Linux® in Your Ham Shack

Andy StewartKB1OIQ

May 3, 2016

Nashua Area Radio ClubNashua, NH

Biographical Info

Tech: 1/07, General 1/08, Extra 1/09

President: PART of Westford, MA (9/09)

Founder: Worcester Linux Users' Group (1997)

Founder and Acting President:Chelmsford Linux Meetup Group (2006-present)

Linux Instructor:Chelmsford Community Education (2004 - 2011)

Linux user since 1997

Computer Engineer – digital logic verification

Andy's Ham Radio Linux

ISO file freely available Ubuntu Linux 14.04.* Remix Create Live DVD and boot it for test drive Create a bootable USB thumb drive Install it on the hard drive

Download from SourceForge Andy's Ham Radio Linux Search for ”KB1OIQ” on SourceForge Software is GPL or similarly free license

Motivation

Promote Linux Give back to ham and Linux communities Reduce pain of installing ham radio software

Typically downloaded from vendor repository Some software must be built from source Not always easy...lots of dependencies, etc.

Help get people started Could be used at install fests for hams Useful for Field Day or Public Service Events

Downloads

V8 (5/11, 10.10)V9 (7/11, 10.10)

V10 (11/11, 11.04)V11 (6/12, 11.10)

V12 (10/12, 11.10)V13 (3/13, 12.04)

V14 (10/13, 12.04)V15.1 (3/14, 13.10)

V16 (7/14, 14.04)V17 (1/15, 14.04)

V18 (9/15, 14.04)V19 (4/16, 14.04)

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Target Computer

Older computer (newer works OK, too!) Bare minimum requirements

1-2 GB of memory Network for hard drive installation 1GHz x86 processor (more for SDR) 8-10 GB for hard drive install

My ”ham radio laptop” (retired!) 10 years old, 1.8GHz processor, 2GB memory All works OK except FM Stereo on SDR Was getting slow, even for me.

My New Ham Radio Laptop

Linux Certified LC2530I 120 GB SSD 8 GB memory 17” screen Intel Graphics HD 4600 Intel Core i7-4710MQ 2.5GHz x 8 6-7 lbs (heavy)

Yes, it is blazingly fast compared to the old one! Login is virtually immediate

Initial Boot Screen - DVD

Initial Boot Screen - USB

Initial Login Screen

Initial Desktop

Desktop

Icewm Light on system resources Virtual desktops Easy customization, many themes available

Menus Customized for amateur radio use

Toolbar Menu, quickly start apps, status monitors, clock

System Software Highlights

Wicd Network Manager (wired and wireless) Midori Browser (lightweight, no proprietary Flash) Ubiquity hard drive installation program live-usb-install – create a bootable thumb drive Shutdown/reboot by menu Graphical file manager, PDF viewer, text editor PulseAudio sound and utilities xosview system monitor Smart package manager

Hard Drive Installer

live-usb-install

Documentation

Programs have their own documentation Search the Internet for the program's website

Docs specific to this software collection: Menu->Documentation->

RELEASE_NOTES CHANGES (from release to release) Icewm docs

See also files in this directory:/usr/local/share/doc/Andy_Ham_Radio_Linux

Ham Radio Software Summary

Logging: cqrlog, xlog, TQSL (for LoTW) APRS: Xastir, soundmodem, direwolf Digital modes: Fldigi and friends (NBEMS)

Qsstv, wsjt(-x), Echolink client

CW: xcwcp, qrq, cwwav (text to CW) Antenna analysis:

Xnec2c, Fl_Moxgen, aa-analyzer

Satellite: Gpredict, Fox 1A telemetry decoder

More Ham Radio Software

EDA Software gschem – schematic capture pcb – board layout Spice and GUI with waveform viewer (gwave)

SDR gqrx – sdr radio receiver used with USB dongle Gnuradio companion

FreeDV / Codec2 Pskmail client and server

Xlog

CQRLOG

APRS™

Automatic Packet Reporting System

Bob Bruninga WB4APR

XastirX Amateur Station Tracking and Information Reporting

http://www.xastir.org

Supports many, many map formats

Now supports OpenStreetMap !

Xastir

Xastir Screenshot

xcwcp

Qtel Echolink Client

Gpredict

Earthtrack

QSSTV

QSSTV

Digital Modes

Fldigi – W1HKJ and friends

Supports a large(!) number of digital modes

Keyboard to keyboard communications

BPSK-31, RTTY, Hellschreiber, and more!

ARQ file transfers (auto repeat request)

NBEMS – Narrow Band Emergency Messaging System

Great support! Yahoo Group: linuxham

Fldigi, fllog, flmsg, flrig, flarq, flwrap, flwkey

Fldigi

SDR: gqrx

FreeDV

Free Digital Voice Originally written in response to proprietary D-Star Codec2: David (VK5DGR) Rowe FreeDV: Mel (K0PFX) Whitten Digitally encoded voice for HF transmission

1600 bits/sec, 1.1khz bandwidth, 14.236 MHz Requires 2 soundcards Very actively developed: now down to 700 bits/sec(!!)

Linux, Windoze, and Apple versions are available

FreeDV GUI

GNU Radio Companion

GRC Scope Plot

xnec2c

HF Beacons

Software Created by KB1OIQ

Fl_MoxGen aa-analyzer Micro-Fox Config GPL TinyTrak3 Config GPL Perl scripts for Wordsworth All are freely available on SourceForge

Fl_MoxGen

Micro-Fox Config GPL

TinyTrak 3 (tt3_gpl)

Companies to Thank #1

RigExpert Ukraine Ltd. KB1OIQ asked for information to retrieve data

from the device They said YES!

Info is posted on RigExpert website.

Many thanks to Denis Nechitailov!!! aa-analyzer.pl was created Works on many/most/all(?) AA-xxx analyzers Download from Sourceforge.net

Companies to Thank #2

Byonics, LLC in Chandler, AZ MicroFox 15 and TinyTrak3 Many thanks to Allen Lord and

Byon Garrabrant! Download from Sourgeforge.net

Release Schedule

Just released V19: April 2016 Next release (V20): probably fall 2016

Most likely upgrading to match Ubuntu 16.04.*

Sticking with LTS releases of Ubuntu No major new additions planned

Send email if you'd like to see something added! kb1oiq@arrl.net

Updates to your favorite ham radio applications

What's interesting today?

Broadband-Hamnet(TM) Repurpose Linksys WRT54G* and Ubiquiti

wireless devices Load new firmware Use them to create mesh networks Increase power / gain antenna = Part 97 Was deployed at PART Field Day 2015 http://www.broadband-hamnet.org

SM1000

Free Digital Voice – hardware in a box

No computer required – everything is in the box

Connect it to your rig with your own cable

Cost: $200

My setup:

Heil Headset (Pro Set Plus) ICOM 746PRO 3 stereo audio cables: Speaker, Mic, PTT Could also make a cable with RJ-45 connector and

internal jumpers

SM1000

Last Slide!

Questions? Slides available:

Email: kb1oiq@arrl.net

Thanks for coming to this talk! Have a lot of fun, and 73 de Andy KB1OIQ

Attributions

RigExpert® is a registered trademark ofRig Expert Ukraine Ltd in Ukraine andin the USA.

APRS™ is a trademark of Bob Bruninga

Linux® is the registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the U.S. and other countries.

Other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

References

PART of Westford, MAhttp://www.wb1gof.org

Worcester Linux Users' Grouphttp://www.wlug.org

Chelmsford Linux Meetup Grouphttp://linux.meetup.com/393

Chelmsford Community Educationhttp://www.chelmsfordcommunityeducation.org

References

Weak Signal Communications (WSJT, WSPR)http://physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/K1JT

RigExpert® Antenna Analyzershttp://www.rigexpert.com

Byonics, LLC – Micro-Fox 15 and TinyTrak3http://www.byonics.com

Download Andy's Ham Radio Linux http://www.sf.net/projects/kb1oiq-andysham