Tag Archives: Raspberry Pi

Ohio Section Journal – The Technical Coordinator – June 2016 edition

One of the responsibilities of the Technical Coordinator in the Ohio Section is to submit something for the Section Journal. The Section Journal covers Amateur Radio related things happening in and around the ARRL Ohio Section. It is published by the Section Manager Scott – N8SY and articles are submitted by cabinet members.

Once my article is published in the Journal, I will also make it available on my site with a link to the published edition.

You can receive the Journal and other Ohio Section news by joining the mailing list Scott has setup. You do not need to be a member of the ARRL, Ohio Section, or even a ham to join the mailing list. Please sign up!

If you are an ARRL member and reside in the Ohio Section, update your mailing preferences to receive Ohio Section news in your inbox. Those residing outside the section will need to use the mailing list link above.
Updating your ARRL profile will deliver news from the section where you reside (if the leadership chooses to use this method).
Go to www.arrl.org and logon.
Click Edit your Profile.
You will be taken to the Edit Your Profile page. On the first tab Edit Info, verify your Email address is correct.
Click the Edit Email Subscriptions tab.
Check the News and information from your Division Director and Section Manager box.
Click Save.

Now without further ado…


Read the full edition at: http://n8sy2.blogspot.com/2016/06/june-edition-of-ohio-section-journal.html

THE TECHNICAL COORDINATOR
Jeff Kopcak – TC
k8jtk@arrl.net

DSCF5081 K8JTKHey Gang,
You’re reading this so you survived another Dayton. My dad N8ETP and I went down on Thursday. We stopped at MCM Electronics. It was actually on the way because we stayed south of Dayton this year. My dad was looking for some parts. I ended up buying another Raspberry Pi 3 on a Dayton weekend special and an Arduino Uno board. The Arduino was cheap and a lot smaller than I expected. Don’t have much lined up for it but I did want to try a project I saw on AmateurLogic.TV some time ago.

Raspberry Pi 3The difference between the Raspberry Pi and Arduino Uno boards is the Pi can run a full operating system (usually Linux) while the Arduino Uno runs instruction sets uploaded to memory. Variants of the Arduino can run entire operating systems. Both have General Purpose Input/Output (GPIO) pins for interfacing. I haven’t mentioned it in this space – Raspberry Pi 3 is the latest addition to the line of cheap micro-computer devices. The Pi 3 has all the features of the Pi 2 with an upgraded CPU to 1.2 GHz 64 bit, built in Wireless N LAN, Bluetooth 4.1 and Low Energy (LE). All of this goodness (still) at $35 in the same form factor. I ran a compile of Fldigi/Flmsg for comparison. The Pi 2 compiled the programs in about 22 minutes, the Pi 3 compiled in about 13 minutes.

This year I really didn’t have a lot on the Dayton shopping list. I wanted to take a look at the new ICOM IC-7300. That is a very nice radio and a huge improvement over my IC-7000. I didn’t pull the trigger on that for some reason. I’m reluctantly holding off. The newer radios are coming with built in USB. For someone looking to get into HF digital check out the newer radios. You won’t need a SignaLink type device because the sound card is built in!

Tytera MD-380I did attend Dayton with the intent of purchasing a DMR radio. From the amount of people I heard on DMR repeaters and podcasts afterwards, it sounds like they were the popular item this year. For good reason, I picked up a Tytera MD-380 for a little over $100. It included the radio, battery, charging base, 2 antennas, programming cable, and software.

DMR LogoDMR stands for Digital Mobile Radio and is a standard published in 2005 that came from our friends in Europe. It is an open standard (publically available for adoption and modification) and widely adopted for commercial use. In practice manufactures have introduced proprietary features into DMR and created marketing buzzwords like MotoTRBO. With enough surplus hardware available in the market, the price dropped low enough for hams to adopt the standard and setup DMR repeaters. I have a lot to learn about how all this works. There aren’t DMR repeaters in range of my QTH. Couple on the opposite side of town and to the south. There are some repeaters in Toledo and Columbus. The greatest concentration is between Dayton and Cincinnati. Thanks to the folks at the Dial Radio Club in Middleton, Ohio, I had a DMR repeater easily accessible from my hotel room during the show.

Kenwood APRS DSTARNew things I saw include scanners from Whistler with DMR (expected June 2016). Following quickly behind was Uniden with the same announcement (no release dates set). If you have a public service agency utilizing a DMR system, you’ll soon have scanner options available. Kenwood showed off their 2m/220/440 radio with APRS and D-STAR (and hopefully DPRS). My dad and I both noticed how incredibly crisp and clear the color display was. Standing about 5-6 feet away we could easily read it. DV4mobile Wireless Holdings showed off a new digital all-in-one radio, the DV4mobile. This thing has ALL the features: 2m/220/440, DSTAR/DMR/Fusion – with P25/NXDN/NEXEDGE coming next year, LTE (as in cellular connectivity), remote programming, remote operation, Ethernet/WiFi, SMS (text messages). Will this thing do my dishes too? Wow. Both Kenwood and Wireless Holdings are expecting release dates in about 6 months.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by the Field Services table at the ARRL Expo. I had a great time chatting with hams from England and exchanging ideas. It was fun meeting those in Newington who administer the programs we know and love. A lot goes into these programs and there’s a lot of technical research happening. The table was staffed by representatives from the Ohio Section including moi. Scott and his wife Jane spent most of the show at the table making sure everything went smoothly. Huge thanks to them for getting everything organized. It was nice to meet all of you. I picked up a couple books in the store on the way out. More stuff to do!

Windows 10Reminder about Windows 10: Don’t forget the free upgrade offer to Windows 10 is set to expire July 29th. You still have about a month to decide on the upgrade. If you missed my April article, I went into great detail about Windows 10 and the push to upgrade users. Check it out on my site or on the Ohio Section Journal site. There is no indication from Microsoft if the upgrade will become a premium option or if they will extend the offer. Some analysts think it will become a pay upgrade others think the upgrade offer will be extended indefinitely. One change, Microsoft is becoming even more aggressive in forcing the upgrade. Didn’t know this was possible but they’ve succeeded. I mentioned in April that clicking the red “X” to close the upgrade pop-up will delay the upgrade. This is no longer true. Microsoft’s new interpretation of clicking the red “X” is an AGREEMENT to the upgrade. This whole upgrade thing is ridiculous. I have no defense for this behavior. If you want to disable the Windows 10 upgrade, run Never10 (https://www.grc.com/never10.htm). Many users are disabling Windows Update to prevent the upgrade. Please don’t. If you have, run Never10 and disable the upgrade. Reboot. Check it’s still disabled by running Never10 again. Run Windows Updates and let it do its thing. Then run Never10 again to verify the upgrade is still disabled. I’ve been upgrading my machines to Windows 10. It takes some finessing to disable the crap. I do keep coming back to a single question: “why?” Not ‘why did I upgrade’ but ‘why is this useful setting now burred and takes fifteen clicks when it used to be three’ or ‘why would you change things (color schemes, color contrasts, move things around for the seventh time) just to change things?’ Haven’t yet taken the plunge to wipe-out my machine in the shack.

Technical Specialist report:

With summer and projects gearing up, requests have been coming in. Bob K8MD and a good friend of his Dave NF8O traveled to the Ohio Veterans Home station, W8OVH, in Sandusky. They have a sideband station and wanted an upgrade to run digital modes. Bob and Dave spent a few hours working with them to get the station up and running. They trained the club members how to use Fldigi and helped them make their first PSK31 contact! The guys reported it was a humbling experience talking to Vets who served in major conflicts from WWII to Grenada.

Dave KD8TWG has been busy with presentations for ARES groups. First was a presentation on APRS for Cuyahoga ARES. The presentation touched on history, uses, settings and what they mean, and systems built on the APRS network. There is a lot to APRS and I learned a lot. Soon after he did a “program your radio without a computer” for Geauga ARES. Interesting concept. Most groups bring computer programming in to help newbies program their radio. Knowing how to program a radio without a computer is useful during an event or public service activity where improvisation is likely needed. Could you change PL tone on your radio and save it in memory though the front of your radio? Programming a temporary repeater that has a 1 MHz split? DCS, anyone? It’s good to know and practice changing transmit, receive, PL frequencies, and power settings on-the-fly through the front of your radio.

PCARS (Portage County) club members contacted me about a moon bounce (EME) presentation. This is an area I wasn’t familiar with or knew anyone who operated. I reached out to the assembled mass of Technical Specialists. Tracey – W8TWL came through with a couple contacts. Got PCARS in touch with one of them and they are working out the details for the July 11th meeting. I’m hoping to make this meeting and see a great presentation on Earth-Moon-Earth.

Thanks for reading and 73… de Jeff – K8JTK

Img: VA3XPR, raspberrypi.org

APRS RX IGate with RTL-SDR and Raspberry Pi

For sometime I wanted to experiment with an APRS IGate. Coverage was spotty at best in my area. There is an IGate in my city but it doesn’t receive so well. Recently there have been more IGates blanketing the area.

APRS stands for Automatic Packet Reporting System and has been developed since the late 1980s by Bob Bruninga – WB4APR. It’s a digital communication mode amateur radio operators use to primarily broadcast location information, though this wasn’t the intended use. It handles text messages, alerts, announcements, bulletins, and information of interest like weather station reports. APRS operates typically on a single frequency.  A system of relay stations and digipeaters repeat messages over a wide area. APRS Internet System (APRS-IS) are Internet connected receivers (IGates).

Any ham can add an icon or information to the APRS map.  The information is available on the Internet or to users on the local RF network.  Data is automatically tracked over time. APRS is frequently used to track mobile stations in a public service event or volunteers in a search and rescue event to visualize locations and track progress.

This project will utilize the Raspberry Pi and RTL-SDR dongle. The Raspberry Pi is a credit-card sized micro-computer intended for teaching computer science to students but became popular with the makers. RTL-SDR dongles are DVB-T (European standard) TV tuner dongles. It was found the signal data could be accessed directly which allowed them to be converted into wide band software defined radio receivers. The Pi costs about $35 and RTL-SDR about $20.

Since the RTL-SDR dongles are meant to receive high power wide bandwidth TV signals, they are not as as sensitive or frequency stable as a ham radio or scanner. Receiver performance will be a little less than an equivalent radio performing the same task but depends on the usual variables: amount of APRS activity, antenna height, antenna gain, propagation, etc, etc. With my antenna about 15 feet high, I get about 5+ miles of coverage. With band openings I’ve heard stations on the opposite side of town and across Lake Erie into Canada.

Even though this IGate will be non-transmitting (cannot relay packets from the Internet), packets are forwarded to APRS-IS. The higher profile – higher power Digitpeaters in the area will relay packets received by your IGate to the local RF network.

Assumptions

This guide is step-by-step in nature, meant for beginners, with brief explanations of the steps. It will help to have an understanding of Linux commands and scripting. Capitalization is important in Linux!

My setup is on my home LAN. The IGate could be installed at a remote site using a shared Internet connection. Be aware that firewalls that might block connection to the APRS-IS network on a shared connection. You may want to request or have port 22 open on your router for SSH to establish a remote connection.

If all wired options fall through, look for a cellular hotspot device such as a MiFi to install along with the Pi. Use the built in WiFi on the Pi 3 or approved WiFi dongles for earlier Pi devices. Associate the MiFi with your Pi (turning on WPA2 so no one else piggybacks on your connection). Test the setup before installing it. Don’t find out after leaving the site that the MiFi times out after a few hours.

Program versions

Applications and versions used in this writeup:

  • Windows 10 64 bit
  • Raspbian Jessie 2016-05-27
  • Win32 Disk Imager 0.9.5
  • PuTTY 0.67
  • SDR Sharp 1.0.0.1444
  • RTL-SDR 0.5.3
  • Multimon-NG ?
  • Pymultimonaprs 1.3.0

Parts list

Listed below are all the parts needed to get this project working. It is noted when items can be left out or substituted.

That’s all the parts needed for this project. Check out the AdaFruit Raspberry Pi page for other hardware that might be useful, like the USB to PS/2 adapter for example. Many of these parts are included in the Raspberry Pi Starter Pack.

Ohio Section Journal – The Technical Coordinator – March 2016 edition

One of the responsibilities of the Technical Coordinator in the Ohio Section is to submit something for the Section Journal. The Section Journal covers Amateur Radio related things happening in and around the ARRL Ohio Section. It is published by the Section Manager Scott – N8SY and articles are submitted by cabinet members.

Once my article is published in the Journal, I will also make it available on my site with a link to the published edition.

You can receive the Journal and other Ohio Section news by joining the mailing list Scott has setup. You do not need to be a member of the ARRL, Ohio Section, or even a ham to join the mailing list. Please sign up!

If you are an ARRL member and reside in the Ohio Section, update your mailing preferences to receive Ohio Section news in your inbox. Those residing outside the section will need to use the mailing list link above.
Updating your ARRL profile will deliver news from the section where you reside (if the leadership chooses to use this method).
Go to www.arrl.org and logon.
Click Edit your Profile.
You will be taken to the Edit Your Profile page. On the first tab Edit Info, verify your Email address is correct.
Click the Edit Email Subscriptions tab.
Check the News and information from your Division Director and Section Manager box.
Click Save.

Now without further ado…


Read the full edition at: http://n8sy2.blogspot.com/2016/03/march-edition-of-ohio-section-journal.html

THE TECHNICAL COORDINATOR
Jeff Kopcak – TC
k8jtk@arrl.net

DSCF5081 K8JTKHey Gang,

It’s been a busy month for yours truly. Things got started off with a drive down to Columbus with my dad N8ETP. We visited the Columbus Radio Enthusiasts Society (CRES) on February 16th. It was touch-and-go for a while due to the weather. Snow hit both areas the night before and hoped it would hold off for the meeting. It did. We made it there and back, no problem. It was our first meeting in Columbus and we couldn’t have had a better time. I was contacted by Steve – N8WL to troubleshoot an RFI issue he was experiencing. CRES_N8ETPWe got to talking and he invited me to come down and speak about, well, myself –what the Technical Coordinator does and projects I’ve worked on. The presentation consisted of: my history in Ham Radio and how I got to where I am, laid out the ARRL and Field Services structures, section level positions and the Ohio Section, my responsibilities as Technical Coordinator, and projects I’ve worked on. In addition gave some pointers for troubleshooting RFI problems. Our Section Manager was on hand and helped answer specific questions about the section. It was an informative meeting. CRES: http://www.w8zpf.net/, presentation: http://www.k8jtk.org/2016/02/16/about-the-arrl-ohio-section-technical-coordinator/

The following weekend I presented at the Mansfield Hamfest during the Digital Forum. Danny – W8DLB, who is in charge of the Hamfest, was at my NBEMS training session in Medina County and asked me to present it during the Digital Forum. The Digital Forum covered voice and text based digital modes. Duane -K8MDA demonstrated FreeDV. FreeDV is a mode used on HF for voice communication. It’s impressive because the bandwidth is about one-third of sideband! I gave a portion of my training session on Narrow Band Emergency Messaging using Fldigi.

K1NAt the LEARA meeting in Cleveland, I showed the video for the Navassa Island K1N DXpedition which happened in February of last year. A DXpedition is an expedition to a remote location, usually uninhabited, for the purposes of activating the location and making as many contacts as possible. Navassa was my first time trying to chase a “most wanted” entity for my log. I was able to log them twice. Bob Allphin – K4UEE has participated in many DXpeditions and has released the story of many on DVD. I had no idea what it took to put on a DXpedition of that magnitude. After seeing his DVD on Navassa, I now have a better idea. It is a phenomenal video that got rave reviews and comments at the meeting. The main video runs about 45 minutes. The wrap-up from the Dayton forum is included which has some great background details. These are great for club meetings, introducing newcomers to Ham Radio, and gifts. Purchasing the video helps supports future DXpeditions and supports other hams: http://t-rexsoftware.com/k4uee/dvds.htm

Last, and certainly not least, Ken – KG8DN instructor at Gilmour Academy in Gates Mills, Ohio has been in charge of the Gilmour Academy Radio Club – ND8GA for as long as I’ve known him. During the school year, organizations are in charge of running Convocation for a week. This is a gathering of the entire school for announcements, happenings, events, and entertainment. Ken asked me to speak at Convocation one morning. This was a different type of presentation than I was expecting. I figured I would be there to talk-up Ham Radio and get kids interested. Nope. It was more about life experiences with a little Ham Radio sprinkled in. Things students could relate to. I have to be honest this was more challenging than I anticipated. A lot of time was spent searching for topics that students would care about, relate to, and how those experiences got me to where I am now. There was a visual portion which included many pictures from my high school years. When looking back on friends and people I shared those experiences with, it make me wish I was back in that time. I’m sure I’ll feel the same way when I look back on today. The presentation turned out great and I have to thank Ken for all of his help. ND8GA: https://sites.google.com/a/gilmour.org/gilmour-amateur-radio-club/

Thank you to everyone for coming to my various appearances and the organizers for asking me to speak with your organizations.

ham_radio_for_makers_2_KB1WNRham_radio_for_makers_1_KB1WNRI received an email from a fellow Trustee of LEARA, Marv – W8AZO, asking if I had seen my name mentioned in a post on a website. I had not. What website did he find my name on? The IEEE website. Now, I know the fine folks over at IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) are wicked smart. Much smarter than I am. They come up with solutions to technical problems which usually turn into established standards. Additionally, they publish one-third of the world’s technical literature. Why the heck would they be talking about me? Stephen Cass – KB1WNR, Senior Editor for the IEEE Spectrum magazine wrote an article titled “Hands on: A Ham Radio for Makers.” He built an FM transceiver using an RS-UV3 transceiver board and Raspberry Pi to take advantage of digital modes. I was mentioned because Stephen used the instructions I posted to compile and run Fldigi on the Raspberry Pi. Super cool! ham_radio_for_makers_3_KB1WNRI emailed Stephen and thanked him for the plug. He was very appreciative of the well written instructions. His article may have glossed over some important points relevant to hams but the goal of the article was to draw others in from the wider community. The article will be in the March printed edition of IEEE Spectrum and should be available by the time you read this. It hasn’t hit the shelves in my local bookstore yet. Online version: http://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/hands-on/hands-on-a-ham-radio-for-makers

That is what ham radio and makers are all about. I wanted to figure out how to run Fldigi on the Raspberry Pi, came up with a way to do it, documented it thoroughly, and shared it online. Stephen came across my instructions and used them as part of his project to create something greater; perpetuating the cycle.

Thanks for reading and 73… de Jeff

Ohio Section Journal – The Technical Coordinator – January 2016 edition

One of the responsibilities of the Technical Coordinator in the Ohio Section is to submit something for the Section Journal. The Section Journal covers Amateur Radio related things happening in and around the ARRL Ohio Section. It is published by the Section Manager Scott – N8SY and articles are submitted by cabinet members.

Once my article is published in the Journal, I will also make it available on my site with a link to the published edition.

You can receive the Journal and other Ohio Section news by joining the mailing list Scott has setup. You do not need to be a member of the ARRL, Ohio Section, or even a ham to join the mailing list. Please sign up!

If you are an ARRL member and reside in the Ohio Section, update your mailing preferences to receive Ohio Section news in your inbox.  Those residing outside the section will need to use the mailing list link above.
Updating your ARRL profile will deliver news from the section where you reside (if the leadership chooses to use this method).
Go to www.arrl.org and logon.
Click Edit your Profile.
You will be taken to the Edit Your Profile page. On the first tab Edit Info, verify your Email address is correct.
Click the Edit Email Subscriptions tab.
Check the News and information from your Division Director and Section Manager box.
Click Save.

Now without further ado…


Read the full edition at: http://n8sy2.blogspot.com/2016/01/january-2016-issue-of-ohio-section.html

THE TECHNICAL COORDINATOR
Jeff Kopcak – TC
k8jtk@arrl.net

DSCF5081 K8JTKHey Gang,

Happy New Year. Welcome to 2016! Hope Santa was good to you and left you a new radio under the tree. A white Christmas would be nice but I’ll take the warm temperatures we had for the holidays. I took some MUCH needed time off from work and spent it: sleeping, doing things with friends and family, operating on the radio, and watching NCIS. Got a couple hundred JT65/9 contacts in the log (really because I was slacking the last couple months and to make up for lost time!), played with Yaesu’s System Fusion, and WSPR (Weak Signal Propagation Reporting).

I hope everyone got to spend some time at their local club’s holiday parties. My family and I attended the LEARA (Cleveland) holiday meeting where I won the club’s giveaway of a new Baofeng radio and also a hat courtesy of our own Section Manager! This past weekend (Jan 10), I visited the Wood County Amateur Radio Club (Bowling Green) and attended their Kick-off banquet to begin the New Year! Great to see everyone.

I’ve been invited to visit the Columbus Radio Enthusiasts Society on February 16th. They asked me to present at their meeting on what the Technical Coordinator does and projects I’ve worked on. Stop by and say hi as it’s my first club meeting in central Ohio. More: http://www.w8zpf.net/

slusb

A couple months ago, I decided to see if I could get Fldigi working on the Raspberry Pi with my SignaLink. Fldigi is a modem application that is used for message passing or operating PSK, RTTY, and many other digital modes. I thought the tutorial could be a good resource for those who want to replace large PCs with much smaller Raspberry Pi computers or install digital in their go-kit. It was a success, or so I thought. I hit a couple snags along the way during initial testing. The first problem was a junky USB power supply. The SignaLink would key the radio for a time but would start a key-unkey sequence every second or so. I got what I paid for — use quality parts in your project. I swapped out the power supply. After that, I thought it was good to go.

Unfortunately, Ken W0KAH (from Missouri) contacted me over the holidays and said ‘it’s working great… except for our custom forms.’ I tried it and he’s absolutely correct. I loaded up his forms and ones that Technical Specialist Bob – K8MD created. When selecting these custom forms in Flmsg, the application hangs. The included forms work fine. I tried to first debug and later re-work the process to no avail. If anyone has custom forms working on the Raspberry Pi, please contact me. The build instructions and additional notes about the issue are available: http://www.k8jtk.org/2015/10/13/running-fldigi-flmsg-and-flwrap-on-the-raspberry-pi-2/

Speaking of Bob – K8MD, he wrote in to inform me that he’s been assisting with NBEMS during drills in Medina County. NBEMS (Narrow Band Emergency Messaging System (or Software)) is a set of standards for passing text based messages and files over ham radio. His proficiency and use of NBEMS was noticed by ARES folks in nearby counties. Bob reported on the event:

———-

On Saturday 5 December, Medina County ARES conducted a damage assessment drill with Medina County CERT team. The exercise was centered around the Damage Assessment form that I created for FLdigi. The objective of the exercise was to complete an initial damage assessment of an area that had been hit by a tornado. This initial damage assessment must be completed by the County EMA within 12 hours. This initial damage assessment is used by FEMA, the Red Cross, and other agencies to increase their situational awareness. The information is used to determine the size of the response necessary for the incident.

The exercise was a resounding success! CERT was divided up into six teams. Each of these teams had a mobile / portable ARES station paired up with the team. The CERT volunteers filled out the damage assessment forms and the ARES stations transmitted the forms back to the County EMA. The amount of information passed in a short amount of time was quite impressive.

One of the key things that I think we learned at this exercise was to keep the digital traffic on a separate frequency and separate band from the FM phone net. The traditional FM phone net was established on a 70cm repeater. A two meter simplex frequency was designated for the digital traffic. The portable ARES stations would use the FM phone net to ask permission to send digital traffic on the digital channel. This permitted the normal FM phone net to resume operations while the computers did all the work transferring the digital traffic on a separate channel. It’s critical that the digital channel take place on a different band then the FM phone net, so that the digital traffic receive is not de-sensed from adjacent frequency intermod. It’s also important for the stations doing a digital transmission on an FM phone frequency to announce: “CALLSIGN with tones” before transmitting. One of the digital transmissions went over a repeater and a non-ARES ham that was listening, thought the repeater was malfunctioning and allowing paging signals to be re-transmitted.

Mike Brugger, N8CEY is the ARES EC for Wayne County. He came up to observe the exercise from the Medina County EMA. I helped him get FLdigi and FLmsg installed and properly configured on his laptop, while he helped me with Net Control duties. Mike left with an extremely positive appreciation for the digital traffic handling. He’s planning to take the knowledge back to the Wayne County ARES team and start training on FLdigi.

———-

Thanks for that great report. Bob, Dave – NF8O, Fred – K8FH, and I put together a hands-on NBEMS training session for Medina county. The sides are available online: http://www.k8jtk.org/2015/11/10/vhfuhf-nbems-an-introduction-using-fldigi-and-flmsg-presentations/

Thanks for reading and 73… de Jeff – K8JTK

Ohio Section Journal – The Technical Coordinator – December 2015 edition

One of the responsibilities of the Technical Coordinator in the Ohio Section is to submit something for the Section Journal. The Section Journal covers Amateur Radio related things happening in and around the ARRL Ohio Section. It is published by the Section Manager Scott – N8SY and articles are submitted by cabinet members.

Once my article is published in the Journal, I will also make it available on my site with a link to the published edition.

You can receive the Journal and other Ohio Section news by joining the mailing list Scott has setup. You do not need to be a member of the ARRL, Ohio Section, or even a ham to join the mailing list. Please sign up!

If you are an ARRL member and reside in the Ohio Section, update your mailing preferences to receive Ohio Section news in your inbox.  Those residing outside the section will need to use the mailing list link above.
Updating your ARRL profile will deliver news from the section where you reside (if the leadership chooses to use this method).
Go to www.arrl.org and logon.
Click Edit your Profile.
You will be taken to the Edit Your Profile page. On the first tab Edit Info, verify your Email address is correct.
Click the Edit Email Subscriptions tab.
Check the News and information from your Division Director and Section Manager box.
Click Save.

Now without further ado…


Read the full edition at: http://n8sy2.blogspot.com/2015/12/december-issue-of-ohio-section-journal.html

THE TECHNICAL COORDINATOR
Jeff Kopcak – TC
k8jtk@arrl.net

DSCF5081 K8JTKHey Gang,

By now you have all the decorations up on the tree and house, Christmas cards mailed out, shopping done, right? Anyone? Yeah, me either.

One device you might want to put on your Christmas list for Santa is the YARD Stick One (Yet Another Radio Dongle). It’s a dongle to transmit and receive signals below 1 GHz, which include the 440 and 900 ham and ISM (industrial, scientific and medical) bands. This device was created by ‘hacker turned Ham Radio operator’ Mike Ossmann – AD0NR. He’s the founder of Great Scott Gadgets (http://greatscottgadgets.com/) which makes gadgets like the HackRF One or Ubertooth One.

YARD Stick One

The YARD Stick One is a half-duplex transmit and receive dongle that operates (officially) in the ranges of: 300-348 MHz, 391-464 MHz, and 782-928 MHz. Unofficially: 281-361 MHz, 378-481 MHz, and 749-962 MHz. Modulations schemes: ASK, OOK, GFSK, 2-FSK, 4-FSK, MSK. HAK5 did a getting started video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkTlTCUeec0. If you get one of these devices, let me know what you do with it! More: https://greatscottgadgets.com/yardstickone/.

If you’re more a Raspberry Pi person, the foundation released the $5 Raspberry Pi Zero. It features a processor about 40% faster than the Raspberry Pi A with 512MB RAM, micro-SD card slot, mini-HDMI socket, Micro-USB for data and power, unpopulated 40-pin GPIO header identical pinout to Model A+/B+/2, unpopulated composite video header, and a form factor of 65mm x 30mm x 5mm. More: https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspberry-pi-zero/

Raspberry Pi Zero

The Fo Time podcast had an episode that I found very interesting. Fo Time is actually a Ham Radio podcast. Their subtitle is ‘the Other Ham Radio Podcast.’ Episode 38 is titled “Ham Radio-Listening to the Spectrum.” As someone who loves to operate on the ham bands I’m very interested to scan around from time-to-time to see what else I can hear. The episode goes though the allocations and uses of radio spectrum. It is an overview but they will talk about radios to receive frequencies and modulation types. Give the episode a listen. I found it interesting and learned a couple things. At the end, they encourage you to get out there and tune a block of frequencies. You’ll be shocked to learn what is going around you that you had no idea. More: http://amateurradio15.com/38/

I plan to do a rundown of Ham Radio podcasts I’ve found in a future edition of the OSJ. There are many out there and your fellow hams are putting a lot of effort to bring you ham radio related topics — for free.

I had a great time at the NOARS meeting this past November. I presented my program on the Raspberry Pi. It sparked a lot of great questions, discussion, and even correspondence after the meeting about possible uses for the device. Thanks for having me at your meeting.

Welcome to Tracey W8TWL as the latest addition to the Technical Specialists. He brings a lot of commercial experience to the group. He has a GROL (General Radiotelephone Operator License) which allows him to repair aviation, marine, and fixed stations. He is a certified member of the SBE (Society of Broadcast Engineers), and helped track down false emergency calls, pirate radio stations, and RFI problems. I’ve been to a couple SBE meetings. Want to know what it takes to keep an AM/FM/TV station on the air? These guys have all kinds of war stories!

Thanks for reading. Happy holidays, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!

73… de Jeff – K8JTK

Ohio Section Journal – The Technical Coordinator – October 2015 edition

One of the responsibilities of the Technical Coordinator in the Ohio Section is to submit something for the Section Journal. The Section Journal covers Amateur Radio related things happening in and around the ARRL Ohio Section. It is published by the Section Manager Scott – N8SY and articles are submitted by cabinet members.

Once my article is published in the Journal, I will also make it available on my site with a link to the published edition.

You can receive the Journal and other Ohio Section news by joining the mailing list Scott has setup. You do not need to be a member of the ARRL, Ohio Section, or even a ham to join the mailing list. Please sign up!

If you are an ARRL member and reside in the Ohio Section, update your mailing preferences to receive Ohio Section news in your inbox.  Those residing outside the section will need to use the mailing list link above.
Updating your ARRL profile will deliver news from the section where you reside (if the leadership chooses to use this method).
Go to www.arrl.org and logon.
Click Edit your Profile.
You will be taken to the Edit Your Profile page. On the first tab Edit Info, verify your Email address is correct.
Click the Edit Email Subscriptions tab.
Check the News and information from your Division Director and Section Manager box.
Click Save.

Now without further ado…


Read the full edition at: http://n8sy2.blogspot.com/2015/10/october-edition-of-ohio-section-journal.html

THE TECHNICAL COORDINATOR
Jeff Kopcak – TC
k8jtk@arrl.net

DSCF5081 K8JTKHey Gang,

Where to start?  Lot has gone on the last month.  First up was the Cleveland Hamfest on the 27th.  The weather was great for a change – which, I thought, brought more people.  Seemed to be more flea market and vendor spaces taken up which is always good.  I heard from HAC that it was a successful hamfest this year.  I got to say howdy to a few in the Ohio Section cabinet.  I know I’ll forget someone but thanks to everyone that said hi and congratulated me.  Helped out with some of the local clubs, organizations, and shot the breeze with them.  Spent a couple of bucks too, mostly on connectors and accessories I was looking for.  You can always use more connectors.  Had just as much fun at the after party.

You didn’t know there is an after party?  Oh, there is… just some of my closest buddies getting together afterwards for some lunch.

The following day, I gave my Raspberry Pi presentation for the Geauga Amateur Radio Club and had a blast!  If you’re on the east side of Cleveland, be sure to check them out.  Made for a long day with work but was totally worth it!  There are two versions of this presentation available for viewing on my website at http://K8JTK.org.

The Northern Ohio Amateur Radio Society (NOARS, Lorain Co.) has asked me to put on the Pi presentation for their group too.  I’m scheduled to be the presenter at the November 16 meeting.  If you haven’t seen this thing yet, don’t miss it!  More info: noars.net.

Welcome to Dave KD8TWG as the newest Technical Specialist!  I’ve known Dave since about the time he became licensed because he’s been very active.  In addition to being AEC for Geauga County, he is into embedded systems, computers, and networking.  He plays around with APRS a lot too.

Aside from all that goodness, QSL cards and certificates are coming in from the 13 Colonies and Katrina 10th Anniversary special event stations.  I just dropped off certificate requests and QSL cards for the Route 66 and Pope Francis special event stations.  Groups really put in a lot of work doing these special event stations and do a great job getting the certificates and reply QSL cards out quickly.  The certificates really make great wallpaper for your shack too!  I find special event stations by watching Ham Nation or spots on DX clusters.

The Hurricane Watch Net is celebrating 50 years of service.  It was started in Cleveland by Jerry Murphy – K8YUW as an informal net to provide communication to affected areas.  They activate on the HF bands anytime a hurricane is expected to make landfall.  They can be heard on 14.325 MHz and 7.268 MHz.  Remember to stay clear of these frequencies while the net is activated.  More info: http://hwn.org.

LEARA is in line for a Yaesu Fusion repeater under their promotional deal.  We are eagerly awaiting the arrival of the box and can’t wait to get it on the air.  The promotional deal is a great opportunity for your club to replace aging repeater equipment or experiment with digital modes.  I can’t tell you how excited members of the club are to get into System Fusion.  From the other clubs that have contacted me regarding Fusion, the excitement is contagious.  Give it a shot!  The repeater can be configured: full digital (digital in – digital out only), full analog (analog in – analog out only), or auto detect (eg: analog or digital in – analog out, digital in – digital out, analog in – analog out).

Yaesu has extended the promotion once again until the end of the year, so you or your club has some time to decide.  Details and application are available through yeasu.com -> select Products -> click Digital.  Click DR-1X (model of the repeater).  Click the Files tab -> click “DR-1X Installation Program Application form.”

Thanks for reading

73… de Jeff – K8JTK

Running Fldigi Flmsg and Flwrap on the Raspberry Pi 2

With the popularity of the Raspberry Pi and the growing need of NBEMS, I wondered if it was possible to run NBEMS programs on the Pi. This maybe of interest to those who want to make a Go Kit (box) with digital or a club wants to replace older computers in their operations center with more efficient devices.

Fldigi is the program used and developed for Narrow Band Emergency Messaging System, but it does so much more. It’s also the standard for many Ham Radio operators because of the number of modes the software will operate.

Fldigi stands for Fast Light Digital modem application created by W1HKJ (David Freese, Jr.) and associates. Flmsg is a forms manager with standardized forms like MARS, plaintext messages, Radiograms, Red Cross, and Weather report forms. Flwrap is a file encapsulation and compression tool allowing for reception of a file exactly like the original.

The Fldigi application is open source, public license software meaning it’s free and available for auditing. With the source code available for Linux, I wondered if it was possible to compile the application on the Raspberry Pi.

At first I had some problems with the project. After (wasting) alot of time on it, I had given up. Only to find out the power supply I had been using was the cause of the issues.

Requirements

Work with my SignaLink USB. As a standard with my projects, the Pi can administered through SSH and VNC if needed. On Windows, I use PuTTY and TightVNC.

Assumptions

This guide is step-by-step in nature, meant for beginners, with brief explanations of the steps. It will help to have an understanding of Linux commands and scripting. Capitalization is important in Linux!

Check my other posts for setup guides on using your radio interface (though written for Windows) and Fldigi, Flmsg, and Flwrap.

Program versions

Applications and versions used in this writeup:

  • Windows 7 64 bit
  • Raspbian Jessie 2015-09-24
  • Win32DiskImager 0.9.5
  • PuTTY 0.65
  • TightVNC 2.7.10 64 bit
  • Fldigi 3.23.04
  • Flmsg 2.0.12
  • Flwrap 1.3.4

Build times

I did a face off for build times between the later model Pi versions: B+, 2, and 3. Later iterations will be faster. The results are in the format of the Linux command time, which contrary to it’s name does not set the time. It gives statistics about this program run. They consist of the elapsed real time between invocation and termination, the user CPU time, and the system CPU time. Later versions than listed above were used in this face off: Raspbian Jessie 2016-05-27, Fldigi 3.23.10, Flmsg 3.0.0, Flwrap is the same at 1.3.4.

Raspberry Pi B+

Failed. Apparently there is an issue running the Make command for Fldigi with versions later than the ones I originally used in this writeup. By the error messages this is an internal g++ compiler error. Make does not fail on the Pi 2 and 3 which probably means it’s a hardware issue (out of memory).

The error is “Warning: partial line at end of file ignored” for dialogs/fldigi-confdialog.o.

Raspberry Pi 2

real 21m49.783s
user 72m9.970s
sys 2m39.290s

Raspberry Pi 3

real 12m50.129s
user 42m8.980s
sys 1m19.160s

Parts list

Listed below are all the parts needed to get this project working. It is noted when items can be left out or substituted.

That’s all the parts needed for this project. Check out the AdaFruit Raspberry Pi page for other hardware that might be useful, like the USB to PS/2 adapter for example. Many of these parts are included in the Raspberry Pi Starter Pack.

If the Pi is setup where there may not be Internet, want to consider purchasing a Real Time Clock (RTC) addon. The Pi will keep time after power has been removed. Of course the time would just have to be set each time.

Flmsg custom forms

In order for custom forms to be used in Flmsg, version 2.0.17 or later must be used. There was a bug in previous versions that didn’t allow the forms to be parsed correctly. In addition, another browser needs to be installed as the default is unable to connect to the webserver created by Flmsg. Thanks to Ken – W0KAH for determining this issue and getting it resolved with the program author.

Linux package installer

The version available from the package manager could be installed but that version is several revisions behind which won’t have the latest enhancements. Some repositories don’t have Flmsg and Flwrap which makes it hard for NBEMS operation.

sudo apt-get -y install fldigi

sudo apt-get -y install flmsg flwrap
If it doesn’t work, you’ll get a message like:

E: Unable to locate package flmsg

Ohio Section Journal – The Technical Coordinator – September 2015 edition

One of the responsibilities of the Technical Coordinator in the Ohio Section is to submit something for the Section Journal.  The Section Journal covers Amateur Radio related things happening in and around the ARRL Ohio Section.  It is published by the Section Manager Scott – N8SY and articles are submitted by cabinet members.

Once my article is published in the Journal, I will also make it available on my site with a link to the published edition.

You can receive the Journal and other Ohio Section news by joining the mailing list Scott has setup.  You do not need to be a member of the ARRL, Ohio Section, or even a ham to join the mailing list.  Please sign up!

If you are an ARRL member and reside in the Ohio Section, update your mailing preferences to receive Ohio Section news in your inbox.  Those residing outside the section will need to use the mailing list link above.
Updating your ARRL profile will deliver news from the section where you reside (if the leadership chooses to use this method).
Go to www.arrl.org and logon.
Click Edit your Profile.
You will be taken to the Edit Your Profile page. On the first tab Edit Info, verify your Email address is correct.
Click the Edit Email Subscriptions tab.
Check the News and information from your Division Director and Section Manager box.
Click Save.

Now without further ado…


Read the full edition at: http://n8sy2.blogspot.com/2015/09/september-edition-of-ohio-section.html

THE TECHNICAL COORDINATOR
Jeff Kopcak – TC
k8jtk@arrl.net

DSCF5081 K8JTKHey Gang.

Normally in this space you would find a well put together article written by Jim W8ERW. If you didn’t catch last month’s Ohio Section Journal, Jim is moving on to bigger and better things. That would be Texas. Jim is one of Fort Worth’s newest residents! The fine folks in the North Texas Section have a great guy coming their way. He’s probably enjoying the warm weather down there right now. Congratulations Jim! So ‘why are we seeing this other guy writing in Jim’s place’ you’re probably asking yourself? I don’t know either.

Seriously though, I have to give a lot of credit to my predecessor, Jim – W8ERW and to our Section Manager, Scott – N8SY. These guys are excellent at answering all my questions from my time as a Technical Specialist and transitioning me into the Technical Coordinator position. Thank you.

I look forward to serving the Ohio Section and seeing what you guys have in store. I’ve already received a number of questions on computers, digital modes, and D-STAR. Happy to answer them. My bio is posted on the Ohio Section website if you missed it.

raspberry-pi-intro-640x420Last month, I gave a presentation on the Raspberry Pi computer at the LEARA meeting in Cleveland. This presentation was an introductory look at the device. It included history, hardware specs, setting up the Pi, and ham radio projects. There was a larger than usual turnout for the meeting and even a few non-hams in attendance. The presentation is available on my website if you would like to take a look. I gave a shortened version at the QCWA Chapter 1 meeting in July. If you missed either meeting, fear not! I am scheduled to be at the GARA (Geauga Co.) club meeting on September 28th as they celebrate 38 years! See you there.
Couple events to note… the Cleveland Hamfest is coming up on September 27th. This is in my backyard so I will be in attendance and hope to meet all of you. You can join the Hamfest Association of Cleveland and help out next year via their website hac.org.

The TAPR Digital Communication Conference is coming up October 9th – 11th near Chicago. Want to go to one of these at some point because it looks like another excellent lineup of forums. Topics include: Digital Voice and Network systems, DATV, Arduino CAT controller for the HPSDR, an Amateur Radio Digital Open Protocol, remote operation of your radio, 3D modeling in Ham Radio, and introductory sessions on a number of topics. ARRL’s own Ward Silver – N0AX is the banquet speaker. Head over to www.tapr.org/dcc.html for the complete schedule and to register.

Thanks to everyone who wrote and congratulated me on my appointment. It really means a lot!
Thank you for reading..

73, K8JTK

Raspberry Pi – An Introduction to the Credit-Card Sized Computer presentations

I was asked to give a presentation on the Raspberry Pi computer to a number of Amateur Radio clubs in the Cleveland area.

The Technical Coordinator for the Ohio section, Jim – W8ERW, mentioned the presentations in the July 2015 Edition of the Ohio Section Journal.

Framework

The framework I chose to use for the presentation slides is called reveal.js.  It is an HTML framework meaning it will run in any HTML 5 capable browser.  Looks a little better than a PowerPoint presentation.

Navigation

Useful navigation keys in the presentation.  In addition to navigating with the keys below, you can swipe (tables/smartphones) or use the navigation arrows on screen in the lower right.

Toggle full screen: press [F11].

Advance to the next slide: press [n] or [SPACEBAR].

Go back to the previous slide: press [p] or press and hold the [SHIFT] key while pressing the [SPACEBAR].

Display presentation overview: [ESC] then use the arrow keys or mouse to select a slide.  [ESC] again will exit overview mode.

Links

Clickable links are colored in brownish text.

Presentations

Three variations are available: presentation version is viewable in a browser.  Printable version for printing or saving in a different format (Chrome, Chromium, and variants compatible only).  Finally a PDF version.

They may take some time to load because I left original images untouched and some were a couple MB in file size.

Short version

The short version is around 30 minutes in length.

Presentation version
Printable version
PDF version

This presentation was given at the following meetings:
QCWA Cleveland Chapter 1 on 7/11/2015.

Long version

The long version is around 45 minutes in length.

Presentation version
Printable version
PDF version

This presentation was given at the following meetings:
Lake Erie Amateur Radio Association on 8/25/2015.
Geauga Amateur Radio Association on 9/28/2015.
Northern Ohio Amateur Radio Society on 11/16/2015.
Cuyahoga Amateur Radio Society on 9/13/2016.
Parma Radio Club on 12/5/2016.

Dongle Bits: ADSB Radar and $60 Police Scanner

This article appeared in the The Lake Erie Amateur Radio Association newsletter The Spirit of ’76 and ’88 February 2015 edition and The Wood County Amateur Radio Club newsletter CQ Chatter March 2015 edition.

Read the rest of the series in the Dongle Bits articles category.


The holidays were a busy time at the K8JTK laboratories with a couple RTL-SDR projects. The RTL-SDR is the European TV tuner dongle that was turned into a software defined radio receiver.

Thanksgiving is one of the busiest travel seasons and I wanted to decode ADS-B data to see how many aircraft were flying around. ADS-B stands for Automatic Dependent Surveillance – Broadcast allowing aircraft to be tracked by ground stations and provide situational awareness to nearby aircraft. This is part of the FAA’s NextGen project and mandated by agencies across the globe.

I saw this project in the January 2014 edition of QST written by Robert – W9RAN. He covered building a Collinear Array for the ADS-B frequency of 1090 MHz. I used one of my ham antennas. The RF signal received by the dongle is turned into data packets by a program called ADSB# (included in the SDR# download). VirtualRadar receives those packets, decodes the data, and plots aircraft on Google Maps. This setup can work with a Raspberry Pi and I hope to try this in the future.

adsb-07_browser-06_thanksgiving_travel_and_take_off
Thanksgiving travel in Cleveland, Ohio.

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I saw 25 aircraft flying around Cleveland on average. I think the most I saw was 48 at once. Not all aircraft have full ADS-B implementations. For example: I would see a call sign but no position data. My receive range (depending on aircraft altitude) was east of Toledo to the PA border and south to Canton. Visit my write-up on this project: ADS-B Decoding with ADSBSharp and VirtualRadar Server.

The second project is a little more complicated but it helped me understand how trunked radio systems work. With the FCC narrowbanding mandate in certain RF spectrum, many public service agencies have decided to “go digital.” In my area the MARCS-IP system and the Greater Cleveland Radio Communications Network are most popular. Both are P25 trunked digital systems. P25 is a specification for voice and data transmission. Trunked radio systems operate by having a radio send data to the control channel requesting communication on a talkgroup. The control channel directs all users of that talkgroup to a specified channel. When the user is done transmitting, all radios switch back to monitoring the control channel for further instructions. This is done seamlessly and allows many users (agencies) to use a small set of radio frequencies. Users only hear the conversations on their assigned talkgroup and not other users on the same system.

dongle-bits-06-p25_trunked_decoding-single_voice_decoder
P25 trunked decoding with a single voice decoder.

Scanners that receive these systems run $500 and go up from there. Using two RTL-SDR dongles and software (mostly free), I’ve been able to receive P25 trunked systems for about $65. One dongle monitors only the control channel and other dongle(s) jump frequencies to receive the digital voice modulation with a program decoding the audio. I can have as many voice receivers as I want whereas a scanner cannot be expanded. Most I’ve heard of is eight. There are some drawbacks like portability. Find out my experiences in my P25 Trunked Tracking post.

Fresh Baked Pi

Raspberry Pi foundation released new models over the last couple months. The biggest news coming at the beginning of February: the Raspberry Pi 2. This model comes with a quad-core CPU and 1GB RAM offering a six times speed improvement, still at $35. Initial reports are it is a lot faster!

Raspberry Pi 2

Along with the new Pi2 came a new version of the Raspbian operating system with optimizations and a new look. In the near future, Microsoft will be releasing a version of Windows 10 Embedded for the Raspberry Pi 2 FREE OF CHARGE! (see the Raspberry Pi 2 link above.)

That’s A Wrap

A goal behind this series has been to expose many hams to newer technologies and younger people to ham radio. These technologies are getting young people interested in experimenting, programming, and even Ham Radio. On podcasts I watch, I’ve heard “I want to get my Ham Radio license” by 20 and 30 year olds like I’ve never heard before. These are young people interested in experimenting, making things, building things, and hacking things — all of which are the foundation of Amateur Radio. Making has evolved into writing software, sending a chip a set of commands and analyzing what is returned, or analyzing packets. Then figuring out “what can I do with this?”

I saw a great technology round-table over the holidays and they talked about getting kids into technology. Many of the methods apply to Ham Radio. As a builder, you build something and presume what will happen. Then something different happens and now you have a mystery to solve. “Why did X happen and not Y?” A new theory develops and sucks you in. This is exactly how the Raspberry Pi, RTL-SDR, and every project surrounding them came to be. It is my opinion that we, as the Amateur Radio community, need to encourage, capitalize, and focus efforts on younger makers and hackers to get them licensed.

As this is my last planned article, I would like to take time and thank the newsletter editors for thinking this series was worth publishing and recreating all the links I included. Thank you to those who told others about this series. I got a ton of feedback and couldn’t be happier that others have found this interesting and sparked them to start experimenting. Most of all, thank you for reading.