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**Linux in the Ham Shack**

Linux in the Ham Shack Podcast in MP3 Format

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LHS Episode #085: David Rowe on Codec2 Jun 27, 2012

Show notes

Introduction:

“You know it’s summer in Texas, because all the truck tires shed their winter coats.”
This episode, an interview with David Rowe, VK5DGR.

Topics:

Our hosts conduct a lively conversation with David Rowe, VK5DGR, from Adelaide, South Australia.
David is the author of Codec 2,, an open source speech codec designed for communications quality speech.
You can find more information about David and his project on his blog.
Powerpoint presentations and Youtube videos of how Codec 2 works are available on his Codec 2 blog page.
You can see David’s presentation of Codec2 at linux.conf.au here.
David then describes the Mesh Potato project, an open hardware product designed specifically to build telephone networks without infrastructure like cell phone towers or land lines.
The Mesh Potato is available for purchase.

Contact Info:

Contact Richard at kb5jbv@gmail.com, Russ at k5tux@lhspodcast.info, or both at the same time at info@lhspodcast.info.
Listen to the live stream every other Tuesday at 8:00pm Central time. Check the LHS web site for dates.
Leave us a voice mail at 1-909-LHS-SHOW (1-909-547-7469), or record an introduction to the podcast.
Sign up for the LHS mailing list.
Sign up for the MAGNetcon mailing list.
LHS merchandise is available at the Merch link on Web site. Check out the Badgerwear or buy one of the other LHS-branded items at PrintFection.com/lhs or Cafe Press. Thanks!
Thanks to Dave from Gamma Leonis for the theme music.

Music:

None.

http://media.blubrry.com/lhspodcast_mp3/mirror.linux.org.au/linux.conf.au/2012/Codec_2_Open_Source_Speech_Coding_at_2400_bits_and_Below.ogv

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

LHS Episode #084: GNU Radio Jun 12, 2012

Show notes

Introduction:

No music this time; just one hour jam-packed with LHS goodness!

Announcements:

Remember to sign up for the following LHS services:
The LHS SubReddit
The LHS Mailing List
The LHS Mobile app. Follow our updates via the mobile applications available for iPod, iPhone, iPad and Android devices.
Be an LHS Ambassador! Please join our Ambassador program. The event calendar has expanded quite a bit and we need your help. These events are now world-wide, so we could use some help outside the US as well as all over the country from California to Maine.
YFKtest: Yes, there really does seem to be a problem. It’s been confirmed by John, EI7IG, that the program does not log contacts for the ARRL Field Day contest. Other contests work fine. Russ plans on emailing the developer, DJ1YFK, with these observations.
From the “Yes, It’s an Antenna” File: Multi-band HF dipole made from horse fencing.
Pulling a Lunduke: Holding Source Code Hostage. Our hosts discuss this blog post by Tom Nardi about Bryan Lunduke’s recent move to open source his software. Bryan is one of the hosts of The Linux Action Show.

Topics:

Software Defined Radio (SDR)
A common topic Russ encountered at Dayton was about the available Linux options for software defined radios.
GNU Radio Project
Version 3.6.0 released in early May, 2012.
Version 3.2.2 is in the Debian Sid repository.
The latest version can be retrieved with git. (Install git with the command “apt-get install git”.) To download the software, issue the command “git clone git://gnuradio.org/gnuradio”.
Build instructions are available for most of the major Linux distributions.
SDR Hardware
Ettus USRP series works with the GNU Radio Project software. There are various models ranging in price from $700 to $2000, depending on the frequency range and options. Various modules allow receive and/or transmit on bands from 30kHz to 5.9GHz. Unfortunately, power output appears to be just 50-200mW, depending on the bands provided by the transmitter daughter board chosen.
Funcube Dongle costs £128 (~$200) and is a receiver only. The Funcube Dongle is a “radio receiver designed to allow anyone to try their hand at reception of satellites like FUNcube”. It covers 51.5MHz - 1.7GHz, less the region from 1.1GHz to 1.2GHz.
Perseus SDR costs $1000 and is also receive-only. It receives 10kHz to 40MHz.
SoftRock SDR is a kit available in various models from $20 to $90. Most are receive-only, but the Ensemble is a 1W HF transceiver. Some models are unavailable at the moment. The SoftRock RXTX Ensemble Transceiver Kit will allow you to build a 1W transceiver for one of the following bands or band groups: 160m, 80m/40m, 30m/20m/17m, or 15m/12m/10m.
RTL-SDR Devices range in price from $20 to $200 and are receive-only. More on the RTL-SDR project in an upcoming episode.

Feedback:

Stewart, VA3PID, wrote to say that Russ was the first person, possibly ever, to correctly place his Scottish accent at Hamvention. He also remarked (in reference to a discussion in episode 71) that Chirp has come a long way; it can now program his Yaesu FT-857D!
Jonas recently re-discovered LHS and expressed his appreciation for the show. Thanks, Jonas!
Stefano, IZ3NVR/KD2BGM, asks for more help getting so2sdr built on his Linux machine. Russ suggests installing the compiler with “apt-get install g++ build-essential”, installing Qt and several other packages as described in Episode 83, then try building the so2sdr program again.
Lastly, David Dominicki left a mostly unintelligible comment in response to Episode 78. Um, thanks… we think.

Contact Info:

Contact Richard at kb5jbv@gmail.com, Russ at k5tux@lhspodcast.info, or both at the same time at info@lhspodcast.info.
Listen to the live stream every other Tuesday at 8:00pm Central time. Check the LHS web site for dates.
Leave us a voice mail at 1-909-LHS-SHOW (1-909-547-7469), or record an introduction to the podcast.
Sign up for the LHS mailing list.
Sign up for the MAGNetcon mailing list.
LHS merchandise is available at the Merch link on Web site. Check out the Badgerwear or buy one of the other LHS-branded items at PrintFection.com/lhs or Cafe Press. Thanks!
Thanks to Dave from Gamma Leonis for the theme music.

Music:

None.

LHS Episode #083: Smokey & The First Lady May 31, 2012

Show notes

Introduction:

Back from Dayton and ready to go.

Topics:

Dayton Hamvention 2012
LHS had the same booth as last year at North Hall #131. Estimated attendance was 25,000 individuals. Russ recounts the experience. Thanks to Matt, KC8BEW, who stopped by and helped out at the booth. The LowSWR podcasters stopped by, too.
FCC Dismisses Texas Ham’s Fourth Petition, Calls it “Repetitive”
Our hosts discuss.
Contest logging for Linux.
Several people at Hamvention asked about contest logging software for Linux, but Russ was at a loss for a recommendation. Upon his return, he discovered…
SO2SDR Contest Logging Software
Stefano, IZ3NVR/KD2BGM was trying to get so2sdr to work under Linux Mint and while it would compile, it did not run, so Russ set about trying to get it going.
It’s not packaged for Debian or Fedora, so it must be built from source, available at the link above.
The program is written in Qt, so it can be run on devices which support that environment, including Linux and Windows. Of course, Qt must be installed in order to compile so2sdr.
Russ also had to install the following packages on his Linux Mint machine: portaudio19-dev (NOT libportaudio-dev; apparently, libportaudio-dev is too old), fftw3 and fftw3-dev
The compilation procedure consists of: qmake make sudo make install
so2sdr compiled and ran fine. It did complain that it wanted a parallel port for switching between radios, but you can ignore that if you don’t need to do that.
Russ gives an overview of the features and capabilities.
There are a few drawbacks:
An apparent lack of SSB support? It seems to be CW-only.
Frequency input checking is broken.
Keystrokes are not intuitive, but are well-documented.
However, the built-in help file is quite useful.

Feedback:

E-mail from Larry, KG4Q, extolling fldigi and JT65-HF. He wishes there was a version of JT65-HF for Linux. Well, Larry, there is! You can download the source here. Also, WSJT does JT65, too.
Chris, K4FH, caught up with Russ at Hamvention and talked about his Linux in the Ham Shack presentation. He managed to put together a fine bunch of slides completely without our help. Sorry, Chris!

Contact Info:

Contact Richard at kb5jbv@gmail.com, Russ at k5tux@lhspodcast.info, or both at the same time at info@lhspodcast.info.
Listen to the live stream every other Tuesday at 8:00pm Central time. Check the LHS web site for dates.
Leave us a voice mail at 1-909-LHS-SHOW (1-909-547-7469), or record an introduction to the podcast.
Sign up for the LHS mailing list.
Sign up for the MAGNetcon mailing list.
LHS merchandise is available at the Merch link on Web site. Check out the Badgerwear or buy one of the other LHS-branded items at PrintFection.com/lhs or Cafe Press. Thanks!
Thanks to Dave from Gamma Leonis for the theme music.

Music:

“Down Today” by Jonathan Coulton from the album “Artificial Heart”.
“Sucker Punch” by Jonathan Coulton from the album “Artificial Heart”.

LHS Episode #082: Hamroids May 15, 2012

Show notes

Introduction:

Hacker Public Radio celebrates their 1000th episode!

Announcements:

The Black Sparrow Media Mobile App for iPhone/iPad and Android has been updated. You can now listen to all of the old episodes, as well as new ones, via the app. wAVEgUIDES episodes are now included, as well. All streaming content is now available for iPad/iPhone. Please download and enjoy. It’s at the Google Play marketplace, as well as via the Black Sparrow Media website, and it’s still free!
The LHS Hamvention fund drive was a success! LHS will be at Dayton Hamvention 2012, May 18-20, in the North Hall of the Hara Arena in booth 131, the same place as last year.
Russ fixed a website bug that may have been causing some visitors to see the Black Sparrow Media site when surfing to LHS. Thanks to John, EI7IG, for pointing it out.
Please sign up for the LHS mailing list at https://lists.blacksparrowmedia.net/mailman/listinfo.
Please join the LHS subreddit and contribute show topic ideas, news of interest to our listeners, or just about anything else.
Please tell your friends about the show.

Topics:

Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU, in his recent Surfin’ column on the ARRL website, recommends open source Apache OpenOffice and the desktop publishing software Scribus. Note, LibreOffice is a fork of OpenOffice and is also quite functional. Both offer word processing, spreadsheets, database and presentations. Scribus may have a steep learning curve, but it’s a very powerful program. Easy tasks are easy to accomplish. Complex projects may take more effort to learn. Also note that many open source programs, like OpenOffice, Libre Office and Scribus, are available for Windows, OS X, as well as Linux.
Take a look at the ham radio section at Linux Journal which also has links to their Ham Shack forum.
Richard discovered several open source ham radio applications at Sourceforge: ircDDB_gateway, CQiNET, phppredict, contest loggers, fldigi, paclink-unix, OpenMOR, software for SDR radios, Ham Radio Net Logger, and more. So, don’t just look in your distributions repositories for applications. You may have to compile the programs from SourceForge yourself, but it may be worth the trouble.
Finally, a reminder to visit KE2YK’s Random Oscillations website.
An overview of ham radio apps for Android phones, available at the Android market, aka Google Play:
Morse Code apps:
Morse Decoder ($4.99)
Morse Code Reader (Free)
Morse Trainer Lite (Free)
Morse Trainer ($2.99)
Morse Code Trainer (Free)
Morse Code Keyboard (Free)
Morse Code Teacher ($3.99)
QSO Logging:
Amateur Radio Call Log (Free)
HamLog ($0.99)
Hamroid Free (Free)
Hamroid ($6.53)
Miscellaneous:
QSY (Free)
DroidPSK ($4.99)
DXCluster ($2.49)
DTMF ($2.49)
Echolink (Free)
A few more from Bill:
APRS Viewer (Free)
Ham Radio Tools (Free)
Who Is Calling Me? (Free)

Feedback:

Ronny, K4RJJ, regrets that he won’t be able to act as the LHS ambassador at the Knoxville hamfest. If you’d like to be our representative at the Knoxville, or any other event, please contact us via the Ambassador link on the website.
Roy, KK4ATD, reiterates how much fun it is to be an LHS ambassador.
Chris, K4FH, says he offers a presentation at club meetings he calls Linux in the Ham Shack. He’s hoping Richard or Russ has some material they can share.

Contact Info:

Contact Richard at kb5jbv@gmail.com, Russ at k5tux@lhspodcast.info, or both at the same time at info@lhspodcast.info.
Listen to the live stream every other Tuesday at 8:00pm Central time. Check the LHS web site for dates.
Leave us a voice mail at 1-909-LHS-SHOW (1-909-547-7469), or record an introduction to the podcast.
Sign up for the LHS mailing list.
Sign up for the MAGNetcon mailing list.
LHS merchandise is available at the Merch link on Web site. Check out the Badgerwear or buy one of the other LHS-branded items at PrintFection.com/lhs or Cafe Press. Thanks!
Thanks to Dave from Gamma Leonis for the theme music.

Music:

“Gunpowder Chant” by Diablo Swing Orchestra from the album “The Butcher’s Ballroom,” courtesy of Jamendo.
“L.E.O.” by Oleg Serkov from the album “Epoch Symbol,” courtesy of Jamendo.

LHS Episode #081: Chicken Licker Bumpy Bumpy May 03, 2012

Show notes

Introduction:

Loctite… not just for noisy children any more.

Announcements:

The Fourth Annual Southeast Linuxfest is scheduled for June 8-10, 2012 in Charlotte, NC.
Please sign up for the LHS mailing list.
Please join our new Subreddit and contribute news stories, discussion topics, and any other items that may be of interest to our listeners.
Scott, N8VSI, has tentatively agreed to be our ambassador at the Ohio Linux Fest in Columbus, Ohio in September, 2012.
It looks like LHS will be at the Dayton Hamvention, May 18-20, 2012 in Dayton, OH. If you’d like to help make that happen, please donate!
LHS is syndicated by the Kamiak Butte Amateur Radio Association, KB7ARA. The linked repeater sites cover almost all of Washington State, some of Oregon, and a bit of Canada as well. They are IRLP and Echolink connected.
Ronny, K4RJJ, will be our ambassador at the Knoxville Hamfest on June 8th, 2012. Ronny calls in to discuss the upcoming Knoxville Hamfest, and his previous experiences as LHS ambassador.

Feedback:

David, KE0AZ, writes to ask if LHS will be at Ham-Com, June 8-9, 2012, in Plano, TX.
LinuxCanuck writes to defend Kubuntu against Richard’s recent tirades.

Topics:

IRSSI Tips and Tricks
Irssi is a terminal based IRC client for UNIX systems. It also supports SILC and ICB protocols via plugins. Russ offers some tips on making Irssi a bit friendlier.
The functionality and ease of use of Irssi can be extended by installing and using third-party scripts. These scripts are written in Perl and available at scripts.irssi.org.
Once you download the script file, which we’ll call “dlfile” in the example below, you can install it and have it automatically run with Irssi by performing the following steps:

Create the scripts and autorun directories:

linux> mkdir -p ~/.irssi/scripts/autorun

Move the downloaded script file to the scripts directory:

linux> mv ~/.irssi/scripts

Change to the autorun directory:

linux> cd ~/.irssi/scripts/autorun

Create a link to the downloaded script:

linux> ln -s ../ .

Some interesting scripts Russ is using:
nicklist-away.pl - provides a nick list and shows away status.
screen_away.pl - sets the away status when screen detaches.
nickcolor.pl - assigns a different color to each nick.
Our hosts discuss the new release of Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) with the MATE and Cinnamon desktops.

More Feedback:

Stefano, IZ3NVR and KD2BGM, asks for help finding a good Linux contest logging program that supports SO2R (single operator, two radios) and CW keying. We don’t know of any, but perhaps one of our listeners can offer a suggestion.
John, KD7AAT, offered a bit of criticism about the political content of episode 79 with Fab.
Mike writes to extol the virtues of Linux Mint Debian Edition with the XFCE desktop, and hopes Richard will find it a suitable alternative to Linux Mint or Kubuntu. He also suggests Crunchbang Linux. Richard and Russ respond.

Donations:

Don sent a nice donation for the Hamvention fund. Thanks, Don! We also received donations from Bob K., Charles H., Scott P., Craig B., and Harrison K. Thank you, everyone!

Contact Info:

Contact Richard at kb5jbv@gmail.com, Russ at k5tux@lhspodcast.info, or both at the same time at info@lhspodcast.info.
Listen to the live stream every other Tuesday at 8:00pm Central time. Check the LHS web site for dates.
Leave us a voice mail at 1-909-LHS-SHOW (1-909-547-7469), or record an introduction to the podcast.
Sign up for the LHS mailing list.
Sign up for the MAGNetcon mailing list.
LHS merchandise is available at the Merch link on Web site. Check out the Badgerwear or buy one of the other LHS-branded items at PrintFection.com/lhs or Cafe Press. Thanks!
Thanks to Dave from Gamma Leonis for the theme music.

Music:

“Gold and Steel” by Isaac Graham from the album Empty Vessels.
“Charly” by Higgins from the album Zs.

LHS Episode #080: Fitch Best Apr 19, 2012

Show notes

Introduction:

Tornado season has begun in Texas! Check out the videos at kcares.info

Announcements:

The donations for the LHS to Dayton Hamvention fund have stalled. If you’d like to see LHS return to the Hamvention this year, please make a donation in the next week or two. All donations will go toward the cost of the booth in the vendor exhibition hall. If we fail to raise enough to attend, then the funds will go toward the expenses of producing LHS.

Topics:

Richard’s Linux Adventures
Thank You Kubuntu, for once again obliterating Richard’s boot sectors.
Russ suggests using dd to perform what is essentially a low-level format of the drive. For example, dd bs=1m if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda

NOTE: This will totally erase your hard drive! Use caution!

Matthew, KC8BEW, in the chat room, suggests using Spinrite to repair a hard drive.
Richard declares that Debian is the Jesus Christ of Linux distributions, as it raised his hard drive from the dead, at least temporarily. It was the only distro he found that managed to install grub on the drive.
Richard also declares that Linux Mint sucks… at least for him. Audacity caused 100% CPU usage, spell check didn’t work, and it crashes.
Also discussed: CentOS, Scientific Linux, Fedora, PCLinuxOS, Xubuntu, lubuntu.
Richard is writing an ebook on the National Traffic System.
Russ again suggests Richard try Debian, but Richard says it won’t let him install Firefox. Maybe there’s a hardware issue? (Perhaps memtest might find a memory error? -Ed.)

Donations:

We received several donations from visitors to the Dalton Hamfest and the KARC Hamfest. Thank you to our ambassador Ronny (K4RJJ) and to everyone who stopped by our booth at those events.
Russ hoped to interview Roy, KK4ATD, our ambassador to the RARSfest last week. Apparently, the LHS booth was a great success.
If you’d like to be an ambassador for LHS at an event, email us at ambassadors@lhspodcast.info and visit the Ambassadors link on the web site.

Feedback:

Fab, co-host of Linux Outlaws, left a couple comments on the website expressing his gratitude for being on the show.
Bob (W9YA) offers Russ some suggestions for entering the contact exchange information in YFKtest.
LinuxCanuck left a comment saying he enjoyed the episode with Fab, asks for help getting the feed links on the web site to work, and offers some thoughts about Kubuntu.
Roy, KK4ATD, the LHS ambassador to RARSFest, calls in to the show and describes the event. He’s also building a repository of ham radio packages for CentOS, called Hamux.

Contact Info:

Contact Richard at kb5jbv@gmail.com, Russ at k5tux@lhspodcast.info, or both at the same time at info@lhspodcast.info.
Listen to the live stream every other Tuesday at 8:00pm Central time. Check the LHS web site for dates.
Leave us a voice mail at 1-909-LHS-SHOW (1-909-547-7469), or record an introduction to the podcast.
Sign up for the LHS mailing list.
Sign up for the MAGNetcon mailing list.
LHS merchandise is available at the Merch link on Web site. Check out the Badgerwear or buy one of the other LHS-branded items at PrintFection.com/lhs or Cafe Press. Thanks!
Thanks to Dave from Gamma Leonis for the theme music.

LHS Episode #079: Absolutely FABulous Mar 28, 2012

Show notes

Introduction:

An absolutely FABulous episode, in which we interview Fab Scherschel from the Linux Outlaws podcast. Fab’s de-facto father-in-law is DC5JM!

Announcements:

Ronny, K4RJJ, attended the KARC Hamfest over the weekend as the LHS Ambassador. Details, photos and video will be on the web site very soon. Thanks, again, Ronny!
Roy, KK4ATD, will be our ambassador at the RARSfest in Raleigh, NC on April 7th. Thanks, Roy!
The LHS Web site now has a ‘Chat’ link which gives you the ability to join the #lhspodcast IRC channel without having a client, straight from the LHS web site.
LHS hopes to attend the 2012 Dayton Hamvention. Please donate to the cause to help make that happen!
A recent iOS update broke the Black Sparrow Media app for iPhones, but that will get fixed, soon. Look for new podcasts in the future. Visit blacksparrowmedia.net/join if you’d like to add your podcast to the Black Sparrow Media network.

Interview:

Russ and Richard interview Fabian “Fab” Scherschel, co-host of the Linux Outlaws podcast.
Fab transitioned from Windows to Ubuntu in 2007. The biggest issue was games, but he bought a PlayStation 3 to satisfy that requirement. Minecraft runs well on Linux.
Fab’s primary motivation for Linux Outlaws was to practice his English.
Our hosts then discuss Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Canonical and Debian.
We then talk about software patents from a UK and German perspective.
Fab is switching his servers from CentOS to Debian, primarily because there is no upgrade from one major release of CentOS to another. He also likes to try different distributions so as to maintain impartiality.
Fab asks how Linux in the Ham Shack began.
You can contact Fab via Google Plus.

Feedback:

LinuxCanuck asks for help accessing links and RSS feeds from the website. Everything seems to be working on this end.
Phil, AK4RQ, recommends the book ‘The C Programming Language’ by Kernighan and Ritchie, originally published by Prentice Hall in 1978. Thanks, Phil.

Contact Info:

Contact Richard at kb5jbv@gmail.com, Russ at k5tux@lhspodcast.info, or both at the same time at info@lhspodcast.info.
Listen to the live stream every other Tuesday at 8:00pm Central time. Check the LHS web site for dates.
Leave us a voice mail at 1-909-LHS-SHOW (1-909-547-7469), or record an introduction to the podcast.
Sign up for the LHS mailing list.
Sign up for the MAGNetcon mailing list.
LHS merchandise is available at the Merch link on Web site. Check out the Badgerwear or buy one of the other LHS-branded items at PrintFection.com/lhs or Cafe Press. Thanks!
Thanks to Dave from Gamma Leonis for the theme music.

Music:

“Vertigo” by Obsidian Shell from their album Evershade, courtesy of Jamendo.
“Faces Nameless” by Reform the Resistance from their album And It Begins… courtesy of Jamendo.

LHS Episode #078: Kubuntu is Bloodthirsty Mar 23, 2012

Show notes

Introduction:

Richard says life has been good, lately, except for Linux Mint, but we’ll get into that in a moment. Announcements and feedback are at the end of the show.

Topics:

Linux Mint Sux!!! (At least, for Richard.)
Richard’s never-ending quest for a Linux distro that works for him. In the past few days, he’s tried various Debian-based distributions:
Linux Mint 12, with Gnome 3, MATE, and Cinnamon, but he didn’t like any of them. Too few configuration options for the desktop and gtkpod didn’t work, and that was a deal-breaker.
Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE): one of the CPU cores wasn’t running; fixed that, installed software and updates, but gtkpod didn’t work there, either.
Crunchbang Linux: too minimalist and too much configuration.
XFCE on LMDE was close. Richard replaced the Thunar file manager with Nautilus.
Xubuntu which is Ubuntu with XFCE. It looked good, was configurable, but lacked a few features.
Kubuntu, which is Ubuntu with KDE. He tried installing it from the live CD, which took 25 minutes to complete. After the reboot, it generated all sorts of hard drive errors. While it’s possible that the hard drive did fail, but Richard blames Kubuntu for causing the problem.
Russ discusses OpenMediaVault, an open network attached storage solution.
It’s an alternative to FreeNAS.
Debian-based with a simple install process, while FreeNAS is based on FreeBSD.
Supports many features of FreeNAS, including CIFS/Samba, NFS, FTP, SSH, BitTorrent (via plugin), TFTP, and DAAP (via plugin).
Russ tried it in a virtual machine, and it installed easily. Once installed, all configuration occurs through the web browser.
While it’s perhaps not as mature as FreeNAS, it’s also a newer project, so it’s likely to improve. At the moment, Russ prefers FreeNAS, especially v0.7, but OpenMediaVault may very well catch up and surpass FreeNAS.
Linux Contesting Software revisited. We covered a few in Episode 70, and here are a couple more.
Bill, W9YA, one of the maintainers of YFKtest, contacted Richard to inform him that YFKtest has had a major facelift, as well as adding a few features and fixing some bugs. It’s available as v 0.0.10 from the subversion repository. Russ downloaded the compiled version. He picked a contest, filename for the log, entered his call sign, mode, and some other information, but he had trouble entering a contact.
Minos Contest Logging Software is a contest logging suite for VHF and UHF Amateur Radio Contests. The current version is 1.5.4, and is available as a download or via the Subversion repository. It’s a Windows application, and there are directions on the Web site for running the application using WINE. If only they’d simply re-release with Linux-native code. Russ tried it and it does run quite well under WINE. It’s an open source project under the BSD license.
Allstar Link Node Update: Russ now has an Allstar Link node number assigned, 28357. Allstar Link offers several packages: Limey Linux, ACID CentOS or Pickle Linux (for the BeagleBoard). Russ has been trying to get the ACiD version running on his LMDE machine so he can use it with his existing Asterisk installation. Meanwhile, Russ has his Echolink station working, node 54711.

Feedback:

We received a voice comment from Ed, KB4VWA, who’s having trouble with some MFJ TNCs he recently bought at the Dalton, GA hamfest. Richard responds, though he’s had the least experience with MFJ TNCs. There are several possibilities: wrong on-air baud rate, bad connection, wrong dip switch settings, or poor or filtered audio into the TNC. Try using the jack on the back of the radio for the audio. Maybe the radio is not exactly on frequency?

Announcements:

The OGG and MP3 feeds for the LHS Music and LHS Up All Night audio streams from the LHS web site have new links, so check your settings. The live streaming feed is mp3, so it works everywhere.
The wAVEgUIDES podcast joins the Black Sparrow Media network! Visit blacksparrowmedia.net/join/ if you’d like to add your podcast to the Black Sparrow Media network.
Episode renumbering: Ever since naming episodes 18a and 19a, it’s been bugging Russ, so they were renumbered to eliminate the letter suffixes.
LHS hopes to attend the 2012 Dayton Hamvention in May. Please donate to the cause to help make that happen!

Contact Info:

Contact Richard at kb5jbv@gmail.com, Russ at k5tux@lhspodcast.info, or both at the same time at info@lhspodcast.info.
Listen to the live stream every other Tuesday at 8:00pm Central time. Check the LHS web site for dates.
Leave us a voice mail at 1-909-LHS-SHOW (1-909-547-7469), or record an introduction to the podcast.
Sign up for the LHS mailing list.
Sign up for the MAGNetcon mailing list.
LHS merchandise is available at the Merch link on Web site. Check out the Badgerwear or buy one of the other LHS-branded items at PrintFection.com/lhs or Cafe Press. Thanks!
Thanks to Dave from Gamma Leonis for the theme music.

Music:

“Requiem For A Fish” by The Freak Fandango Orchestra from their album Tales Of A Dead Fish, courtesy of Jamendo.
“Boats (Swept Away)” by I Am Not Left Handed, from their album Time To Leave, courtesy of Jamendo.

LHS Episode #077: North of the Border Mar 05, 2012

Show notes

Introduction:

We’re recording live, with music played as we record. Our guest tonight is Harrison, VE2HKW, from the MintCast podcast.

Announcements:

The Dalton Hamfest will be in Dalton, Georgia on February 25, 2012. The LHS Ambassador is Ronny, K4RJJ. This has probably come and gone by the time you hear this.
The KARC Hamfest will be held in Marietta, Georgia, March 17, 2012. Our LHS Ambassador is again Ronny, K4RJJ. Thanks, Ronny!
The Northeast Linux Fest will be in Worcester, Massachusetts on March 17, 2012. We’re still looking for an LHS ambassador for this event. Contact us at ambassadors@lhspodcast.info if you’d like to help.
Some of you may have noticed that the LHS web site has been down occasionally. For some reason, the server locks up. We can’t tell if it’s a denial of service attack, or an improper configuration, but we’re working on it.
Paul, KE5WMA, in the chat room, reminds us of the Acadiana Hamfest on March 9, 2012, near Lafayette, LA., and the New Orleans Hamfest on March 24, 2012.
Happy Mardi Gras!

Topics:

Linux Utilities - Russ introduces us to some GNU/Linux utilities that provide information about your Linux system’s performance.
top shows a list of the processes running in descending order of resource consumption.
iftop allows you to monitor connections to your machine and the bandwidth used by each.
ifstat reports the amount of data passing through the interfaces every second, or other interval. For example, ifstat -i eth0 10 1 would report how much data moved through the first ethernet port in 10 seconds, and only do this once. Handy for capturing such information in a script program.
iotop shows what processes are the top disk I/O users.
All of these are command line utilities. Press Q to exit. Check the man pages for other keystrokes that can be used while the utilities run.
Interview with Harrison, VE2HKW
Harrison, VE2HKW, is a recent ham radio licensee and describes his introduction to the hobby, what he likes and doesn’t like, and provides an overview of the Canadian amateur radio licensing structure.
Harrison is also a member of the Covey Hill Amateur Radio Club (CHARC).
Check out Harrison’s blog and pictures of his ham shack.
Tune in to the MintCast podcast on Monday nights, 8:00pm eastern time, 01:00 UTC. Join the chat at irc.spotchat.org, #mintcast
You can contact Harrison by email at harrison@mintcast.org or ve2hkw@gmail.com.

Feedback:

We received donations from Steve S., Paul G., and Bill H. Thank you! These donations will be added to the Dayton Hamvention fund to cover the costs of LHS’ presence at the 2012 Dayton Hamvention in Dayton, OH, May 18-20, 2012.
LHS had several mentions on Twitter by Neptune78.
Serge, ON4AA, asks about using the LHS logo to publicize the show. Russ explains that the LHS logo is not Creative Commons licensed, so please ask for permission to use it.
Larry Bushey of the Going Linux podcast responds to recent comments we made about their show. It’s a love fest!
Leif, KC8RWR, continues an ongoing comment dialog.

Contact Info:

Contact Richard at kb5jbv@gmail.com, Russ at k5tux@lhspodcast.info, or both at the same time at info@lhspodcast.info.
Listen to the live stream every other Tuesday at 8:00pm Central time. Check the LHS web site for dates.
Leave us a voice mail at 1-909-LHS-SHOW (1-909-547-7469), or record an introduction to the podcast.
Sign up for the LHS mailing list.
Sign up for the MAGNetcon mailing list.
LHS merchandise is available at the Merch link on Web site. Check out the Badgerwear or buy one of the other LHS-branded items at PrintFection.com/lhs or Cafe Press. Thanks!
Thanks to Dave from Gamma Leonis for the theme music.

Music:

“Rainbow Over The Bayou” by Regis V. Gronoff, from the album Hummingbird & Honeybee, courtesy of Jamendo
“Twist and Shout” by Swamp Daddy, from the album Swamp Daddy, also courtesy of Jamendo.

LHS Episode #076: BIG PAPA Mar 01, 2012

Show notes

Introduction:

Only 317 days until the end of the world as we know it!

Announcements:

The Black Sparrow Media application for iPad, iPhone and iPod has been submitted to the iTunes store. It is just awaiting validation from Apple, which may take up to two weeks. We’ll let everyone know when it’s available.
Special Event Station W0S (Whiskey Zero Sierra) will be operating from the Titanic Branson Museum from April 13-15, 2012, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Titanic disaster. Russ, K5TUX, will be operating the station at some point.

Feedback:

Scott, AD7MI, asks for help linking APRS and his his Davis Vantage Pro2 weather station with Xastir. Our hosts suggest trying one or both of these:
Meteo - Davis weather station platform software for Linux. You can subscribe to the Meteo mailing list by sending a subscription request to meteo-request@lists.othello.ch. It has been several years since Meteo was updated, and is still not at version 1.0. You must download the .tar file from the web site as it does not appear in the distribution repositories.
wview- Cross-platform weather station software. It does need an internet connection if you are going to contribute information to various weather sites, such as:
Citizen Weather Observer Program (CWOP)
Weather Underground
Weather For You
awekas

This program is under active development. Even if it requires a work-around to perform as you wish, it may be worth the trouble. If you’ve ever configured a Linksys router, the web interface of wview looks a lot like that. wview has a support site via Google Groups at https://groups.google.com/group/wview.

Let us know how you get on, Scott!

Paul, M0PGX, replied to our recent discussion of D-STAR and suggests trying the AllStar Link Network. Like EchoLink, it allows you to talk to other ham radio operators using just your computer and a microphone, including those operators running D-STAR.

Russ signed up for the AllStarLink network; it’s very similar to joining EchoLink. AllStar uses the Asterisk VOIP system, and Jim, WB6NIL, is the author of the repeater link software. Russ had success using a Mac computer, but not with a Linux machine.

Richard sees the biggest problem with EchoLink is that it only allows one connection per IP address, so you can’t have both a server and client at home. The EchoLink site only sees your IP address assigned by your ISP, which limits you to one connect from home. In this respect, AllStarLink appears to better in that it seems to allow multiple connections.

AllStarLink is available in several combinations of Linux and Asterisk:

ACID - based on CentOS
Limey Linux - based on embedded Linux and bootable from a flash drive, and runs ONLY on several specific Mini-ITX motherboards.
Pickle - a specialized embedded Linux distro designed to operate on a BeagleBoard-xM (and DMK Engineering LOX board).

Russ then provides an overview of setting up an AllStar Link client.

Back to Paul’s email, he suggests we use the term “digital mode” when we should say “protocol”, which brings us to…
Leif, KC8RWR, responded to Paul’s comment that D-STAR specifies a protocol, modulation mode, voice codec, etc. The modulation mode used is GMSK.

Richard defends the use of “mode” as appropriate as the definition allows it to mean “a method or means of doing something”. For example, CW vs DFCW (dual-frequency CW), where DFCW uses frequency shifts to distinguish dots and dashes, rather than two different lengths of the same frequency, and spaces. Both are CW.

Leif, KC8RWR, also comments on the possibility that he’s been nitpicking, as well as the use of Q-signals in voice conversations.
Bill, KE5WMA, suggests that hobos migrate to New Orleans from Dallas this time of year because Dallas doesn’t have Mardi Gras!
We received a donation from Bill H. Thanks, Big Poppa! 🙂

Contact Info:

Contact Richard at kb5jbv@gmail.com, Russ at k5tux@lhspodcast.info, or both at the same time at info@lhspodcast.info.
Listen to the live stream every other Tuesday at 8:00pm Central time. Check the LHS web site for dates.
Leave us a voice mail at 1-909-LHS-SHOW (1-909-547-7469), or record an introduction to the podcast.
Sign up for the LHS mailing list.
Sign up for the MAGNetcon mailing list.
LHS merchandise is available at the Merch link on Web site. Check out the Badgerwear or buy one of the other LHS-branded items at PrintFection.com/lhs or Cafe Press. Thanks!
Thanks to Dave from Gamma Leonis for the theme music.