Zero Retries is largely exposing technological innovation in Amateur Radio that others are doing that isn’t being reported on elsewhere. I periodically offer some of my own thoughts about technological innovation that I’d like to see Amateur Radio go in… but beyond Zero Retries, my contributions to technological innovation in Amateur Radio are pretty modest. There have been a few surprises, such as Mark Herbert G1LRO creating an Amateur Radio Data Appliance that I only imagined:
Embedded computer with a minimal display for status / health / troubleshooting
Networking required to for remote access via “household” network (not Internet)
Most of all, cabling to interconnect all of the above
And, as you’ll read, I had actually imagined something vaguely like Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications (DLARC), but I did not imagine the scope of what DLARC has become, and how wonderful it is to have DLARC as a publicly accessible resource.
Although I had nothing to do with the creation of Open Source in Amateur Radio wiki, l had imagined and written briefly that such a directory was needed to be able to easily locate existing Amateur Radio Open Source projects to lessen the “reinventing the wheel” issue of creating multiple implementations of the same system. I had advocated for funding such a thing with a grant or direct involvement of ARDC, but that went nowhere, and this project is simply a better realization of my idea.
All that said, I do have some plans for doing a little of my own technological innovation in Amateur Radio that I hope to make a bit more real during Summer 2024.
When I began Zero Retries, I had a lingering fear that I would run out of interesting material to report on. I began with a substantial queue of interesting things to write about, but I wasn’t sure what would happen when I emptied that queue 🤣 - would there still be interesting things continuing to occur that I could keep Zero Retries going? This actually happened two decades ago with my Digital Wireless column in CQ Magazine. I actually did run out of things to talk at times, which caused friction with CQ’s editor about missed deadlines. The good news is that in the 2020s, the rate of technological innovation in Amateur Radio is such that the queue has kept growing, not reducing. The bad news is that caused the opposite problem to what I feared - there are too many things to write about, with not quite enough time and never enough space in Zero Retries as an email newsletter.
Another minor insight is that I now have confidence that I can sustain a weekly publication schedule, being able to say something of substance about technological innovation occurring in Amateur Radio.
Yet another minor insight is that I must be doing something right given the subscriber count keeps growing - now at 1900+. When I began Zero Retries, I did not imagine that level of interest; I only imagined perhaps a few hundred subscribers would share my specific interests in Amateur Radio… but apparently I didn’t dream big enough.
Speaking of “Dreaming Bigger”…
I have some short term plans for the Zero Retries ecosystem:
My book - Zero Retries Guide to Amateur Radio in the 21st Century is still in progress. I recently discovered an interesting service that can publish a book online (beyond a simple PDF on a website) that might speed up my progress to allow posting incremental updates (chapters) as I complete them.
I’ve been threatening to create an email list on groups.io for Zero Retries, and that is now imminent.The first tranche of invitations will go out to the paid subscribers as a Thank You for their financial support of Zero Retries. Eventually the Zero Retries email list will be opened to all Zero Retries subscribers. My idea is to post the headlines / links there each week and let the discussions between subscribers commence in a more interactive, easy to access system. The Comments section of Zero Retries on Substack has proven problematic for a lot of folks who don’t want to “get involved” in Substack’s ecosystem for various reasons (and I don’t blame them). I also plan to offer “requests for comments” for upcoming articles in Zero Retries in which I invite folks to contribute ideas and background on subjects that I need help in understanding. Zero Retries can sometimes come across as a “one man show” but believe me, I lean heavily on advice and expertise of others when I’m trying to understand and explain a deeply technical subject on Zero Retries.
Kay Savetz K6KJN and I have decided to do a podcast called Store and Forward. We conspired that we can offer a unique combination of looking back at Amateur Radio (from the perspective of DLARC) - “Store” and the future of Amateur Radio (from the perspective of Zero Retries) - “Forward”. The prototype episode of Store and Forward is online in DLARC. Initially (Summer 2024) we’ll be recording biweekly. The longer term logistics - website, podcast feed, etc. will be worked out. Both K6KJN and I have busy summer plans (some intense travel ahead for K6KJN, as you’ll read) and I just have a lot of catching up to do in N8GNJ Labs to take advantage of the summer weather interlude between the Whatcom Winds / Monsoon Rains seasons. Thus the publication schedule of Store and Forward might be a little irregular initially.
Using DLARC, Amateur Radio Operators are Resurrecting Technical Ideas from the Past, Using 21st Century Tech
I recently wrote a brief note of thanks for the existence of DLARC within the Internet Archive to Brewster Kahle, Founder and Board Chair of Internet Archive:
I just wanted to drop a note to you and IA in general as a Thanks for creating and maintaining the Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications within IA.
DLARC has proven to be an absolute godsend of archival information for Amateur Radio (despite the stubborn resistance of the ARRL… which I’m working on). One of the most valuable aspects of DLARC is reading about technologies and projects that were mere dreams or not-quite-successful decades ago that can be realized now with current technology such as cheap embedded processors and FPGAs and Software Defined Radio technology.
I use DLARC multiple times per week… and contribute to it regularly, working with Kay Savetz to periodically send in material from my Amateur Radio collection that DLARC doesn’t already have.
Kahle replied and wondered if my “dreams” perspective might be expanded into a post on the Internet Archive blog, and I agreed.
One of my favorite ways to use the DLARC (nearly 120,000 items now, and still growing) is to re-explore ideas that were proposed or attempted in Ham Radio, but for various reasons, didn’t quite become mainstream. Typically, the technology of earlier eras simply wasn’t up to some proposed ideas. But, with the technology of the 2020s such as cheap, powerful computers and software defined radio technology, many old ideas can be reexamined with perhaps succeed in becoming mainstream now. The problem has been that much of the source material for such “reimagining” has been languishing in file cabinets or bookcases of Ham Radio Operators like me, with nowhere to go. With the grant, IA could hire a dedicated archivist and began receiving, scanning, hosting, and aggregating electronic versions of old Ham Radio material.
Kahle noticed the post, and commented:
You are most welcome– thanks to ARDC, DLARC has been a huge success for other reasons as well: a possible model for other communities.
Kay has made this a success, I believe, because he is both a knowledgeable ham community member, and embedded at the Internet Archive (he has the tech and social chops to get things through our internal processes).
This is a first for us– and hopefully a model for archives to come.
Thank you ARDC, Kay, and ham community.
I agree wholeheartedly - while ARDC provided the funding with a grant, and IA had the infrastructure to host DLARC… K6KJN has made DLARC a success.
Not Much Zero Retries Interesting Reported from HAM RADIO 2024
I’m surprised that not much that was Zero Retries Interesting was reported out of HAM RADIO 2024 which concluded 2024-06-30, at least that I’m aware of. No new Zero Retries Interesting products, or Zero Retries Interesting new vendors, etc. Admittedly I haven’t watched the walkthrough videos that have been posted (they’re queued up in a too-deep queue of videos to watch), but I would have thought that there would be some exciting developments reported. If I missed something, please Zero Retries readers, let me know so I can share it here in Zero Retries.
Another 21st Century Telecommunications Option for N8GNJ Labs?
Most of the summer, Northwest Washington where we live is blessed by a mild summer climate, so we mostly sleep with the windows open to the fresh cool air overnight. One morning last week we awoke to hearing some voices in a small group on the edge of our property. To my delight, the voices turned out to be a survey crew from Ziply Fiber who apparently is considering bringing in fiber to our neighborhood and down our private street.
In contrast, Comcast’s infrastructure in our neighborhood is solely serviced by “well aged coaxial cable” with a fiber / coax transition well outside the neighborhood. A neighbor was experiencing significant issues with their Comcast service and reported to me that Comcast would constantly play the “reset your router and in 10 minutes it should be OK” game, replacing the router, etc. - everything to forestall sending out a technician who discovered that a previous technician had disconnected the first neighbor’s coax to bring a new neighbor online whose house previously didn’t have Comcast service. Thus switching to Starlink for my household was a relief from the vagaries of Comcast “service” over “well aged coaxial cable”.
If Ziply Fiber does become available on my street (I’ve heard of Ziply not actually deploying fiber as promised), that’s going to be a tough decision not to opt for that, if for nothing else than greatly improved uplink speeds beyond what Starlink is capable of given that I eventually plan to do video production. But it’s possible Starlink might tinker with their service plans with a more affordable price than the current $120/month for unlimited usage. I’d happily accept a transfer cap for mostly standby (or solely Amateur Radio) use for a lower price such as the $30/month Starlink currently charges for use of the new Starlink Mini user terminal.
The Random Wire Newsletter (and now Podcasts!) - Zero Retries Interesting, and Recommended
I’ve recommended The Random Wire newsletter (and now, podcasts!) in Zero Retries and would like to do so again here. Tom Salzer KJ7T is doing a stellar job exploring various aspects of Amateur Radio that I simply don’t get around to, or have much depth to offer, here in Zero Retries. One example is KJ7T’s regular coverage of radio hotspots for Amateur Radio Over Internet such as AllStarLink, covered so well that instead of trying to cover that subject in Zero Retries2, I’ll defer to KJ7T’s much better knowledge of the subject, and his constant experimentation with different aspects of Amateur Radio Over Internet.
I’ve said before that I probably wouldn’t have started Zero Retries if the stuff I’m interested in was covered adequately in other Amateur Radio media. The Random Wire is an excellent example of exactly that - covering subjects I’m interested in so well that I can just read it (enjoyably) and learn from it instead of having to research it to write about it. I’ve also been enjoying KJ7T’s foray into podcasting, following his adventures with microphones, recording, etc. Given our geographic proximity, I hope to meet up with KJ7T face to face sometime this summer. I think that if you enjoy the subject material in Zero Retries, you’ll find ample Zero Retries Interesting material in The Random Wire and I recommend that all Zero Retries subscribers also subscribe to The Random Wire.
Image courtesy of Internet Archive / Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications
What’s New at Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications - July 2024
By Kay Savetz K6KJN
Greetings from DLARC World Headquarters, which has three big things going for it: a fast Internet connection, air conditioning, and cats to pet. In the past few weeks, I’ve added a wide variety of ham radio material to DLARC. Here’s a peek at some of it.
The DX Bulletin (TDXB) was written and published by Jim Cain, K1TN. He published 324 issues from 1979 to 1986. He scanned the entire run — about 1500 pages — years ago. The scans have been hosted by The Yasme Foundation, a non-profit that conducts scientific and educational projects related to amateur radio. Mr. Cain and Ward Silver of The Yasme Foundation agreed it would be a good idea to make the newsletters available at DLARC as well. Mr. Cain told me that in retrospect, the name The DX Bulletin was too generic — many other publications have had similar names over the years — and maybe he should have titled it “Jim Cain's Weekly DX Screed.” By any name, it’s a fascinating read and DLARC is better for its inclusion.
Cain is also the author of the book “YASME, The Danny Weil and Colvin Radio Expeditions” which is now downloadable from DLARC with his permission. From the back-of-book blurb: "This is the history of three travelers spanning the birth of YASME — the boat that carried young sailor Danny Weil on his first voyages beginning in 1954 — and the lives of famed ham radio DXpeditioners Lloyd and Iris Colvin.”
DLARC has added 217 issues of the “Blown Fuse” newsletter from the East Bay Amateur Radio Club out of El Cerrito, California. Some of them were PDFs on their web site. For the older issues that were only available on paper, the club lent us a hefty stack of newsletters to scan, some of which go all the way back to 1964. We’ve also added 113 issues of the Minnesota Amateur Radio Technical Society newsletter. The 12-year-old group is based in Minnetonka, MN.
Sometimes a simple newsletter donation turns into a whole little project. California Historical Radio Society donated, and we scanned, 35 issues of Spark Gap Times, which was the newsletter of the Old, Old Timer's Club. That organization started in 1947. At the time, the requirement for membership was proof of two-way communication by wireless 40 or more years prior to 1947. I can only assume that specific requirement was relaxed as the years passed.
The OOTC web site is gone now (replaced by a spammy ad for a sportsbook) and I guess that the organization is now defunct. The OOTC site’s last capture in the Wayback Machine was just this May. So I scoured the site in Wayback, found another 44 issues of Spark Gap Times, and added those to the collection too. Thanks to the California Historical Radio Society for the donation of those first 35 issues which started me down this rabbit hole.
Here’s a special treat for our esteemed editor, Steve Stroh: last year he donated three issues of the Texas Packet Radio Society “Quarterly Report” newsletter. TPRS was devoted to radio digital communications, and the creators of TexNet, a wireline/wireless hybrid networking project. Based on their site in The Wayback Machine, the group lasted from roughly 1996 to 2003ish. I scrounged 15 more newsletter issues from their Wayback’d web site and created the TPRS Quarterly Report newsletter collection. If you have more issues in any format, please let me know.
I was sorry to learn that Allen Katz K2UYH died in June. Katz was the publisher of 432 And Above EME News, and was a professor of electrical and computer engineering at The College of New Jersey. I am grateful that he gave permission to archive his newsletter in DLARC before he passed.
Somehow I’ve managed to write almost entirely about newsletters so far. Moving on to other topics.
DLARC has added all 99 episodes of the Ham Radio 360 podcast. This podcast ran from 2014-2018: it was a bi-weekly show created “for the new guy” hosted by Cale Nelson K4CDN. (Nelson recently launched a new podcast called PrepComms.)
Software Defined Radio Academy is an annual conference, since 2015, that covers all aspects of SDR. The hosts have done an admirable job of recording their conference’s presentations over the years, and now those talks are archived in DLARC.
Meanwhile, the Internet Archive’s scanning centers have been hard at work scanning thousands of magazines and books, which can be checked out using controlled digital lending in the DLARC Library. It would be folly to try to list them all, but I encourage you to browse around and see what’s new. Of particular note are many books and journals about microwave communications, which were a generous donation from the family of James Beyer W9ADJ, who was a specialist in that field.
If you’ll permit me a paragraph about a personal project that’s only tangentially ham radio related: I found, recovered and digitized 53 episodes of “The Famous Computer Cafe”, a radio show about home computers that was broadcast from 1983-1985. The hosts interviewed many of the big tech names of the day: Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Apple’s Bill Atkinson, Atari VP James Copland, author Timothy Leary, author Douglas Adams, and more. From the news segments to the commercials, the shows are a perfect time capsule of the world of home computers in that era. One of the interviewees is Steve Roberts, a ham radio operator. From 1983 to 1991, he explored the United States on a computerized, radio-equipped recumbent bicycle named BEHEMOTH.
Next week I’ll be leaving the cats and climate-controlled comfort of DLARC World Headquarters for Denver Colorado to retrieve pallets of material from the estate of Bob Cooper. Bob was an expert in satellite and cable TV communications, and publisher of Coops Satellite Digest. I already have a little start of a Bob Cooper collection in DLARC, but there’s sure to be much more in the coming months as we begin to process and digitize what I find in Denver.
Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications is funded by a grant from Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC) to create a free digital library for the radio community, researchers, educators, and students. If you have questions about the project or material to contribute, contact me at kay@archive.org.
Editor’s Note - K6KJN is too modest to mention this in this month’s column (which is intended to highlight new material in DLARC), but unlike DLARC, the work of digitizing the 53 episodes of “The Famous Computer Cafe” (and potentially additional episodes should they be located), is privately funded, with some reimbursement from a successful GoFundMe campaign (donations currently closed). There’s more detail about the rescue of TFCC there. Kudos to K6KJN for rescuing these treasures.
Bits Oughta Be Just Bits
By Steve Stroh N8GNJ
Some thoughts about the ideal interoperability of digital voice and data in Amateur Radio.
Digital repeaters are easier, and work better, than analog repeaters
I’m on an email list where the technical details of Amateur Radio repeaters are discussed… at times in excruciating technical detail. The discussion that inspired this article was about the minutiae required to keep a repeater signal and audio path absolutely “clean” for good retransmitted radio signal and good audio, including knowing about external factors that can influence the repeater’s signal quality - down into the weeds to the point of debating the relative merits of different types of coaxial cable connectors.
I’m not disparaging the concepts being discussed or the folks making offering the minutiae. But it struck me in reading the discussion that to a large extent, most of those details largely become moot if the repeater was operating as a digital system rather than analog (FM).
Disclaimer - Yes, I am acutely aware that one cannot entirely ignore the analog aspects of radio transmission. While digital systems can overcome some aspects of interference, or noise, or other radio issues… “making it digital” is certainly not a “cure all” for significant radio system issues such as major antenna and feedline issues.
In my highly inexpert opinion, almost all of the issues of the discussion I was following would simply not be an issue if that system were digital, largely because of the presence of Forward Error Correction (FEC) in modern digital radio systems. Minor noise issues on analog systems that are annoying to the point of the system being unusable (un-listenable) are simply not an issue with digital systems.
One of the most elegant digital techniques I know for Amateur Radio digital repeaters is the idea of receiving a digital signal and then applying bit regeneration at the repeater. which permits the transmitted signal from the repeater to be perfect, even if the signal received at the repeater wasn’t perfect. (Yes, I understand that there’s a threshold beyond which the FEC cannot help.) I featured an excellent article about bit regeneration in Zero Retries 0147 - Advantages of a Bit-Regenerating Repeater for Local Area Networks that explains the concept well, despite predating the now-common use of FEC.
But beyond the “digital fixes analog issues” factors, digital radio systems offer the (theoretical) advantage of being able to do data in addition to digital voice.
Bits Are Bits - once it’s digital, the bits should be agnostic.
Think about how different types of data is handled by TCP/IP and by extension, the Internet. We take it for granted that the same high speed TCP/IP connection into our homes, offices, and shacks can easily handle realtime voice (and video) bits, recorded voice (and video) bits, email bits, file download bits, photo bits, realtime telemetry bits, etc. That’s because TCP/IP generally3 treats all bits the same. It doesn’t care what the bits are supposed to be part of in the end, it just moves the bits from point A to Point B.
In Amateur Radio, we haven’t done voice / data mixing and matching particularly well to date. When there is a data capability in an Amateur Radio digital voice system, to date, data has been an afterthought. In the oldest Amateur Radio digital voice system - D-Star, there is a 900 bps data stream accompanying the (3600 bps) digital voice stream. Roughly two decades after its introduction, Icom quietly slipstreamed “DV Fast Data” mode into some radios4 which allows the digital voice stream to also be used for data. System Fusion’s data capabilities are “locked” to only support transport of images and some telemetry data such as APRS. DMR and P25 have data capability in their respective system and protocol specifications. In those systems, digital voice interoperability was extensively tested and required, but data capabilities were left to individual vendors such as Motorola and Hytera to implement a usable data option.
This is somewhat understandable - Amateur Radio has been doing voice over radio for about a century now, and data for nearly as long (Radio TeleTYpe - RTTY was used extensively in World War II). But with the technology of the 2020s and beyond, we can do better, and I posit we should do better. Amateur Radio shouldn’t remain stuck in a frame of reference from the 1960s that “repeaters are for voice”5.
Sidenote - Repeaters are for voice, Digipeaters are for data is a specious premise.
There is a “blind spot” with many Amateur Radio Operators that think that because data systems like packet radio can use digipeating to extend range, that data systems should use digipeating, and not use (simultaneous receive / transmit) repeaters to extend range of data systems.
Digipeaters can work well if they are very lightly loaded, but if there is significant usage of a digipeater, it begins to be subject to Hidden Transmitter Syndrome (Wikipedia calls this issue Hidden Node Problem).
A simple thought experiment can demonstrate what a specious premise this is. There have been “simplex voice repeaters” for decades, ever since we’ve had microprocessors that can record a transmission, and replay it back onto the same channel. It’s a poor experience at best, obvious because we can hear the poor result. No one likes using a simplex voice repeater, and will go to the trouble and expense to create a full duplex repeater instead. Digipeaters for data are no different in suffering from the poor effects of receive / buffer / retransmit on a simplex channel. It’s just that with data, the effects are hidden by the data devices.
…
We’re getting a bit better about making data equivalent to voice in Amateur Radio. As discussed in Zero Retries 0159 - M17 Data Modes, M17 can do both voice and data within the M17 protocol / systems. FreeDV is a digital voice mode for HF communications, and the modem for dealing with HF conditions is so good that there’s now work underway to use the FreeDV modem for data - FreeDATA. I’m not aware that FreeDV and FreeDATA are going to be made interoperable - send voice, or send data, interchangeably from the same app / system, but in my opinion, that should be a goal.
Opulent Voice is an open source high bitrate digital voice (and data) protocol. It’s what we are using for our native digital uplink protocol for ORI’s broadband microwave digital satellite transponder project. Opulent Voice has excellent voice quality, putting it in a completely different category than low bitrate digital communications products such as D-Star, Yaesu System Fusion, and DMR. Opulent Voice can be used on the 70 cm band and above.
Opulent voice switches between high resolution voice and data without requiring the operator to switch to a separate packet mode. Opulent voice also handles keyboard chat and digital file transmission. Seamless integration of different data types, using modern digital communication techniques, differentiates Opulent Voice from any other amateur radio protocol.
(It’s not explained why ORI says Opulent Voice can only be used on “70 cm band and above”, possibly because the US FCC currently applies too-restrictive limits on bandwidth and data rates on VHF / UHF bands below 70 cm. Such limitations are generally not an issue outside the US, and hopefully that issue will be fixed in the US soon.)
Yes! YES!!YES!!! Someone finally gets this fundamental issue of being able to seamlessly mix digital voice and data, designed in from the beginning!!! Kudos to Open Research Institute for sponsoring this project, and to the developers who have pulled this off! I have previously not studied Opulent Voice very deeply because I was unaware of the data capability, only that it was higher quality digital voice system for Amateur Radio. But now, I will investigate Opulent Voice more deeply.
Also, it’s probably kind of assumed / understood that Opulent Voice is open source… from the Open Research Institute… but in Opulent Voice, like M17 / FreeDV / Codec 2, there’s no dependence / usage on a proprietary CODEC (chip) as there is with DMR, D-Star, System Fusion, etc. That factor is a third significant differentiation, beyond high quality voice and integrated data capability, of Opulent Voice from DMR, D-Star, SF, etc.
Gosh I look forward to sitting down at my Amateur Radio station, tuned to the local repeater, seeing a dashboard of who was recently on the repeater realtime… and reading my emails and bulletins that have queued up waiting for me… all on the same system!That will be a dream, realized.
Kits are available at our eBay store at this link https://www.ebay.com/itm/364783754396
Be a part of the future with a prototype Batch 2 kit build of the RFBitBanger, a low-power high-frequency digital radio by Dr. Daniel Marks KW4TI. Presented by Open Research Institute, this kit is designed to produce 4 watts of power and opens up a new digital protocol called SCAMP.
SCAMP Is now available in FLDigi!
…
SCAMP is a new protocol that allows keyboard-to-keyboard contacts with a digital protocol that has excellent connection performance. See Dr. Marks presentation [link added to original text] about RFBitBanger at QSO Today Academy in September 2023 to learn more about SCAMP and the RFBitBanger project.
Open Research Institute has been busy lately, between Opulent Voice and now making RFBitBanger widely available… with the new SCAMP data mode! And as you’ll read at the link, a significant present at DEFCON32.
The biggest news by far is that I finally was able to submit my large PCB order for manufacturing. It was put off a lot longer than I was hoping for, because I kept finding small changes that I needed to make. However, I didn’t want to fall into the trap of analysis paralysis, so I had to commit to getting it pushed to manufacturing in order to not completely lose momentum.
I’ve been following Jason Milldrum NT7S’ progress on this ambitious project of a new low power HF radio, completely from scratch, fascinated by the detailed explanations of his design choices and the results (and sometimes, non-results) of his development process. I’m learning a lot from the insights into his development process that other developers don’t offer - NT7S is a great writer. NT7S’ newsletter Applied Ethics is Zero Retries Interesting, and recommended!
This is an impressive archival collection of packet radio software, and some other categories. They’ve done a great job of archiving and making available a lot of historical (and often still relevant) Amateur Radio data communications software. I haven’t explored much of what they offer yet, but doing so is yet another thing that’s in my queue.
I decided this was needed so as I develop the archives of Zero Retries, and new issues, I had a single repository to mention all the interesting Zero Retries Interesting hardware products and projects I discover and consider worth mentioning. It’s certainly not complete (done), but it is usable so I decided to mention it this week.
If you’re not yet licensed as an Amateur Radio Operator, and would like to join the fun by literally having a license to experiment with radio technology, check out Join the Fun on Amateur Radio for some pointers.
In its mission to highlight technological innovation in Amateur Radio, promote Amateur Radio to techies as a literal license to experiment with radio technology, and make Amateur Radio more relevant to society in the 2020s and beyond, Zero Retries is published via email and web, and is available to everyone at no cost. Zero Retries is proud not to participate in the Amateur Radio Publishing Industrial Complex, which hides Amateur Radio content behind paywalls.
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More bits from Steve Stroh N8GNJ:
SuperPacket blog — Discussing new generations of Amateur Radio Data Communications — beyond Packet Radio (a precursor to Zero Retries)
N8GNJ blog — Amateur Radio Station N8GNJ and the mad science experiments at N8GNJ Labs — Bellingham, Washington, USA
Thanks for reading! Steve Stroh N8GNJ / WRPS598 (He / Him / His) These bits were handcrafted (by a mere human, not an Artificial Intelligence bot) in beautiful Bellingham (The City of Subdued Excitement), Washington, USA, and linked to the Internet via Starlink Satellite Internet Access.
2024-07-12
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I did a brief web search for this story but didn’t find any references. This story is not related to Job’s famous commencement speech about “looking back and connecting the dots”.
Yes, there are a few exceptions of special handling of different types of data within TCP/IP such as IP Multicast. And there are also Quality of Service (QOS) mechanisms that can be used.
In the linked article, radios supporting DV Fast Data include the ID-52A/E, IC-705, and IC-9700, and hopefully VHF / UHF radios introduced since those radios such as the IC-905.
I've often got multiple things plugged into my computer, for example a USB to serial cable for the TNC and a different USB to serial cable for CAT control of my HF radio. These usually show up as something like /dev/ttyUSB0 and /dev/ttyUSB1.
The problem is that the order is not always the same. Sometimes a reboot results in the devices swapping number and suddenly your software can't talk to the radio anymore.
Let's fix that!
(I'm doing this on Debian 12)
Identify the devices
We need to know which device is connected to what, the easiest way to do this is use lsusb then plug or unplug the device and see what appears/disappears.
For example
lsusb
Bus 001 Device 006: ID 08bb:29c6 Texas Instruments PCM2906C Audio CODEC
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 067b:23a3 Prolific Technology, Inc. ATEN Serial Bridge
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 10c4:ea60 Silicon Labs CP210x UART Bridge
Then I unplug the CAT cable
lsusb
Bus 001 Device 006: ID 08bb:29c6 Texas Instruments PCM2906C Audio CODEC
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 067b:23a3 Prolific Technology, Inc. ATEN Serial Bridge
Now I know that 067b:23a3 is the TNC and 10c4:ea60 is the CAT.
Tell udev what to do.
Create or edit /etc/udev/rules.d/99-usbtty.rules and populate it with something like this:
We're tell it to look for a device with the vendor id 10c4 and product id ea60 and then create a symbolic link called ttyUSBIcomCat to point to the actual device.
This way we can tell our software to always look for /dev/ttyUSBIcomCat and it doesn't matter if it's number 0, 1, or 6352528.
You'll need to reboot or kick udev somehow, then check and see if it's worked:
You're looking for something with whatever name you specified (ttyUSBIcomCat) followed by -> pointing to ttyUSBsomething. If it's there, it worked. If it didn't ... I don't know, check the IDs or something.
WSJT-X
WSJT-X didn't give the new symlink as an option for me. However you can just type the path in, you don't have to pick from the drop down list.
I’m here at Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE) XV, the hacker conference run by 2600 magazine. Earlier this afternoon, I gave a talk entitled “Ham Radio for Hackers.” See my slides below. I’ll be writing more about my experiences here in a future post.
On July 10, 2024, AllStarLink.org announced the release of ASL 3.02. Details of what changed are in the release notes. This is a significant update and if you are already running ASL 3, updating is recommended.
For those running ASL 3 on a Raspberry Pi, you’ll use the new Cockpit to update ASL 3. I’m running ASL 3 on a Debian 12 virtual machine so I updated from the terminal. The usual “sudo apt update” and “sudo apt upgrade -y” commands work to update ASL 3 to ASL 3.02.
The only problem I ran into was AllScan lost track of some of the configuration settings. I suspect this was because PHP was also updated as part of the update/upgrade process (but not as part of the ASL update), and something changed from my earlier manual installation of PHP. Not to worry, though — a few edits to the config set things right. Allmon3 worked fine before and after the update was installed.
Contents
1. AllStarLink on a VM? Why Not!
1.1 AllStarLink 3 Beta is now available
1.2 Test installation on a virtual machine
1.3 Got it working…kind of
1.4 Installed AllScan
1.5 Fixed problems with manager.conf
1.6 Additional software installed
1.7 Summary of links in this ASL 3 article
2. AllStarLink 3 Beta Configured for SIP Phone
2.1 Update modules.conf
2.2 Update extensions.conf
2.3 Update pjsip.conf
2.4 Restart Asterisk
2.5 Connecting to other nodes
2.6 Moving screenshots from VM to Windows machine
3. Personal Observations on Podcasting
3.1 Getting started: what is your why?
3.2 My whys
3.3 The upsides
3.4 The downsides
3.5 Equipment
3.6 Hosting your podcast
4. Introspection: The Random Wire is Evolving
5. Notes
5.1 Raspberry Pi SBCs eligible for improved functionality
6. On the Bench
6.1 AllStarLink node fixins
6.2 New PC for running ASL in a VM
6.3 Sound sample: Worldwide Friendship Net
1. AllStarLink on a VM? Why Not!
CONTEXT: I started writing this about three weeks ago…just moments before AllStarLink.org announced a major update to ASL that includes support for virtual machines. That announcement completely changed the foundation for this content!
I recommend this video. If you’ve never set up a node before and you want to use ASL 3, Freddie Mac walks you through every step to get your node up and running on a Raspberry Pi. He mentions that ASL 3 Beta supports AllScan, something that is important to me. You can also find Freddie Mac’s website at http://hamradiolife.org/.
Some of the great changes in ASL 3 include:
Ability to install on a Raspberry Pi 5
Ability to install into a virtual machine
Asterisk version updated and no longer runs as the root user
I want to give ASL 3 a try, especially on my node-in-the-cloud. In the meantime, though, I decided to do an experimental install into an Oracle VirtualBox virtual machine on my home server, configuring ASL 3 as a hub running DAHDI. (My node-in-the-cloud number 57945 is configured that way — it’s simply a hub with no radio.)
However, I encountered some hiccups. I did get them resolved, but I’ll describe what they were in case you run into them, too.
I started with a minimal installation of Debian 12 in a new virtual machine. This becomes important later when I found that some services were not working correctly.
The update node service was missing
After installing ASL 3, I discovered that the update node service was not running. I had to search for, and install, an updated .deb file to get that going. I found that on GitHub at https://github.com/AllStarLink/asl3-update-nodelist and manually installed it. If I recall correctly, I had to explicitly start the service from the command line after installing it.
Allmon3 was missing
After installing ASL 3, I did confirm that allmon3 was not installed. I followed the directions for installing allmon3 on Debian 12 found at https://github.com/AllStarLink/Allmon3. Once I did that, I could see the Allmon3 page and log into it, but it gave me no data whatsoever: no icons, no colored transmit bar, nothing. I also found I could not execute commands. Hmmm.
I banged my head on the keyboard for a bit on this issue. All of the required packages are installed. I tried to manually configure /etc/allmon3/allmon3.ini to reflect the IP address and authentication details needed by Allmon3 and that broke it. After an hour or so of fiddling — including comparing the allmon3.ini file to a known-to-work allmon.ini file running on a Debian 10 node, I finally got it to work…kind of. Then I cleaned up my ufw firewall settings and added some port forwards to my router.
Stepping back for a moment, this was all a a bit discombobulating because the new manual for ASL 3 Beta said that allmon3 and asl3-update-nodelist are installed as part of the ASL 3 package. If they are installed, why wasn’t I finding them? That sent me down a rabbit hole for a few hours. (UPDATE: One of the maintainers acknowledged this was incorrectly stated in the manual. That part has been clarified in the online manual.)
Screenshot of errant content in manual
1.3 Got it working…kind of
At this point, AllStarLink.org could see node 588411:
AllStarLink sees my virtual machine node 588411
I could now connect my cloud node 57945 to 588411:
Connection made from 588411 to 57945
That’s easier to see with the bubble map:
AllStarLink bubble map of connection
And Allmon3 on 588411 now does show the correct dashboard icons:
Allmon3 is running
But Allmon3 did not show the connected node, nor do I get the colored transmit/receive bar. Another hmmm moment.
1.4 Installed AllScan
I set that problem aside and moved on to installing AllScan. The software author, David Gleason NR9V, very recently modified the installation routine to work with the ASL 3 Beta and I’m glad he did. I use AllScan far more than Allmon or Supermon. It’s a great piece of work by David. (You might also be interested in his node building page at https://allscan.info/!)
This is when I recognized the root of my problem with the Allmon3 installation. I tried to install AllScan and at the final step when the command tries to run the PHP file, the file wasn’t found. I could see it. It was right there! But PHP couldn’t see it. That was the moment when I realized PHP probably wasn’t installed. Remember that I did a minimal install of Debian 12, meaning that if you need a package, you’ll probably have to install it. To install PHP 8.3, I followed the instructions at https://tecadmin.net/how-to-install-php-on-debian-12/.
Once that was done, I was able to complete the installation of AllScan. It worked immediately and showed my connection to 57945.
AllScan is running on 588411
1.5 Fixed problems with manager.conf
There was one other hiccup along the way with manager.conf. Before I installed PHP, I was watching messages in the Asterisk CLI. I kept getting errors about manager.conf not being able to authenticate so I went into manager.conf with nano and manually changed the user and password (called the secret in manager.conf) to match what I was using for Allmon3. After restarting Asterisk, I saw no more error messages.
Now that I had PHP running and my manager.conf problem was resolved, I went back to look at my Allmon3 instance and sure enough, it was now working, too!
Allmon3 now runs perfectly
1.6 Additional software installed
I also installed Tailscale, xrdp, a desktop environment (xfce), and mlocate. I use Windows Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) over Tailscale to connect to the node desktop. I can also use Tailscale as my SSH backbone. I usually install mlocate as that allows me to find files. (For example, when sleuthing about PHP, I searched for PHP using the locate command and the paucity of files suggested immediately that I did not have PHP installed!)
My takeaway from hitting these speedbumps is…yeah, you can get ASL 3 running. It’s a tremendous piece of work by the AllStarLink team. However, if you are installing to a Debian 12 platform, it may be best to wait a little while for the installation process to get a bit smoother. I think there are a large number of people interested in ASL 3 on Debian it won’t take wrong this to get better.
This was a bit more convoluted than I expected but I muddled through until it worked.
You are going to have to crack open the new manual at https://allstarlink.github.io. The way SIP connections are made has changed in ASL 3 (presumably because of the substantial upgrade in Asterisk) and the manual has vital information to help guide you.
The load command load = chan_sip.so in /etc/asterisk/modules.conf needs to be replaced with noload = chan_sip.so. because chan_sip is deprecated.
Make chan_sip.so a noload channel
While you are in /etc/asterisk/modules.conf, you’ll need to add a whole new section that loads pjsip and related required elements. The manual says “add the following at the bottom of the file” but I modified that slightly. The bottom of my modules.conf file ends with [global]. If I put the pjsip content below that, it would be in the context of global, so I put the pjsip stuff above the [global] section.
Apologies for the small print in the screenshot below. I had to zoom out the view in order to get the entire list into one window!
Add pjsip items to modules.conf
Since I have a desktop installed in my 588411 virtual machine, I simply opened the new manual using the VM’s browser, allowing me to easily copy and paste the long pjsip section right into my modules.conf file.
I like using nano as my Linux editor. In nano, hit Ctrl X on your keyboard and answer Y to save.
2.2 Update extensions.conf
I hit a bit of a brick wall making the required changes to /etc/asterisk/extensions.conf. You’ll see in the new manual that some variables are included in the new [sip-phones] section: ${EXTEN}, ${NODE}, and ${NODENUM}. When I married the new [sip-phones] section with what I had used before, it didn’t work.
(Also, I note that there are a few references in the new manual about lines or content being highlighted in color, but I don’t see any highlighting, no matter what browser I use. My guess is the manual was written in some other system that showed highlights but those highlights were lost when the content was copied to the website.)
Pasted below is a screenshot showing the configuration suggested in the new manual on the left and my actual changes on the right. My changes are working for me but may not work for you because your phone is likely set up differently. I use a speed dial button. When I push the speed dial button, it connects to node 588411. Line 4 on my SPA 525G is set as extension 211, and the phone listens for a call to 300. Hopefully, that helps explain why my working [sip-phones] configuration looks so different than the recommendations in the manual.
Settings from manual on left, my settings on right
One stumbling block for me was ${NODE} is set at the top of /etc/asterisk/extensions/conf as NODE = 588411. Leaving the ${NODE} variable in the recommended [sip-phones] configuration got in the way of the node authenticating to the phone. I noticed the potential problem when the announcement over the phone was telling me that ${NODENUM} was 300 and ${EXTEN} was 588411. That wasn’t right so I started fiddling by replacing variables with static values.
I did find it very helpful to go to open the Asterisk CLI and monitor what pjsip was seeing. In a terminal window, start the Asterisk CLI with asterisk -rvvv. Then type in pjsip set logger on and hit Enter. To exit, type exit and hit Enter. The pjsip logger is where I saw that what I thought was my node number, pjsip was seeing as my extension, and vice versa.
2.3 Update pjsip.conf
Of course, none of the above worked until I configured /etc/asterisk/pjsip.conf per the manual’s recommendations. My UDP port is 5062 so I changed that in the Basic UDP transport section of pjsip.conf.
UDP transport in pjsip.conf
Farther down in the pjsip.conf file, you configure your endpoint in the “Endpoint Configured For Use With A Sip Phone” section. Here’s a side-by-side view, with the manual content on the left and my configuration on the right:
Endpoint settings from manual on left, my settings on right
And then the auth section needs to be changed:
Auth settings to match (password obscured)
2.4 Restart asterisk
I prefer using sudo systemctl restart asterisk to restart the system but sudo astres.sh works just as well.
2.5 Connecting to other nodes
You can use standard DTMF commands to manage connections to other nodes. I prefer the convenience of using AllScan by David Gleason NR9V. AllScan makes connecting to another node very, very easy. A few days after ASL 3 was released, David published an update to AllScan that works with the new system. AllScan is Random Wire Recommended!
2.6 Moving screenshots from VM to Windows machine
As an aside, I have Tailscale installed on the virtual node 588411 (running Debian 12) and on my laptop named TomBook (running Windows 11 Pro). With Tailscale, you can use Taildrop to copy files from one system to another.
I discovered that Taildrop allows the use of wildcards, so I was able to transfer the several screenshots I captured on the VM while preparing this piece with just one line in a terminal window on 588411:
tailscale file cp *.png tombook:
That was a slick discovery!
3. Personal Observations on Podcasting
I used to avoid YouTube videos of people showing others how to do something. Now I don’t. I am finding it easier to find a very focused demonstration of what to do to fix or modify something by simply searching for videos on it.
And yet, amateur radio is an audio medium so I feel a bit more comfortable approaching it from the podcasting side instead of making videos. I suppose there may be times when I want to show something that I can’t describe with only words or photographs, but that seems unlikely at the moment.
3.1 Getting started: what is your why?
Why do you want to do a podcast? It’s important to know because it can be a lot of work. That means time taken from other things you might rather be doing. Without knowing your why, you may not stick with it if it begins to feel like a burden.
Do you want to teach? Video might be a better medium. However, audio and the written word can also be used very effectively.
Do you want to reach a certain age group? Audio cuts across most demographics, while video and written material seem a bit more segregated when it comes to reach certain audience segments.
Are you comfortable speaking into a microphone? Podcasting might be a great tool, but if you are just as comfortable in front of a camera, video might be right for you.
3.2 My whys
My why was simple: a desire to grow my community by reaching people who would rather listen to audio than read another email. I chose not to use video because (a) I’m not very comfortable in front of a camera and (b) video is more difficult to produce (i.e., less forgiving).
I did not appreciate audio as a medium until my aging mother lost most of her sight. An avid reader all her life, the dimming of her vision came as a major blow to her. Audio books became a lifeline for her, and as my wife and I were helping to care for her, we listened to some of the books, too. I found that I enjoyed hearing content at the narrator’s pace instead of at my reading speed. With the frequent long drives involved in my work, audio books became a staple for me.
Also, I wanted to grow my skill at narration, something I have always felt could improve. How to do that? Well, do more of it!
For these reasons, adding an audio component to my newsletter felt like a natural step for me.
3.3 The upsides
One upside is I get to explore a new medium. This is all new to me so I get to learn a lot, quickly. That is usually a lot of fun for me. I also get to hear feedback that helps me become a better speaker, something I very much want to do.
I anticipate that the podcast will allow me to reach more people and that may equate to some new subscribers. Or it might just be a value add for existing subscribers, but that’s a positive if it strengthens my subscription base.
3.4 The downsides
Producing audio takes more: more equipment, more effort, and more time. I went looking for information and didn’t find much that was clear and unequivocal. (Well, that’s not completely true. I found very clear guidance when a vendor wanted to pull me into their own walled garden of hardware and software!) And you know why? Because vendors want to sell their products and everyone’s situation is different.
I’m still at the point where I write out a script of sorts for each podcast and you can hear that in my spoken delivery. It’s not where I want to be but it is where I’m at now.
3.5 Equipment
Microphones
My point about the lack of clear guidance seemed especially true when it came to selecting microphones. Every source seemed to conflict and I finally began to recognize that there was no crystal clear, right-or-wrong answer because every situation truly is different. So I did what I usually do: I made mistakes and learned from them. If you have unlimited time and money, go for it. I don’t, so I tried to be a bit more judicious and economical in my experimentation.
An example is the Blue Yet Nano microphone. I have a Yeti microphone that I picked up at a thrift store, but the thing is simply huge on my small desk. It gets in my way. I liked the sound it captured but not how much real estate it consumed. Some people like the Blue Yeti Nano and some detest it — just like many microphones. Still, it wasn’t much money to try the Nano and I am finding it to be a hot little mic.
Therein lies one of the downsides of the Nano: it tends to pick up more than I want it to. It picks up more because it is a condenser microphone. It would benefit from being in a more controlled environment. I don’t have a sound studio, nor do I have space to create one. I might love it more if I had a quiet space, but I don’t.
I also tried some dynamic microphones because they are less sensitive than condenser mics and so they might be better in places where there are background sounds you don’t want recorded. My first episode was using a dynamic mic and a few people told me it sounded too quiet. My second episode was with the condenser mic and a few people complained about the hissy sounds in my speech. For the third podcast, I ended up recording into a Zoom H4n Pro handy recorder while sitting in my pickup truck. I’ve also picked up an Elgato Wave 3 mic and it seems hotter than the Nano! For this episode, I’ll try recording with the Elgato mic and if it is too noisy, I’ll revert to the Nano or the H4n.
As you can see, this is still an active area of experimentation for me. Once I settle on a few approaches, I can spend more on a better microphone as my daily driver.
(By the way, I fell down this rabbit hole because I was looking for a desk microphone I could use with my FTM-300DR radio that I’m using on my desk as a Portable Digital Node over WIRES-X. There were no obvious choices and so I started to learn more about kinds of microphones and which ones might work with my radio. Along the way, I discovered that even some worldwide microphone vendors were a little mixed up about what might work with the FTM-300DR!)
What will you record into?
I’m recording into my computer, except when I record into the Zoom H4n Pro. Any day now I’ll start recording through the computer to an external SSD to save my onboard storage space.
3.6 Hosting your podcast
This topic could easily consume an entire newsletter. I looked at many options over a few months and finally decided to keep it as simple as I could. Since Substack (the service that hosts the Random Wire newsletter) also offers podcast hosting, I chose to host at Substack.
You can find free podcast hosting and paid podcast hosting. I lean toward paid because the free versions often limit how much you can host, how long they’ll keep your podcast episodes online, and may include advertising of their own choice in your podcast. Paid hosting tends to give you more time with fewer or no ads.
But there is more, a whole lot more. Having your podcast hosted in one place doesn’t get your podcast “out there.” You need to distribute your podcast, as in: have others carry your podcast. I’m using Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, and Pocket Casts.
Promoting your podcast
You have a choice: promote your podcast, or not. Promotion means spreading the word. I’m using Facebook a little bit but mainly depending on my Random Wire newsletter subscribers to increase my podcast listeners. I have multiple social media accounts but I’m trying to stay away from those tools because I find some folks in the social media realm tend to be a bit more vocal without always exercising much discretion. I don’t really want a subscriber base that goes up and down a lot. I want subscribers willing to travel this train with me.
Make sure your amateur radio club knows you have a podcast. That is a great way to reach people who might not be able to attend club meetings. The spoken word connects with people in a way that the written word does not. That’s important, particularly when we have so many in our radio community who need those connections.
If your local school has a ham radio club or a STEM program (science, technology, engineering, math), it may not hurt to let them know you have a podcast. That gives the club advisor or a teacher the opportunity to review your material and consider using it in some lessons. You might even get invited to present a topic, and there are few better feelings that helping people learn about amateur radio!
OK, that’s enough. That was a shallow dive but if you’ve not thought about this before, it probably felt deep. Let’s call it “deep enough” and move on to another topic.
4. Introspection: The Random Wire is Evolving
If you’ve been with the Random Wire for a while, you’ve probably noticed that topics can be a bit, well, random! I started this writing experience by journaling. And then I started writing a runbook (that’s an information technology term) for my various radio platforms. A runbook, in nontechnical terms, is a collection of how-to recipes for common tasks. In my case, I wanted to document some of the tasks I found myself engaged in — things like installing AllStarLink on a Dell Wyse 3040 thin client machine, upgrading Debian on an ASL node, extending a node number, and more. That’s right: this all started for me with AllStarLink.
Along this two-year journey, subscriber numbers grew pretty steadily:
Meanwhile, my topics rambled along on a random walk, covering old gear, new equipment, making some deeper dives into digital modes, and resurfacing a few times on other topics, sometimes with actual RF-based radios. It’s been a bit of a dog’s breakfast, in my view. I’m not entirely happy with that, but at the same time, I have come to realize that a lot of hams have wide-ranging interests that are hard to present in a discrete set of topics contained in a focused, targeted newsletter. To this day, the Random Wire newsletter remains a somewhat messy collection of topics and observations.
Subscribers are great. But there are two problems with subscribers: first is not having any, and second is getting caught up in the subscriber numbers game. When you start a blog or newsletter, you are alone. You write the very first post and publish it and then…nothing happens. It takes other people. It takes partnerships and mutual support. It takes connecting with real humans to grow your subscriber base. But there is an inflection point in this process because you start to watch the subscriber numbers change with each issue of the blog or newsletter, and the watching ends up influencing what you choose to write about.
I’m trying not to do that. I’m trying to keep it all a bit messy and rambling, true to the title: the Random Wire. I’m thrilled to have more than 950 subscribers following my work. I’m actually astounded by this number. When I started, I thought maybe my little niche in our huge amateur radio universe might capture the interest of a hundred or two hams. It is growing beyond anything I expected. Color me continually surprised.
I’ve been told my writing exhausts people, as in: Tom, there is too much detail. I’ve been told I’m not writing about real radio, meaning: the content isn’t appealing to some folks. I’ve been told my topics have no order, and to that I say: true. I’m a mess, just like many of my radio friends are!
But as noted, subscribers do influence content and style. In response, I’ve written summaries instead of detailed recipes. Feedback: not enough detail. I rolled in a bit more about “real” radio, only to hear from some that this wasn’t the content they wanted. I’ve tried to organize a bit better by at least having a table of contents in each issue, and the feedback on that change has been: silence.
And yet…and yet…I feel the Random Wire evolving. It is certainly growing, but as I look back on the nearly 100 publications in two years, I see the content beginning to intersect more and more about radio and technology, where technology often means computers, routers, networking, etc. A confluence of big topics opens up an even wider universe of things to write about. I’d really like to stay anchored in amateur radio but I feel some pull toward ideas and products that are outside that limited realm.
I’m grappling with this tension as I think about the Random Wire this summer. Should I give in and expand my topics or should I try to stay more focused on my admittedly messy, random ideas and activities about amateur radio and tech? I’m more comfortable not changing but at the same time, I do want to expand my knowledge and interests. I truly do not know where this will lead. It’s a rambling journey, not a destination.
Let me also address paid subscriptions. I just don’t see that for the Random Wire, partly because my content is a jumble of ideas and partly because I want content to be free. I remember being an early amateur radio licensee and having that awful epiphany that everything cost more than I could afford. I lean more toward helping people get involved with amateur radio and trying some things that are new to them rather than dwelling on detailed analyses of circuits and antennas. The Random Wire, when it speaks to me, says: I need to be free to people.
At the same time, I’m spending a lot of time planning, buying equipment, writing about it, and thinking about what to capture next. It becomes a bit costly and so I now include affiliate links on my Support page as a no-obligation way to generate some revenue from this work. It’s not intended to provide much but every little bit helps with internet cost, website hosting, recording gear, and amateur radio equipment. It is always a humbling moment when I see that someone has bought me a coffee or purchased a product using one of my affiliate links. Thank you!
So the content has been changing a bit over time and there are completely optional ways to provide some financial support if you wish. Another evolution is the addition of a podcast which has been, and continues to be, quite an adventure. I have to say that creating a new podcast from scratch is an order of magnitude jump up from writing a blog or a newsletter. It takes more equipment, more time, more thought. The time required for editing is greater than you might imagine.
I’ve started my podcasting journey at the smallest and simplest level that I thought might yield good-quality audio results. This is unnerving work for me. I am stepping outside my comfort zone to try to become more comfortable with the process of verbalizing ideas in front of hundreds of other people. Have you seen hams that can’t quite bring themselves to make that first CQ call, or who shy away from actually transmitting CW? That is the kind of reticence I feel in front of the podcasting microphone. I am exercising that weakness to become more capable at this.
Just as with the written word, I really don’t know where the spoken word is going to go. I’d like to do some interviews. I plan to capture sound clips of various modes so people can hear what different modes sound like. I want to get clips of some of the best practices I hear on the radio and clips of some of the worst, without embarrassing the people speaking. I hope the podcast evolves in this direction.
All this is to say: I started without a plan and I still don’t have a plan, other than to enjoy my journey in amateur radio, learn a lot, and share what I’m learning with others. Your time is precious. So is mine. I don’t plan to write or record on things that have little value but I’m sure I will. Along the way, I’m also certain we’ll find topics where our interests overlap. I’m glad you’re on this journey with me and hope you’ll have a good time on the Random Wire train. Next stop: unknown!
Do feel free to leave a comment or contact me directly with your feedback. I value all feedback.
5.1 Raspberry Pi SBCs eligible for improved functionality
As long as we’re dwelling on tech, interesting news about Raspberry Pi single board computers (SBCs) came to light a few weeks ago. Check out these stories:
Available for every Pi ever made. This is interesting stuff for those of us who run several Raspberry Pi SBCs!
6. On the Bench
6.1 AllStarLink node fixins
I ordered up a Kenwood PC-1 phone patch from eBay for a potential sound interface build to connect to an AllStarLink node. This would be similar to the ANR-series devices by David Gleason NR9V but packed into a vintage case. This would go well with my existing desktop node speaker, a Heathkit HS-1661.
That node has AllStarLink running on a Dell Wyse 3040 thin client machine and one of the early ANR units by David for interfacing the microphone and the speaker with the ASL machine.
I’ve tried to do something like this before but fell down when it came to the very fine soldering required on the CM108 sound fob. This time, I’m rolling the dice and ordering a couple of CM108 devices that have been modified by someone else. I have all the other parts I’ll need. (Somewhere I even have a Raspberry Pi 2 W that I might be able to shoehorn into the Kenwood phone patch case…but that will mean cutting some holes in the back.)
6.2 New PC for running ASL in a VM
I can’t believe how inexpensive mini PCs have become. I got the Beelink Mini S12 Pro for $159. I installed VirtualBox on it and migrated a copy of my node 588411 to the mini PC. AllStarLink.org sees it and I can reach Allmon3 and AllScan on the new virtual machine. Next up will be reconfiguring this instance to access my ANR sound interface. Sometimes getting sound to move in and out of a VM can be problematic so this is very much a proof of concept. I’ll have more on this in issue 99 of the Random Wire Review next week!
6.3 Sound sample: Worldwide Friendship Net
On July 10, 2024, I recorded several minutes of the beginning of the Worldwide Friendship Net on the W7RAT repeater in Portland, Oregon. Most transmissions sound like they are via IRLP and Echolink, at least to me. Sound was captured on a Zoom H4n Pro handy recorder, handheld near the speaker of my Yaesu FTM-300DR radio in my pickup truck.
The purpose behind posting sound clips like this is to help subscribers experience other nets and other modes of radio.
Coming next week: C4FM audio from the Kansas City Wide network!
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