Category Archives: Amateur Radio

Amateur Radio, AX25, Computing

Waiting for Pi

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Boy it has been busy of late, not what I expected 2013 to be.  I’m way behind on a lot of things I had planned to get done this year, but who isn’t.

Today I got one item off the todo list. Back in September at the DCC, John Hansen, W2FS presented the TNC-Pi, a radio modem for the Raspberry Pi. John was kind enough to entertain my questions, and I purchased one from him. This morning, I dug out the kit, fired up the soldering iron and put it together, quite therapeutic I must say.

TNC-Pi

Looking forward now to getting a Pi, and getting it all going, assuming I’ve not messed up in the construction.

Happy Christmas!

Amateur Radio

New one, 3V8BB!

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It is surprising how a simple piece of card can make one smile.

I arrived home from work this evening to find an envelope with a hand written address waiting for me.  On opening it, this was the card inside. The card confirms that on the 27th of September, 2008 at 13:06 UTC, Fex (the operator at the time) and I had a brief communication on the 14Mhz band using the Radioteletype (RTTY) data mode.  I don’t use RTTY often, so it must have been during a contest.

Why did it make me smile?  well this is my first EVER confirmed contact with another Amateur Radio station in Tunisia.

 

Amateur Radio, Satellites

My received phonesat packets.

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I was travelling with work most of last week, but set up my machine to see if it could receive AX.25 packets from and of the phonesat satellites (which have since de-orbited).

I was surprised to find these in my log when I got home
April 23rd:

1200mk: fm KJ6KRW-1 to CQ via TCPIP ctl UI pid=F0(Text) len 110 12:32:18
ÿ63$uc!<bY5l^lc=VB@*=$UTF1II3[bsRN#Y.Z2gks%/P#/@QBB0i \
\N!'pVc!(#KBzzzzzzzz!,,q[Ci:G.Ec5e;FD,5.@
1200mk: fm KJ6KRW-2 to CQ via TELEM ctl UI pid=F0(Text) len 161 12:35:40
ÿ5qjuM1K$e67WJJ/!*;TU:f^CP+D(TR!0REaSH12S!"T&n/J
1200mk: fm KJ6KRW-2 to CQ via TELEM ctl UI pid=F0(Text) len 186 14:04:41
ÿ5qjuL1K$e67YUmC!*;TU:f^CP+F4"f!0REaSH12S!"T&nfik7HU`uM""9LgtKV/\_ \
_!NgZ0$$$p<58LU+2f&Q+]BUjfK"_<7)l?Oj6ucc='X_AIM[\gZV7P5:QXgtFnd^K( \
@hIncI$`3+b+i^`_j+=O*\2JF9D7m#Q&$_[lH,]=6OKd'.2ZD?iU0ÿ

April 24th:

1200mk: fm KJ6KRW-2 to CQ via TELEM ctl UI pid=F0(Text) len 186 13:53:42
ÿ5qjuO2H!+97YUmC!*;TU:f^CP+F4"f!3u\,SH12S!"T&nOZ8[tU7mMI!>GZg:^,JP \
&ERJ!qB!Z.L;3chrqR,S]j-(S?E1-&kr.HR&?@8hKNdAYW'Nh]9p3&70r4^@NHF?1pMGWXm)_8NI&WN-1?c"<<Q6Di"BmcYt0X$/a[h@NoQd!!!!ÿ

I was quite surprised to receive them as my set-up is not all that good on UHF.

Amateur Radio, APRS

Kenwood TH-D72, Duracell vs Lithium.

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In keeping in the battery longevity theme here and here, recently, Don, AB1PH posted to the Yahoo TH-D72 group about some testing he did with primary cell batteries in the BT-15 AAA Holder.  Don compared Everready Ultimate Lithium (L92) batteries, to Duracell Alkaline batteries.

His TH-D72A was set-up to broadcast its location every 3 minutes. The Duracell’s lasted approx. 1h 40 minutes, with the Lithium batteries lasting approximately 7h. By any standard, approximately 4-5 hours is an appreciable difference, in fact that is almost equivalent to the run time of the original battery pack. Sure, they are more expensive, but, I know which I’ll keep spare.

Amateur Radio, Computing, D-Star

Wardriving and D-STAR Digital Data

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I’m slowly working towards doing some experiments with mesh networking (OLSR) and Icom ID-1 D-star Radios in Digital Data mode.  I’ve been wondering what coverage I would (should) see from a vehicle, back to one of the locations where I have an ID-1 in a fixed location (thanks EI3JB/EI8JA).

I got back from a trip today, grabbed an ID-1, an Omni Antenna, Laptop, a short bash script I wrote to ping and record replies along with a GPS position, and an old GPS-18 puck.   All the nodes have fixed IP addresses so the script is quite simple, ping host A, if A replies within 2 seconds, record the next position output from the GPS, try the same with host B, loop forever, nothing fancy or terribly accurate.

As I only have two nodes set-up, and without much preparation (shutting down chatty applications), I persuaded SWMBO to do a short (war)drive, while I kept an eye on the laptop.

This first picture below shows (the red dots) the coverage from Nicky, EI3JB’s place (roughly at the 8 in the R708 closest to the top). Note the few packets recorded in Tramore, shortly after I left my own place.

The second is obviously from my place, as it is much more centred on Tramore.

Nothing really ground-breaking in either picture, but useful to help visualise potential coverage nonetheless. There is a huge black-spot on the section of road just leaving Tramore, as far as Ballykinsella (L4061 on the map).  This is of no surprise, as it is a tough location  for 430Mhz signals to get out of. What was surprising though is the packets received from EI3JBs location out in Tramore.

Next steps are to get EI8JA up and running, and complete a more thorough survey.

Now though, it is time for a beer!

Amateur Radio, Computing

6Y0A and yfktest.

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Well, we made it to 2013. First up on the radio agenda this year was the January Irish Radio Transmitter Society 80 Meter band Counties Contest.

I hadn’t planned to enter the contest this year, but, the day before, I suddenly found myself with that afternoon free. I was invited along to the QTH of Liam, EI8BLB to operate his station along with EI8JA and EI3JB.

I brought along my roadkill linux laptop with yfktest on it for logging.

Yesterday, I received a card from “Kappy” WA4WTG, for 6Y0A, confirming Jamica as a new one for me (thanks Kappy). Kappy collects stamps so I took a bunch of stamps I had from Christmas cards and other received QSL’s and sent them onto him. In return 6Y0A was the first card I received in 2013.

While recording the card in my log, I was thinking that it would have been useful to have yfktest ‘tick off’ the counties as we worked them in the contest last Tuesday. So I had a quick look at the code.

It turned out to be pretty straightforward, as there was examples there already that I was able to follow, so that change should be in the repository come the summer IRTS 80m Counties Contest.

A very happy new year and wishing you good DX for 2013.