Linux in the Ham Shack

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**Linux in the Ham Shack**

Linux in the Ham Shack Podcast in MP3 Format

Latest Episodes:

LHS Episode #025: APRS and Xastir Oct 13, 2009

Show notes

Contributors:

Paul, from TeenRadioJourney.com, mentions LHS on his blog.
Russ Wenner from The Techie Geek podcast joins us in the chat room.
Kent, VE4KEH, in a post in the forums, says he heard Russ on an episode of Hacker Public Radio, and wonders if an appearance on Linux Outlaws is next. He also asks about a Windows 7 launch party. Our hosts respond.
Kent also posts a comment in a thread about Acer dropping support if you install Linux on one of their computers. Kent asks which manufacturers are Linux friendly? He also wonders why Acer creates two partitions on their laptops.
threethirty from Linux Cranks sent congratulations about LHS getting a mention in an LXer.com article Ohio LinuxFest Report
Matt, KC8BEW, in a comment about Episode 22 asks if Chirp will support radios other than Icom D-Star.

Announcements:

Ken S. made a generous donation to the fund to send Linux in the Ham Shack to Dayton HamVention, 2010.
Look for Richard at the Belton HamEXPO on October 3rd. in Belton, TX. Jerry Taylor, KD0BIK, of The Practical Amateur Radio Podcast will be there, too.

Links and Notes:

Russ talks a bit about being at Ohio Linux Fest. He was in “podcasters row” in the exhibit hall, along with the Northeast Ohio Open Source Society, The Linux Link Tech Show, and the Security Justice podcast. Russ shares some interviews and audio he recorded:
Interview with Matt, KC8BEW.
Russ plans on taking Linux in the Ham Shack to Dayton Hamvention, 2010.
Jim, KB3ORA, stops by the booth.
Questions in the chat room:
Russ Wenner from the Techie Geek Podcast, asks: is ham radio an expensive hobby? Richard opines.
HamTests.net is a good resource. The European site is HamTests.co.uk.
Do you need to learn Morse code? Nope, but it’s even more popular now.
Do you need a high antenna? Not necessarily. Russ discusses. The ARRL has several good books on antennas.
Paul Shirey asks if shared folders on different machines can be combined. Possible, but difficult.
Richard talks about APRS and XASTIR.
One of the requirements for using APRS under Linux is that you must have the AX.25 packet radio protocol support in the kernel.
To determine if your kernal has AX.25 support, enter this command in a terminal: grep ax25 /proc/kallsyms

If you get a result something like this:

c0510ddc r trans_net_ax25_table c05127a0 r trans_net_ax25_param_table

then AX.25 support is built into the kernel. If you receive nothing, then you’ll need to recompile the kernel with AX.25 support. (Most of the current versions of Ubuntu and Linux Mint have AX.25 support.)

For more information, see the HowTo:AX.25 article on the XASTIR wiki.

Richard describes configuring XASTIR.
Bottom line: it’s not all that hard to set up. Read the wiki. There are how-to articles for many different operating systems.
From the chatroom, someone asks about the throughput of the various data modes in amateur radio.

Music:

“Like This” by STEEP from the album “STEEP”
“Lost” by Trainlight from the album “Now You’re Alone with Ghosts”

LHS Episode #024: Darth Hideous Sep 23, 2009

Show notes

Richard and Russ are the Penn and Teller of Amateur Radio podcasting.

Contributors:

Doug, N6LMX, recently acquired an old Dell Inspiron 3500 notebook and decided to try Linux Mint on it. For some reason, probably processor and memory, it stalled before it got started. Same with Ubuntu 9.04. However, Xubuntu 9.04 works like a charm.
Joe, NE3R, sent an audio message about minicom. Thanks, Joe. Look for it in a future show.
Google alert about a LHS mention in John’s Blog.
Paul in the chatroom asks about connecting a Linux machine to a shared Windows printer. Russ suggests browsing to https://localhost:631 to bring up the CUPS administration page and configuring the printer there.

Announcements:

New streaming audio on the web site. New URL: https://stream.lhsinfo.org:8008, or go to https://lhsinfo.org and look for the links on the right side of the page.
Look for Richard at the Belton HamEXPO on October 3rd. in Belton, TX. Russ will be at Ohio Linux Fest on September 25-27 in Columbus, OH.
Welcome Bill, KA9WKA, as the newest member of the Black Sparrow Media production team. Bill will be compiling the show notes for Resonant Frequency. (And, now, LHS too. Email comments, corrections, suggestions to ka9wka at blacksparrowmedia dot com. -Ed.)

Interview:

This is the remaining portion of the interview with Bill, KA9WKA, where we discuss various amateur radio topics.
NUE-PSK modem
American Morse code
G5RV antennas
135’ Doublet antenna (similar to Figure 3 here)
Moxon antenna
CW vs. texting
B&W folded dipole
fldigi
D-Star
D-Star DV Dongle
Replackaged Icom equipment at the DX Store

Topic:

Richard discusses programming radios using Linux
Richard tries programming his Vertex VX-150 using Wine under Linux. The programming software installed fine, but when he tried downloading the data from the radio to the computer, he received errors, probably due to a mismatch in the serial port speed. Next, he tried programming his Icom IC-91AD. The software installed and recognized his serial port, COM1, and he was able to program the radio.
Tim, KI6BGE, in the chatroom, says the IC2200H D-Star program works the same way.
KB3GTN in the chatroom says he’s had good luck programming his Kenwood TS480 within Linux, using his own program.
Tim, KI6BGE, says the Icom ID800 and IC2200H use the same programming cable, but different software.
A Ustreamer asks which Linux distributions we’re using. The summary is Linux Mint, Ubuntu, Xubuntu, Kubuntu, SpearMint, CentOS, OpenSUSE, and Debian.

Music:

“Terra Firma” by Garrett Wall from the album “Sky Pointing”
“All of the Above” by Garrett Wall from the album “Sky Pointing”

LHS Episode #023: Teen Radio Journey Sep 09, 2009

Show notes

Contributors:

Jeff has switched to Linux Mint. He asks about iPod syncing programs. He has tried Banshee and Amarok, and is not impressed. He’d like to use iTunes, perhaps under Wine. Russ suggests trying Songbird, if it supports your device. Check their wiki page to see if your device is supported.
Tweet from M0GLG regarding Echolink under Wine. He says it works with no real issues other than configuring the sound devices. He hasn’t managed to get it to work with USB devices, yet.
Comment on the website about episode 20 from Matt, KC8BEW. He is looking forward to seeing Russ at Ohio Linux Fest.
Look for Richard at the upcoming Belton, TX hamfest.
LHS was mentioned on Jonathan Hardy’s blog KIX-online in the August 30 post.
John, EI7IG, posted a message in the forums providing a link to information on compiling XASTIR from source, and mentions the Linux RMS Gateway software for accessing Winlink 2000 networks. He also says the Windows Winlink 2000 client, Airmail, works fine under Wine.
Clay, K6AEP, writes that he has an Eee PC 1000he and 702, and says you can use applications on the smaller screens. In eeebuntu 3.0, hold down the Alt key and you can move the screen around to see the rest of it. Crossover 8 has allowed him to avoid using Windows except for a couple of programs, such as Echolink. It seems to install fine, but mic audio doesn’t work. He’s tried SUSE 10 and 11, CentOS 4 and 5, Slackware 12.2, Ubuntu, Mint, Extreme Ubuntu, and Debian, and a variety of computers. He likes Ultimate Edition Linux 2.3, based on Ubuntu 9.04, even better than Mint 7.
Gary, M0TXD, comments that he has just installed Ubuntu on his hamshack computer with four serial ports, but can’t get them to open. Russ suggests that it’s a permissions problem on the devices.

Announcements:

Russ was invited by Klaatu of Linux Cranks to join their fourth roundtable discussion. The topic is the most common Linux applications on the desktop. Look for it on Hacker Public Radio (.mp3 file).
Linux in the Ham Shack has become an official sponsor of Linux Mint.
lhsinfo.org now has streaming audio links.
Check out Ohio Linux Fest. Russ will be there. Will you?
Question from the chatroom: How do I change from Ubuntu to Linux Mint? 1) Download the .iso and install it, but that will likely overwrite everything on your machine. 2) Get the sources.list file from a Mint installation (if you are on Ubuntu 9.04 already and want Mint 7) and update the repositories, then do an apt-get dist-upgrade. Russ tried that, and it worked pretty well, but there were a couple of package conflicts that had to be handled manually. The safest and easiest is to just install from the .iso, especially if you already have your /home directories in a separate partition. No matter how you do it, you should backup your system first.

Interview:

Interview with Paul Shirey, of the Teen Radio Journey podcast.
Topics discussed:
Gordon West study materials
The Ham Radio Podclass
Jerry Taylor’s Practical Amateur Radio Podcast
Chris Matthieu’s HamBrief.tv video podcast
10-10 international
Worked all states nets, like the 3905 Century Club
Salvation Army Team Emergency Radio Network, SATERN
Texas Baptist Men
Alinco DJ-175T/E dual band handheld radio
J-pole antennas
Flag pole antennas
Shackbox Linux
Linux Mint

Music:

“Give In Give Out” by Plunkett from the album “Plunkett”
“Dale” by Mutandina from the album “Mutandina”

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

LHS Episode #022: Ohio Linux Fest Aug 25, 2009

Show notes

Contributors:

Email exchange with Herve, of Shackbox Linux.Â If you found it useful, please consider donating something to the project.
Voice comment from Rodney (aka R0dzilla) KJ4OHH: he asks for more information on Echolink and Echolinux. Our hosts respond with CQiNet and QTel.
Rod, KJ4OHH, postsin the forum:Â If you install a 32-bit program under 64-bit Linux Mint 7, then install a 32-bit application, getlibs may not find the 32-bit libraries, so you have to get them from the Ubuntu repository: $sudo getlibs –distro Ubuntu –release jaunty nameof32bitprogram

And congratulations to Rodney on getting his license!

VK5HZ in IRC says Echolink does work in Wine, at least for him.
Joe, NE3R, runs packet and uses an old TNC with firmware from the 1980s.Â He runs XASTIR with an MFJ TNC and minicom.
Ken, WA3FKG, posts in the forum:Â Acer says if you replace windows with Linux on one of their machines, you’ve voided the warranty.
Tony Malloy re-Tweeted on identi.ca when Episode 019a came out.Â Thanks, Tony.
Damon, NN7B, asks “Which packet program do you use for Linux?“Â It’s probably easier to use a TNC in KISS mode, rather than trying to do software packet.
David, KF5BCM, wants a noise gate on Richard. 🙂 He says hears Richard breathing loudly on Episode 15.Â (Make a donation and maybe that will help fund the equipment.)
turtles7, in the forums, suggested a topic for a future show: mobile installation hints. He recently installed a mobile in a minivan, and still has high SWR.

Interview:

Interview with Beth Lynn Eicher of the Ohio Linux Fest.
Beth Lynn talks about the training opportunities at OLF, exhibitors, and the history of OLF.

From the chat room:

Why don’t we do shows on Linux basics? We did. Check out the older episodes. If there’s something we haven’t covered, let us know.
What is a “Crank”? See Linux Cranks.Â (ogg format, explicit)
How to play .ogg files in iTunes.
KJ4OHH just bought a 8GB Sansa Fuze for $39. Refurbished Sansa Clips are often available at buy.com and newegg.com for good prices, too. They play OGG files natively.
Check out Shackbox Linux, too.

Music:

“Out of It” by Brad Sucks from the album “Out of It”.
“Fallen from Grace” by Shawn Harris from the album “Temptation”.

LHS Episode #021: OSCON 2009 Update 2 Aug 12, 2009

Show notes

OSCON 2009 Update #2 by Russ, K5TUX

Wednesday:

“Btrfs: A new Linux file system”, presented by Valerie Aurora of Red Hat.
Btrfs (B-Tree file system) is a possible replacement for Linux ext3 and ext4 filesystems.
Features:
seamless integration with multiple underlying devices, similar to LVM
built-in checksumming
on-the-fly snapshots
(An interesting interview with Valerie is at Linux Magazine. -Ed.)
“The Linux Defenders: Stop the Trolls, Protect Linux, Further Innovation”presented by Keith Bergelt of Open Invention Network.
A discussion of freedom, intellectual property, prior art, and software development. The Open Invention Network buys software patents to protect them and not exploit them as a revenue stream.
“Building a Private Cloud with Ubuntu Server”presented by Rick Clark and SÃ¸ren Hansen of Canonical.
Virtualization using Eucalyptus.

Thursday:

“Why It Is Hard To Be Fast”presented by representatives from Intel.
A discussion of the reasons why the pace of improving computer speed has slowed over the past few years.
“The Role of Users in Open Source Projects” presented by Stormy Peters of the GNOMEFoundation.
A discussion of why users are important to an open source project and how they can be more involved.

Friday:

“The Art of Klingon Programming” presented by Paul Fenwick (Perl Training Australia)
A hysterical talk about programming Perl in the Klingon language. (Unfortunately, we cannot find a link to the slides. -Ed.)
Walking tour of The Tech Museum of Innovation.
A behind the scenes look at the development of the museum exhibits. All of the technology used for the exhibits was developed with open source tools.

LHS Episode #020 Aug 04, 2009

Show notes

Contributors:

Adrian, M0GLJ/VK2BAC reinstalled Ubuntu on his Asus Eee PC 701SD, and wondered if there was a logging program that worked well on the small screen.
Paul, no callsign given, asks for a link to Shackbox Linux.
Bill, KA9WKA, offered a review of Linux Mint 7.
Paul Shirey writes to ask about the upcoming Windows 7.
Ray, KO4RB, submits his comments praising Linux Mint and the podcast.

Announcements:

Resonant Frequency now has a page at Facebook. Look for Resonant Frequency Podcast
More about spam.

Discussion:

Linux Mint 7 with guest Bill, KA9WKA.Â Â We talk about Linux Mint 7, CentOS, various other distributions, why we like, or dislike, Linux Mint, and a few of the problems encountered.
Russ talks about trying Linux Mint on his 10" Eee PC.Â He installed it via Pendrivelinux.Â He had a problem with the wireless driver, but a kernel upgrade and a minor configuration change fixed that. The wired Ethernet interface did not work.Â Compiz works, but you probably wouldn’t want to run it all the time on a netbook.Â Some of the power-saving features don’t work.
Richard describes his experience with a wireless network intrusion.Â Once recovered, he tried to install Mint on one of his machines, but although the live CD ran fine, and the install went well, the machine would hang while loading the desktop.Â He suspects it’s a problem with the hardware.Â Otherwise, he likes Linux Mint.Â Our recommendation for first-time Linux users: try Linux Mint.
Overall, Russ likes it too, but has issues with his web camera, primarily due to changes to the kernel and Video for Linux, v.2.Â To fix it, he had to install Linux Mint 5, instead of 7. Â Â For some cameras, you can pipe a V4L2 camera through V4L virtual video device.Â Your camera has to provide pixel format YUV420P.Â If that’s the case, the Flashcam project might help. YMMV
Mojito

Music:

“Chalkboard” by Convey on “Convey (EP)”
“How Fast” by Promise of Redemption on “When the Flowers Bloom…”

LHS Episode #019: OSCON 2009 Update 1 Jul 24, 2009

Show notes

Episode 19

Hey, everyone. I’m spending the week in San Jose, California at the O’Reilly OSCON conference. Since OSCON is an Open Source convention and has a lot of information about Linux …

LHS Episode #018 Jul 23, 2009

Show notes

Contributors:

George, N0JRJ, really likes the podcasts and would like to participate in the live show.Â (Just show up! -Ed.)Â He also agrees with Richard that it can take a long time to amass the equipment for a radio station, and that we need to foster new Elmers.
Walter, KV6M, made a donation to the podcast.Â Thank-you!
Rodzilla, no call yet, is looking forward to getting his license and a Yaesu FT-8800.Â He would like remote control software for the FT-8800, and wants to know if the programming software runs under Wine in Linux.
K6*** provided instructions for compiling fldigi under Ubuntu Linux 9.10 X64.
The Princeton Ham Radio Club mentioned the LHS podcast on their website.Â That’s Princeton, KY.

Announcements:

The LHS podcast is now available on social.Zune.net.

Links and Notes:

Richard talks about his experience with the Linux Cranks (Stay clear of the monorail!)Â (ogg format, explicit)
Hacker Public Radio has asked Richard and Russ to do a couple segments.
Richard rants about receiving spam via Twitter.
We discuss “Windows 7 is the same as Ubuntu” .
Firefox addons useful for ham radio operators.
AE7Q has tools to add callsign and grid square lookups to your Firefox search engine tool bar (Scroll down to the pink boxes on the lower right corner of the page. -Ed.)
Mozilla has a QRZ.com addon.
There is also a plugin to search the ARRL Callsign database.
N0HR has Propfire, a Firefox plugin for propagation information.
N0HR also offers PropStats, which provides propagation statistics for your website. https://www.n0hr.com/propstats.htm
haminfobar from John, G0DPC.
hamlinks toolbar from N0HR.
Take a look at VA3STL’s weblog (October 5, 2008 entry).
Not actually ham radio related, but a couple of cool 3D plugins:Â FoxTab lets you browse your Firefox tabs in a 3D fashion, and Cooliris allows you to browse your image files in a similar way.
Synergy allows you to share a single mouse and keyboard between multiple computers, with just software and your existing network.Â Â Â There are several configuration tools, such as QuickSynergy for Linux or OS-X, another Mac OS X Synergy GUI, and SynergyKM.
Xirc is a good IRC client program.Â There are versions for Linux, OS X, and Windows.

Conclusion:

Contact Richard via:

Email: kb5jbv@blacksparrowmedia.com

Twitter: twitter.com/kb5jbv

Web: lhsinfo.org

Forums at blacksparrowmedia.com

Contact Russ via:

Email: k5tux@blacksparrowmedia.com

Twitter.com/jrwoodman

Music:

“San Jose” by Suns of March from their album “Bulletproof Heart”.
“Another Me” by P. J. Pacifico from their album “Well I’ll Be”.

LHS Episode #017 Jul 14, 2009

Show notes

Contributors:

Don WS4E sent us a pointed email. He uses SuperOS and was even able to get his programming software for his talkies. Likes SatScape for satellites in Linux.
Bob K4BB says that you can use MONO for running HRD on Linux. behind on the podcast. And Likes Unetbootin Really likes the quality of the show. Feels the websites need help. Bob had four or five pieces of feedback this time. Thinks the music is a waste.
BTW Colin and Martin at ICQ Podcast are our friends 🙂
Captain Spauldings Blog, He uses Ubuntu and likes the podcast. (Hooray for Captain Spaulding the African explorer)
Donation Mark K. Thanks Mark
Richard says â€œJoin the fun and be a guest co-hostâ€
The Techie Geek gave us a mention. Thanks for the tip on the Sansa Clip Russ
We have appeared again in a comment over at Solder Smoke. Keep spreading the word.
Thanks to the guys at TiTradio podcast for the mention
Hello to Azimuth, Wayne KB7CFD, Don’t fear the badger.
Kent VE4KEH sent us a message about forwarding X11 over SSH using xming

Announcements:

We now have voice mail. Leave us a message and we will get it on the show +1-888-455-0305

Links and Notes:

xming for windows
putty for windows
Russ talks about Java for a while:
Its cross platform
A little clunkie
Side track to Adobe Air
Cool stuff available
BTW there is a version of Adobe Air for Linux
Now that we have our Java, We need a doughnut 😛
Drats extravaganza:
Terminal for D-Star low speed data on Talkies and Mobile Rigs
Dan KK7DS
Drats.com
It is cross Platform
Written in Python and GTK
Not only the terminal but a repeater too
Windows installer
on Linux you also need a few libraries
Easy to use if you have ever used terminal software
If you haven’t used terminal software before, Still easy to set up to run
Auto QST’s, Preformatted forms, Weather info, APRS, even internet email.
Heard List, APRS data
Session activity log
Ratflector access for testing
The Drats Repeater Proxy:
Very simple
Setup you own repeater at your house
Can be setup for over the air or network operation
Don’t have to setup the ports for your local network while testing
Auto id of repeater
Monitor screen shows connected computers and radios
Sometimes Simplicity is best
Web page has How-to’s, Wiki, Info and mailing list for information about Drats
Ratflector on ports 9000 and 9001 for testing over at the Drats website
Russ says it works on MAC
Check out the website at
Richard Hopes that Drats becomes the standard for D-Star low speed digital

Music:

Gamma Leonis â€“ Bacon, Linux and Tomato (Part I & II)
Jonathan Coulton - Always the Moon
Dropout Year - This Notebook

LHS Episode #016 Jun 16, 2009

Show notes

Contributors:

KI6FEN â€“ Likes keeping older equipment alive with Linux
Rob VE3FRJ â€“ Rob had a little trouble finding his apps after an install
Jeff KB5WCK â€“ Left a comment thanking us for mentioning his website and Russ mantioned 73’s.org. Then Richard turned it into a real commercial for everybody’s websites
Gene K8EE â€“ Thinks Linux is in practical, He listens to the podcast but can’t figure out why we use Linux and everybody knows we are just Microsoft haters. Russ and Richard respond in kind with extreme prejudice and packet for flavor.

Announcements:

Paul M0TZO and Pete M3PHP want everybody to check out https://hamtest.net we want to take it Viral. Put hamtest.net on your blogs, websites, talk about them in the forums you visit. Talk about them in IRC and you other podcasters talk about them on your shows. Spread the word.

Links and Notes:

This time we talk about stuff that just works after a Linux install since one of the emails intimates that everything works in Windows and nothing works in Linux.
Web Browsers: Firefox, Iceweasel, Epiphany, Opera, etc. (NO IE)
Mail Clients: Evolution, Thunderbird, Icedove, Claws, etc.
Word Processing: OpenOffice.org, gedit, abiword, etc.
Media Players: Rhythmbox, Banshee, Amarok, Totem, mplayer, xine, etc.
CD Burners: Brasero, Gnomebaker, K3B, etc.
After trying to sort out chickens and eggs and carts we agreed that talking about stuff that works and from now on we will go back to fixin’ problems.
We wrapped up by answering some questions for the live audience in the chat room. Check the show schedule at https://lhsinfo.org for the next live recording

Music:

Gamma Leonis â€“ Bacon, Linux and Tomato (Part I & II)
John Ellison - Melt Away
Shauna Burns - I’m Dirty

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