Arm, ex-Chromebooks and me

 So, my sister had an Arm-powered Asus C201 Chromebook. This recently got de-supported by Google, it's no longer receiving any updates. It's light, the battery lasts 10h+ and still quite reasonably fast so it's a rubbish decision by Google.

Soooo, I've installed PrawnOS on an SD card. PrawnOS is a distribution for this hardware, runs on Debian 11 but it's got a custom kernel. The graphics card is well supported and works fast enough, (unlike some other Arm Debian distro I had tried) but the Wifi is an utter failure. The maintainer refuses to support the binary blob required. 

An old USB Dell docking station was borrowed from the office IT guy so that I can at least update and work on the thing. So far I've managed to get QSSTV and FLDigi working on it. FLDigi actually works quite well - all of this is plugged into the FT-818 via ttyUSB0 and a small £4 USB Soundcard that actually works very well. 

But JS8Call and WSJT-X refuse to detect any sound card, nor they print out a meaningful output. I haven't figured out how to put them into debug mode yet. I used to compile WSJT-X from scratch so I cloned the JS8Call repo and will check if I can build the thing with Pulse/alsa support. The problem is as follows.

Both packages are compiled for Linux, but no repository is available (which is a very weird choice in 2021). There are Intel 32 and 64 bit packages for Debian, and a pair of RaspPi OS ARM binaries. So I used the ARM binaries, but no. I'm confused because even on Raspberry Pi you'd need a USB sound card, so I'd expect that to work. I cannot figure out why else they are refusing to work. I've spent approx 30 mins on it so I guess I need to retry tomorrow.

Other than that, I managed to get FT-818 and FT-847 to talk to each other. There's something wrong with FT-847's data in/out - or my old cable is rubbish.I managed to dig out my old cables, and after much testing and frustration I managed to get the FT-847 work through the mic input and the headphone output. Not ideal, but it works. Then I dug out my USB to RS232 adapter, and also found a long RS232 cable, and started to use CAT w/o a fuss.

The audio side was a bit more interesting. Double-checking with an SDR, I can clearly see something is wrong with my audio when I'm using the mic input. When I was using the data input, the power level was completely inoperative, but from the mic input the power is effective. I've double-checked the manual and this doesn't make sense. 

Even with the minimum power, from a couple of metres away I could receive all sorts of digital mods w/o a problem. FLDigi works like a dream, QSSTV - not so much. I guess I should actually read the manual but I'm pretty sure I had solid QSSTV apps a decade ago, and I cannot figure out why I cannot find them anymore anywhere. Everyone goes "Oh, SSTV? Then QSSTV is the one".  if you ask me, it's overrated.

Anyway, I'll be making some new cables when the parts arrives, and by the time they are shipped and travelled from China to here I don't forget what the project was, I'm going to build a series of audio interfaces. I've ordered

• USB to RS232 chips
• octocouplers
• audio transformer couplers - already have them
• soldering platforms - got them
• 2.5mm and 3.5mm audio sockets with multiple poles - got them but might have to order some more.
• mic input socket for C5800

So, I'm thinking of making audio interfaces with RS232 PTT support using RTS for

• A pair of FT-65s
• Baefong UV-5R
• Standard C5800
• FT-847

Alright!

Wsprry on Pi and a filter.

 So...

This was supposed to be a low-pass filter for 14MHz. It's not working well - or too well since no one can hear me!

I set up one of my Pi machines with the latest WsprryPi. I had used this successfully in the past, around 2014-2015. It does a square wave so needs filtering, done the filter above. It has a 49:1 UnUn built in so that I can plug it straight into a long wire antenna going around the study walls. Not perfect but it should radiate something.

Anyway, I can hear my signal on the FT-818, not very strong but audible and stable. It does definitely filter out at VHF, but I can still hear a meaningful signal on 29MHz, I guess it is attenuated enough so that it's not causing issues. I hate winding cores. It is stressful and not being able to measure them straight away is frustrating.

On the other hand, no one else hears me! I've been transmitting for a couple of days now, but not a single spot on the WSPR net DB. I have checked my frequency - it is OK, but PSK Reporter site only shows a handful of people listening on 20m. That is a problem. I guess most have moved away from WSPR to FT8 or others. I wonder what I can do to create such a beacon that can run on a headless system. Oh well, it was worth a try.

Nice backpack for QRP work!

 

Only the Friday evening I was talking to my wife, telling her about the backpack my Grandpa gave me in early 80s.

I was around 8-10y old, and my uncle in Belfast had gifted me his ZX Spectrum 48 because he had upgraded, with a bunch of game cassettes. This had to be carried around so Grandpa probably took me to a shop in Dundrum (Newcastle NI), they used to live in a nature reserve near the village. 

It was one of those shops in small villages where they sell everything. So he gave me a small fishing tackle bag, including the waterproof removable bait bits. It was perfect for the ZX, power supply, games and a tape for loading the games + jacks. It just fitted everything nice and tight. For the next number of years I used to pack the ZX and go to friends to play games. It was simply brilliant.

Many moons later, I found it also perfect for carrying books around - and I used to be a massive reader of SF until COVID-19 made me too nervous to concentrate more than 15 seconds.

The bag still kicks around, about 35 years later, but it has worn off badly, and both of my NI grandparents are gone for more than 20 years now.

So, I was telling my wife about this bag, and maybe I should check fishing shop sites for something similar.

Then on an amateur radio group in Facebook I noticed another amateur showing off his wonderful QRP hiking setup. A fishing bag, with a perfect place to hang an antenna, and enough space for a radio, tuner and power supply plus other bits and bobs + and a sandwich and drinks.

And it was relatively cheap, around £27. So I ordered one.

It's perfect. I love it!

Side effect of all this is I've been thinking about my grandparents a lot. My last remaining grandparent, my Granny on my father's side had died last month and I still haven't fully appreciated the loss - with the lockdowns and everything I haven't been able to go to the funeral, it was in another country in any case and with my parents' ages and past illnesses it'd be stupid to risk it. 

Motorbike Mobile

 

So,  finally I had a day off.

I had a fake Nagoya RB-46 off China in late December. So I finally mounted it on the bike and took my Watson MultiRanger 9 and another fake Nagoya antenna out on my LT.

Then I had my MFJ tuner and the FT-818 on a padded bicycle bag, and the microphone plugged on a 2m-long cable. I dropped the mic at some point (and straight into the mud!) but at least I didn't break a thing this time. I grounded the antenna and the radio to the bike - but couldn't put a stake for additional grounding. I hope that will happen the next time.

  

Not bad? I put the UV-5R and the FT-65R into one of the glove boxes and took it out for a ride, aprox 30 miles in total. The antenna held just fine. Let's see how it works in the long run. Also it worked and tuned great in 40 and 20m. Next time I'll also try 6m.

M0!

 Finally obtained my full UK license - it's an M0. Unfortunately I had to surrender the M1 but I guess I could have insisted on doing it on paper and re-obtain that, I've been using it for a long time now, but hey, I like my new callsign.

All I have to do now is remember how to say it.