The 1990s seem to have reached that point at which they are once more considered...Ever since I started using Node-RED I’ve been using the standard node-red-dashboard set of user interface (UI) nodes to build my numerous dashboards to enhance my radio hobby and add new functionality to the operating of the station. The series of UI nodes are very simple to use and have served me well however, they are no longer being developed and are now deprecated in the overall Node-RED project.
To this end flowfuse.com have stepped up to the mark and developed Dashboard 2.0. This new series of UI nodes brings a new, more modern look and feel to the Node-RED dashboard along with some new functionality.
I’ve only just started investigating Dashboard 2.0 but, it’s proving to be fairly easy to use. The short video clip above shows an S-Meter display developed using Dashboard 2.0 for my FTDX10 transceiver.
Full instructions on how to install and configure Node-RED Dashboard 2.0 can be found on the flowfuse.com website.
Be aware though, Node-RED dashboards developed using Dashboard 1.0 will not work under Dashboard 2.0, you will have to import the old v1.0 flow(s) and manually go through them and change all the UI nodes to new Dashboard 2.0 nodes. Since some of the new nodes work differently to the old nodes you’ll also find you will need to make code changes to get the same/similar functionality.
I’m finding it easier not to import old flows but to recreate them afresh under Dashboard 2.0 using the old flow version for reference.
Overtime I will migrate my dashboards over to the new 2.0 version however, this is going to be a lot of work, especially in the case of my QO-100 Ground Station Dashboard as it contains a considerable number of UI nodes, and will take a fair amount of time to migrate.
I’ll document my findings as I go as I’m sure there will be a few trials and tribulations along the way.
Thanks to Neil, G7UFO for pointing me to the new Dashboard 2.0 information.
More soon …
One of our favorite pursuits at OnAllBands is discovering ham radio and Morse code references that have found their way into television, movies, books, and music—everything from Paul McCartney’s inspiration for the song “Morse Moose and the Grey Goose” to the plaintive transmission at the end of Orson Welles’ “War of the Worlds” broadcast. We’re pleased to report, despite multiple posts on the subject, that the tank isn’t dry when it comes to our favorite hobby and popular culture. Here’s the latest we’ve found:
Also known as Zero Defex, this Akron, Ohio, hardcore punk band used the very first Morse code transmission, “What hath God wrought?” in their song “Target Earth.”
The message—sent May 24, 1844 by Samuel F. B. Morse in Washington, D.C. to Alfred Vail forty miles away in Baltimore—can be heard at the beginning and ending of the 58-second scorcher. The biblical quote (Numbers 23:23) was handed to Morse by Annie Ellsworth, the daughter of a close friend, who had written down the line as suggested by her mother.
John M. Harris wrote on the Tippecanoe County Historical Association blog, “Quickly Morse sent the words using the dot and dash code which bears his name. It was received in Baltimore and repeated back. As the words were decoded in Washington, the room erupted with cheers.”
We reached out to 0DFX drummer Mickey Hurray about why the band chose this seminal moment in communications history for their song:
“We included the first telegraph message in our song ‘Target Earth’ because Morse code was essentially the seed to the advent of whole Earth mass communication. As the seed blossoms the answer to that question (What hath God wrought?) is revealing itself globally every day. Stand by for the exciting conclusion.”
Erik Larson, master of page-turning nonfiction, followed up his gruesomely captivating 2003 book “The Devil in the White City” with the story of Guglielmo Marconi’s development of wireless juxtaposed against the saga of one of Britain’s most infamous criminals—Hawley Harvey Crippen.
Marconi’s and Crippen’s stories run parallel in the book, finally merging to reveal how Marconi’s work played a role in the chase to apprehend the unlikely villain, who had done away with his wife and fled. In interviews, Larson has called the two stories “an amazing confluence of invention and murder.” Amateurs will certainly enjoy the technical details in the Marconi chapters.
“Thunderstruck” comes highly recommended by my lovely YL, who, like Scotland Yard from the story, is in hot pursuit of something that takes dogged effort to achieve—in her case, a Technician license.
Premiering September 2003, “NCIS” is still going strong. In April, the military police procedural and CBS high-ratings staple was renewed for its 22nd season. With more than 460 episodes under its well-armored belt, you would think that Morse code and ham radio may have been written into a script or two. And you would be correct!
However, as we’ve mentioned in this column before, sometimes ham radio and Hollywood can offer up a mixed bag.
In the “NCIS” episode 6 “Trapped” from Season 15, an investigation into a murder on a golf course leads senior field agent Timothy McGee and special agent Nicholas Torres to discover a ham radio setup in the victim’s home. On the good end of the spectrum, the episode includes mentions of the value of ham radio in emergencies—the “if all else fails, ham radio is there” scenario that has saved countless lives. For some viewers—many of them longtime fans of “NCIS”—that’s where the “good” ended.
While ham radio is used to solve the murder, many operators were not pleased at all the things the show got wrong.
The general sentiment: If you’re going to focus an entire episode on a service that’s been around since the early 1900s, take a few hours and do your research. Objections included the stereotyped portrayal of hams as socially awkward loners, display of a “data only” band on the Yaesu rig used in the episode, the operator’s powerful HF setup being only able to reach “80 square miles,” and, most egregious to many, a not-even-close-to-correct callsign that included a “handle.”
You can find the episode on YouTube and judge for yourself. Next time we’ll look at “NCIS” and how the show handled Morse code.
The post Amateur Radio and Morse Code in Popular Culture: From Hardcore Punk to Wireless History appeared first on OnAllBands.
While version control used to be reserved for big corporate projects, it is very mainstream...It’s time to talk about Microsoft’s patch Tuesday, and the odd vulnerability rollback that happened....Ever since I built my RaspberryPi/SHARI AllStarLink node I’ve had to manage connecting/disconnecting to/from other nodes using the Allmon2 or Supermon web admin interfaces. These work fairly well albeit, a bit clunky and buggy. It’s impossible to use from a mobile device though and so I have to get my Macbook out each time I want to connect/disconnect nodes.
Being a Node-RED fanatic I decided that I should put something together that was more portable, mobile friendly and much easier to use. A simple user interface is all that is required and can be achieved very easily using the standard Node-RED dashboard nodes.
Initially I started investigating the Linux command-line interface for Asterisk, the VOIP system that underpins AllStarLink (ASL). I very quickly discovered that the ASL node can be very easily controlled directly from the command-line and that this would be an ideal interface to use to enable node management via a Node-RED dashboard.
In very little time at all I had an experimental control dashboard working with the ASL node and was able to connect/disconnect to/from a single node. All that was required now was to extend this so that I could connect to a number of nodes with nothing more than a push of a button.
The resultant flow consists of 3 sections, Connect/Disconnect Main Flow, Manage Node Subflow and /var/log/asterisk/connectlog Subflow.
The Connect/Disconnect Main Flow handles all the input from the buttons on the dashboard and the communication to the underlying Asterisk VOIP system.
The button status is denoted by 3 colours, green (Ready to connect), orange (Transitioning to/from connect) and red (Connected). Each button is updated automatically by the button refresh function that is triggered every 2 seconds.
The Manage Node Subflow provides a simple interface to restart the Asterisk VOIP system, reboot the RaspberryPi and shutdown the RaspberryPi. The node status is automatically updated every 45 seconds and will show when the Asterisk subsystem is being restarted or the node is being rebooted or shutdown.
Finally the var/log/asterisk/connectlog Subflow monitors the Asterisk connectlog looking for connect/disconnect messages so that it can signal to update each button status.
Each section of the dashboard can be collapsed/opened by touching/clicking the little blue arrows on the right of the dashboard. The dashboard works fine on Android, iOS, Windows, MacOS and Linux.
If you’re not familiar with Node-RED and haven’t yet installed it to your PC, take a look at the Node-RED Getting Started Page. The information takes you through installing Node-RED onto a multitude of devices including PC and RaspberryPi devices.
Once you have Node-RED installed all you need to do is download the AllStarLink Control Dashboard Flow and import it to your Node-RED flow editor.
Once downloaded, select Import from the burger menu icon on the right-hand side of the flow editor as shown below and import the flow file.
Once imported you will find that some of the nodes in the flow are not available. This is because you need to add them to the flow editor palette before being able to deploy the flow.
Drop down the same menu as shown above but, this time select Manage Palette. This will open another window where you will need to select the Install tab as shown below.
You need to install two node sets to complete the flow, node-red-contrib-bigssh and node-red-dashboard. Type in the name of each package one at a time in the search bar and then click the Install button.
Once the two packages are installed you then need to configure the credentials for logging into your RaspberryPi. This is simply done by double clicking the blue Send Command to ASL node at the top of the main flow and then clicking the Pencil button at the end of the Credentials field. This will open another window where you will need to type in the IP Address of your ASL RaspberryPi into the Host field, then enter 22 into the port field, add repeater into the Username field (repeater is the default username, if you have changed this then you will need to add the new username name in instead) and then the password associated with the repeater login into the Password field. (Normally allstarlink)
Once this is done, do the same on the other blue nodes, namely “Get Node Uptime“, “Command =>> RaspberryPi” and “Tail ConnectLog”.
The final thing to setup is the dashboard size. Click on the downward pointing triangle at the top right of the menu bar (under the burger menu) and select dashboard. Check that the sizes are set the same as in the image below. For some reason, these settings aren’t always imported (Possible bug?) so, if your dashboard layout isn’t like shown above it will be because these settings failed to import.
You are now ready to deploy your AllStarLink Control Dashboard!
Press the red Deploy button at the top of the flow editor window.
To access the dashboard from any device, open your favourite web browser and enter the following URL: http://IP-Address-of-Node-RED-Computer:1880/ui
Finally, if you want to change the nodes that each button connects/disconnects you will need to edit the set flow var’s function at the top of the main flow. All you will need to do is replace the existing node numbers taking care not to alter the rest of the code in any way otherwise, it could stop the flow from working.
Once you’ve edited the node numbers, double click on the associated button node and change its Label to show the new node name.
Once your changes are complete, Deploy the flow again and your changes will be live.
This is version 1 of the ASL Dashboard, I already have ideas for version 2 that will also have the ability to enter a node number into a field and connect to it without the need to program it into a button.
More soon …
Do you know Morse code already? Or are you maybe trying to learn so you...
Login