I’ve updated the N7JCT web site. Please check it for updates. Among the information that has recently been added:
A list of local nodes with quick links to statistics and status of each.
I’ve updated the N7JCT web site. Please check it for updates. Among the information that has recently been added:
A list of local nodes with quick links to statistics and status of each.
The following steps are taken if you want to run the simpleusb radio driver rather than usbradio. Why would you want to do this? The simpleusb driver is less CPU intensive and requires less resources. So if you have an older computer that is bogging down, running this driver can be a good thing. If you run the top command and see that asterisk is taking up 20% or more CPU cycles and your machine is under heavy load, give this a try.
However, if you use simpleusb you must configure the radio to provide COR and perform all CTCSS functions (transmit and receive). That’s where the savings comes in. the usbradio driver is able to do DSP and figure out when there is signal in all the noise as well as encode and decode CTCSS. By relieving the driver of those responsibilities and making the radio take care of that, we lighten the load on the computer.
Note that the tuning for your radio is now handled differently than what you might be used to. Rather than going into the Asterisk CLI, you’ll work from the Linux Bash command prompt and execute the simpleusb-tune-menu utility.
Create the utility “aux” by undertaking the following steps:
cd /usr/local/sbin wget http://www.qsl.net/k0kn/aux Make the file executable: chmod +x /usr/local/sbin/aux
Create the utility “txfan” by undertaking the following steps:
cd /usr/local/sbin
wget http://www.qsl.net/k0kn/txfan
vi /usr/local/sbin/txfan
(or use your favorite editor on that file)
In that file you will make several modifications. These should be somewhat obvious as I point them out to you:
For me, I end up with this line in that file:
FANON="/usr/local/sbin/aux 27006 4 1"
Of course yours will be custom to your application. Now save and close the file (in vi I like ESC then ZZ). Make the file executable with chmod like:
chmod +x /usr/local/sbin/aux
Put these utilities to work as follows:
[events27006] touch /dev/shm/~pttstate = s|t|RPT_TXKEYED rm -f /dev/shm/~pttstate = s|f|RPT_TXKEYED
You can now invoke the txfan script from your command line. When you do it will show you the state of the fan and the timers. Pretty cool really and it let’s you know that it’s working and helps you to troubleshoot if it isn’t. For unattended operation though you really don’t care about that. What you do care about is that the script get started on boot. To do this, edit /etc/rc.local to add the following near the end of the file (see remarks in your txfan utility):
CUSTOM=/usr/local/sbin if [ -f $CUSTOM/txfan ] ; then echo -n "Starting TXFAN process..." killall txfan &>/dev/null /bin/su - -c $CUSTOM/txfan root &>/dev/null & echo "done!" fi
Reboot and verify proper function of the fan.
The little USB sound card interfaces I ordered from China on eBay came in today. These are based on the CM108 chip that is necessary for the usbradio channel driver in Asterisk. The plan is to build a cheap radio interface.
Once I opened them up I found these are “blob” units. Rather than a real chip on the board with solder pins, the board has an expoy blob over the circuit. So you can’t get to the GPIO3 (13) or VOLDN pins (48) that would normally be used for PTT and COR respectively. However, it turns out that this isn’t the big problem it might seem at first. In hindsight I do wish I had known this up front and had known to ask the seller if it was a real chip on the board.
But it turns out that the usbradio chan driver does support the use of serial and/or parallel port interfaces. This gives you full control of lots of things (channel steering, fans, lights, etc.) if you like. It also allows you to do PTT and/or COR. I’ve got enough CPU horsepower that I’ll just let the DSP work out COR. So all I need isn an output pin to drive a transistor for PTT.
Otherwise these interfaces appear to register so the audio portion of the interface should work fine.
Lessons learned about the cheap USB sound fob’s:
I’ve been playing with the Asterisk telecommunication software. For those who don’t know, it is used to do cool things with telephones and radios and all sorts of other stuff. There will be some things here for those who enjoy getting that kind of technical.
But I would imagine most of you came here wondering what the heck you’re hearing on the repeaters and on the radios at my home. Those who are familiar with the old EchoLink and IRLP systems will relate to what I am doing because it is similar in concept. I’m just using the modern technology as EchoLink and IRLP are to VoIP what RTTY and packet are to digital data communication. That is to say they’re still in use and mature technology, just not the state of the art.
The Schweitzer Mountain repeaters are attached, via port 3 of the repeater controller, to a Linux computer running Asterisk and app_rpt. That computer and radio connection is know as a node. The computer can, and frequently is, connected to the All Star Link network. When it is then it is known as node 27010.
Here at my house, on Division and Fir, I do not have line of site to Schweitzer. So it’s difficult to talk comfortably on the Schweitzer Mountain repeaters with a base station and nearly impossible on a handheld radio. So I’ve got another computer running Asterisk and app_rpt and it is connected to a UHF radio on 447.7000 MHz Simplex with 100.0 Hz CTCSS. This is known as node 27006. And that doesn’t do a darn thing for me.
However…the magic happens when you connect the two nodes together. When you do I can now use a handheld radio on low power to talk to the node in my garage. It talks to Schweitzer via Al Gore’s interweb and now I’m on the repeaters.
Better yet, you can connect any of these node to any other nodes in the All Star Network. I’ve already enjoyed QSO’s with the UK, Australia, Guam, the People’s Republic of California and a dozen states, all using my Wouxoun radio.
Feel free to tinker. Explore the links I’ve provided here. Learn. Ask questions. Program the repeater controller.