Archive for the ‘Ham Radio’ Category

Setting Up DR Memories in Icom Radios

Posted: 2019-06-10 in Ham Radio, How To
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I follow several amateur radio groups and one of the most common questions revolves around setting up a new radio and communicating on DSTAR. This post is designed to answer that question and provide starter files to get the neophyte up and running quickly.

If you already know the advantages of using your Icom radio in DR Mode and just want the files, here they are. These are in Excel format. You will have to save as a .csv file before copying to the SD Card in order to import them. These should work in all four radios but I have only verified that they can be imported to the 51 and 5100.

id51_urcallDownload
id51_rptrs-2Download
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Install Icom ID-5100 in a 2017 GMC Canyon Denali

Posted: 2017-07-23 in Ham Radio, How To
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Installing an Icom ID-5100 in a 2017 GMC Canyon Denali

Introduction

This post documents how and where I installed my Icom ID-5100 into my brand new 2017 GMC Canyon Denali. My goal was a very clean, professional looking install with no wires cluttering up the interior of my truck. I’ve always been of the mind that if you are going to do something, do it right.  This requires you to drill holes, quite a few of them.

Planning:

I spent a lot of time figuring out exactly where each component of the radio was going to go. I then spent considerable time figuring out how all of the wires would travel, unseen throughout the truck. I took apart sections of the truck to see how I could get everything where I wanted it to go. A set of trim removal tools are worth their weight in gold for this! This process took me two months. I’m a measure twice, cut once kind of guy. It is also a brand new truck and I did not want to get half way through my install only to figure out my plan was not feasible. This install will require you to drill holes. There is no way around a clean install without drilling holes.

End State

When this install is finished, the components will be in the following locations:
– Radio Body – under the rear passenger seat with easy access to the SD Card
– Antenna – center of the roof with an NMO antenna
– Control Head – in the cubby hole forward of the gear shift. The RJ12 cable will be plugged into a custom keystone installed next to the cigarette lighter.
– Microphone – Attached to the left side of the front console face plate. The microphone is plugged into a custom RJ45 Keystone installed next to the USB port and aux port.
– External Speaker – underneath and in front of the rear seat.

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Use a Mac to Set Up DSTAR Commander on Your DVMEGA / Raspberry Pi Hotspot

Posted: 2016-12-05 in Ham Radio, How To, Unix Geekery
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This post will document how to setup the DSTAR Commander image for use on a Raspberry Pi / DVMEGA hotspot.  I use a Mac.  Theses instructions demonstrate how I set up my hotspot using a Mac.  These hotspots are great to use and enable you to talk across the globe using an HT on low power.

Outline:
  1. Burn image to SD Card
  2. Boot your Pi and VNC into it
  3. Set up DSTAR Repeater
  4. Set up ircddb Gateway
  5. Set up text and email of system information
  6. Create Remote Control App
  7. Reboot and Test
  8. Secure your Pi (Change user password and VNC password)
  9. Change the Hostname of your Pi
  10. References
What you will need:
  • 16 GB or greater SD card. I love this Lexar card. I don’t recommend PNY. The one I bought failed in a couple of months.
  • SD Card Reader (The USB reader that came with my Lexar works great).
  • G4KLX image. I have used many of them and prefer DSTAR Commander.
  • A VNC Program. I use Jump Desktop on the Mac and iOS they all sync together and work great!
  • The Unarchiver application, free in the Mac App Store.
  • Software that will let you see devices connected to your network via ethernet. If, like me, you are using an Apple Time Capsule the Airport utility will only show you devices connected wirelessly. Use the iPhone app Fing to get the ip and MAC address of your Pi.

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Use SSH and dd to Remotely Backup a Raspberry Pi

Posted: 2016-11-25 in Ham Radio, How To, Unix Geekery
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Introduction

I love the Raspberry Pi! I am currently using one as a local DSTAR hotspot. It works great. I have tried several different images (Maryland-DSTAR, Western, and DSTAR Commander). I think I have settled on DSTAR Commander. I think I finally have everything working exactly how I want it to.

When making tweaks to the system, it is very important to make a backup of your current system so that you can easily go back to where you started if you messed something up. Additionally, if your SD Card fails (and it WILL), having a backup will enable you to quickly get your system back online.

I used to have to shut down the pi, pull the SD Card out, find my SD Card adapter, plug it into my Mac, make a backup, and then reverse the process to get my system online again.  Those days are over. You can make a backup of your pi and have the backup written to your regular PC all from the command line. Here is how to do it.

Bottom Line Up Front:

From your local machine, run the remote backup command:

ssh pi@xx.x.x.xx "sudo dd if=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=1M | gzip -" | dd of=~/Desktop/pibackup.gz

If you ever need to use your back up you cannot do it remotely (at least that I know of).  You will need to insert the SD card into your local machine and run the following commands:

diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk#
gzip -dc ~/Desktop/pibackup.gz | sudo dd of=/dev/rdisk# bs=1m conv=noerror,sync

Continue reading if you need much more detailed instructions on what this command does, what each piece of the command means, and how to get all of the necessary inputs.

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