Radio Club January meetings

[JJ (g6vzm)]

What with Covid and all that we didn't hold a public meeting yesterday but Marrold and I spent a productive afternoon working on the shack.  The result is frankly a complete mess of cables all the wrong length and in the wrong places but that can be fixed, and we made some significant progress:

The PCs have been vaped and installed with Ubuntu 20.04, and we'll set up a user account on each for general user.

The Kenwood VHF/UHF has for the time being been swapped for my FT-857D and connected to the left-hand PC on which we're running Direwolf as a (receive only) iGate, so look for us on aprs.fi.  We'll write up instructions for setting it back to that configuration after using for voice.  We had a nice QSO with GB100BBC, the BBC radio club's new call for their station at the top of Broadcasting House.  Their operator was one of their tech correspondents and said they love the Hackspace!

The FT-450D is now interfaced to the right-hand PC on which we installed JTDX which we left running on 20m so look on pskreporter to see who we've heard.  Getting the Alsa audio configured was a bit of a 'mare but we got there in the end more by luck than judgement, so if anyone really knows their way round it please make yourself known.

The PCs and radios are now powered via an APC PDU so we can power cycle or turn off a device remotely if necessary.

To facilitate that and with a view to streaming audio, remote control and other possibilities we have a small public IP block via a tunnel courtesy of those super chaps at Andrews and Arnold (an ISP with a higher than average number of radio hams among their own team).

As a result of this lots of documentation needs to be brought up to date which we'll try to do.

So (apart from tidying all the cables and maybe fitting a small shelf) we're in a position to entertain some new ideas.  A 70cm repeater would be cool but ambitious unless the lease is extended.  A full iGate is a definite possibility, as is remote HF operation.  Over to you.

We'll probably meet again next Saturday or the following one but can't really have a large gathering while the Covid case rate is so high, so maybe we'll do an online one again?

JJ

[Steve Bunting]

HI everyone,

I am a loiterer who has never been to the current hackspace, but have been a member since Cremer St...

I have stack of APRS gear that can support an I-gate that can come on permanent loan. Is a Pi with a TNC fitted and a PMR radio of interest?

Re-remote HF - I have done this for years and have tried several set ups. For a club effort I think a Rig-pi would be good choice as it is easier to manage in a multi-user environment. I have a Flex 6300 that I would be willing to loan as a test, but I'd need some assurance that it is safe - I am not prepared for it to walk away! The Flex remote just system needs a spot of port forwarding but that is all to set up, although everyone has to share a password. Stopping any individual from hogging the system is a challenge.

Cheers

Steve, M0BPQ