Raspberry Pi 64 bit OS Boot from USB

The X857 mSATA shield makes a nice, clean package for a USB boot Raspberry Pi 4 with SSD

For some time now, I have been trying to get the Raspberry Pi 4 to boot from USB. A couple reason to make this change are, the integrity of SSD over the SD card is substantial, and of course the benefit of greater data transfer speeds. 

As more Pi fans jump on this wagon, hardware is becoming available for this specific upgrade. One example of this is the Gookworm X857 mSATA shield for the Raspberry Pi 4. This fits directly under the Pi 4 and connects with one of the USB-3 ports. Under the shield, I mounted a 120 GB mSATA SSD. 

To boot from USB on a Raspberry Pi 4 (4GB or 8GB), install the new Raspberry Pi 64 bit OS and the USB boot configuration will be exceptionally easy. Here are the simple steps to follow.

1. Download, install, and update the Raspberry Pi 64 bit OS to a SD card
2. Copy the SD card to a SSD and connect the SSD to the Raspberry Pi 4 USB-3
3. Open Raspberry Pi Imager, write Raspberry Pi 4 EEPROM boot recovery to a clean SD card
4. Shut down, remove the OS SD card, insert the EEPROM boot recovery SD card
5. With the SSD connected to a USB 3, and the EEPROM SD card in, power up the Raspberry Pi
6. A constant, fast flashing green LED and green screens means it worked
7. Shut down, remove the SD card, and restart
8. Grin at your new USB boot Raspberry Pi 64 bit system

The mSATA drive installed with the armor case bottom (upside down)

I'm Dreaming of a DX Station

To the tune of White Christmas, by Bing Crosby

Lyrics by Ken K9KMS

I'm dreaming of a DX station

Just like the one at HRO
Where the waterfall glistens
As my station listens
To hear grid squares from afar, afar

I'm dreaming of a DX station
With every contact card I write
May my mic be ready and tight
And my amplifier not throw smoke tonight

I'm dreaming of a DX station
Just like the one at HRO
Where the waterfall glistens
As my station listens
To hear grid squares from afar, afar

I'm dreaming of a DX station
With every contact card I write
May my mic be ready and tight
And my amplifier not throw smoke tonight

Yaesu FP-1030A Power Supply Meter Lights

I'm not sure why it's made this way, but the Yaesu FP-1030A linear power supply has no light for either the volt or amp meter. If you're like me, you wish the meters had lights too. After all, what good is a meter if you can't read it? Well, adding LED lights to the meters is very easy to do, and here's how.

A short virtual drive over to amazon.com and I landed on a 56 count box of 12 volt LED lights, in seven colors, for $7.09 with free Prime shipping. Not too shabby. I couple days later, the LEDs were here and ready to be installed.

Fourteen number 1 Phillips screws later, I had the cover off and the front pulled slightly away to allow access to the three screws holding the dual meter in place. Loosen the two bottom screws with one turn, remove the top screw, and the meter pulls out easily. Between the red, orange, yellow, green, blue, warm white, and white color LEDs, I chose white so it matches the light in my new Diamond GZV4000 switching power supply.

With a 2-inch piece of electrical tape, I secured one LED to the bottom of each of the two meter housings, with the LED light placed directly under the clear, fluted portion of the meter cover. Then I took some clear silicone caulk and applied a small amount of silicone to the LED and the bottom of the meter cover, enough to provide a good "weld" to secure the LED and help distribute light from the LED to the cover flutes. This works very well, by the way.

With the wire leads coming straight backwards from the bottom of the meters, I fed the wires over and soldered them to the feed wires at the back of the 10 amp cigar socket. These terminals were the most accessible to solder without further dismantling. A brief test found everything working, so I replaced the cover and put the power supply back in service. Now the Yaesu FP-1030A looks as nice as it works!

Update - Sep 20, 2021

Don't buy the LEDs I listed above, as mine have since gone completely dim. Now I'm looking for some better LEDs.

Last Salute to the Samlex SEC 1223

Back in 2008, shortly before I got my Technician license, I bought some of the basic ham equipment in anticipation of getting on the air. One of the first things I got was a Samlex SEC 1223, a 23 amp power supply. Not too big, and not too small, with enough juice to power my Yaesu FT-857D without complaint. 

Twelve years later, the Samlex continues to work well, in conjunction with a RIGrunner 4004U attached to the topside. In fact, this is what keeps the lights on for the homebrew 20 watt repeater and the 25 watt APRS digipeater iGate. For the sake of modernizing and staying better informed, a digital volt and amp meter is ready for installation into the center of the face. Or should I say, "was ready".

So the other day, right after I got the duplexer installed on the homebrew repeater, I turned everything on in preparation for testing. My buddy Stu KD9MNK, was standing by at his place ready to help with the testing and signal reports. We talked back and forth for maybe a minute and suddenly, POP! And just as suddenly, the repeater and APRS went dark as the smell of ozone crept into the air. A quick text to Stu, "I think I blew a fuse!" just to let him know I'm still alive.

With fast thinking, some fine-motor dexterity, and a couple of powerpole positions switched to another RIGrunner, I was back on the air, this time on the Yaesu FP-1030 linear power supply. "Cool!", I told Stu, "That was really loud for an internal fuse!" as we continued on with testing, thinking nothing more of it, except for the ozone in my nose.

A blackened PCB at the fuse clip

Later in the day, I removed the Samlex cover with the RIGrunner attached to it and noticed the 6.3 amp glass tube fuse next to the input power had popped, I mean really popped. A virtual trip to Amazon Prime and two days later, I had a small pack of fuses in my fist. Minutes later, the Samlex was ready to rock, so with the cover back on, I plugged in the power and flipped the switch. 

Reminiscent of a California brown-out, the lights in the living room dimmed for a second. Then the switch light on the Samlex turned off without a sound and the living room lights returned. "Hmm", I thought, "That's weird." I pulled the power cord and re-removed the cover. Being a little annoyed over the whole thing, I just kind of tossed the cover upside down on my desk, having no regard for the RIGrunner on top. As I was about to go after the second burned fuse, for some reason I glanced over at the inside of the cover. "What is that?", I thought, as I noticed a small amount of white residue that, based on the printed pattern, was applied at pretty high-velocity. That's odd, a mark I never noticed before. 

Looking at the location and pattern, I quickly examined the matching area components on the PCB, and there it was, the problem. And what a problem it was! Three capacitors in a row, all with their tops popped open and looking rather burnt, way across the PCB from the blown fuse. Wow! I guess that explains the loud POP! No wonder the fuses blew. While wondering what other parts have been compromised, I thought, "This is a good time for an upgrade". 

After a semi-virtual, COVID-modified, trip to HRO, a new Diamond GZV4000, 40 amp, 100% continuous duty cycle power supply is powering the repeater and the APRS digipeater without even thinking of breathing hard. And the RIGrunner 4004U has no complaints either.

If we could have a moment of silence, please, as I offer one last salute to the Samlex SEC 1223 before it goes to the great recycle bin in the sky... or the recycle bin at the township. Thank you.

Ah, no.  That part is not OK, and neither are the other two.

HughesNet Satellite Internet Tests

I've never been a big fan of satellite ISPs, and the latency tests (last pics) show one of the reasons why. And the rest of this rant are some of the other reasons. 

According to their website FAQ's page, the HughesNet geostationary satellite is 22,000 miles away. The stated max speed is 25 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up. Right.

So, if it takes 10 seconds to get 25 Mb of data (2.5 Mbps), but then 60 minutes to get a second 25 Mb of data (69.4 Kbps), the average speed should not be 1.375 Mbps (data/time)+(data/time) / 2 data sets. The average speed should be 0.135 Mbps, or 135 Kbps (total data / total time fetching that data).

Remember this one from a couple weeks ago? Here's a screen shot while updating a Raspberry Pi. Note the speed. This was a 55 minute download of 84.8 MB, with about 40 minutes of this. Notice it's on the 4th attempt to get the data? Yes, 4th attempt.

Below is a HughesNet speed test. The actual time to complete the 2 MB download was 24 seconds, from the time the progress bar started, to finished. HughesNet states the speed is 1.41 Mbps. Hmm. My math says 2 Mb / 24s = 0.083 Mbps, or 83 Kbps. What kind of math do they use? Do they subtract all latency time, buffering time, break time, lunch time, etc?

Funny. Even so, by their standards, the speed on this run is way into the "crappy speed" zone, even for their crappy 12 Mbps, top-o-the-dial bliss zone. Oh, notice the Ping Time. It didn't even register. Welcome to every evening at my house on satellite.

These are some screen shots of the last 30 days using the Google Wifi app. Here again, calculations must be made only when the status is "active", as opposed to "waiting" or "buffering", or having a file restart 8 times because it thought the connection was completely lost (this happens frequently). These numbers? These are way off from reality. Again, even so, this is pathetic.

  

More good news. We live 2.0 miles east of a brand new fiber optic cable, and 1/2 mile north of a high-speed cable, but the ISP won't bring service this way because they don't want to, unless all the neighbors pay $3,500 each to get it installed (even though they equip subdivisions for free, knowing they will soon have customers).

AT&T has really old telephone lines in our area, and not enough nodes for us all to get a telephone line. They also offer DSL service, but unless one of the neighbors gives up their connection, no hard-line phone or DSL is possible. Who even thinks about being happy with DSL any more? Right?

Okay, back to latency. Is almost 4,000 milliseconds too slow? Who'd of thought? It's slow enough. That, combined with the constant buffering means, "no VPN for you". No VPN, no WIRES-X, nothing that needs any sort of constant, or low latency connection. Nope.

Even something as simple as Netflix must be set to the lowest quality video available, and still there's plenty of time to make the popcorn, while you "watch" the movie. Oh, and if it's Friday, Saturday, or Sunday night... Honey, where did you put the deck of cards? Wanna play 500 Rummy? We got time.

ELON MUSK!!!! Where are you?!?! I hope you're reading this! Where's my STARLINK?!?!

Okay, I'm done. Thanks for listening to my stupid rant. So, let's get on the radio! No LATENCY there!

Ha! ...just havin' fun!

https://testmy.net/latency

APRS Digipeater iGate

Alinco DR-135T, Argent Data Systems T3-135 TNC

The APRS-SDR receive-only iGate project was fun to build, and great for seeing what's happening, real time, in the state. But one thing it doesn't do well is help non-iGate APRS users. This is where a simplex APRS iGate repeater can really help, by sending data as well as receive data. 

The APRS iGate repeater requires two things. First, a transceiver to receive and repeat data to and from local stations via RF. The second is an APRS-IS internet gateway connection. With the iGate, local stations can also receive wide-area data originating from the APRS-IS gateway, data outside the reach of their RF radios.

For example, take this poor guy who's arm fell off. They are out in the middle of nowhere, beyond the reach of getting help. But because his friend has an HT with APRS, and there is a nearby APRS iGate repeater, the ambulance guys can see right where they are, even though the stations are too far apart to receive each other's RF signals directly. Thanks to the simplex APRS iGate repeater, help is on the way. What a lucky break for this guy!

Components

• Alinco DR-135T 144 MHz transceiver
• Argent Data Systems T3-135 internal TNC for the DR-135, 1200 bps AFSK
• Raspberry Pi 4B 4GB
• Armor case heat sink for the Pi
• 32 GB SD card
• LMR-400 flex coax
• Diamond X-50 antenna

Software

• Raspberry Pi OS
• Direwolf
• Xastir mapping

Busy downloading, configuring, doing other stuff... I'll get back soon.

Raspberry Pi Cooler

Ever since the Raspberry Pi 4 came out, there has been concern of the CPU and board overheating, and rightly so. After trying many cooling configurations, I finally landed on a cool answer to this hot problem, with great success.

The pictured heat sink armor case is the fan-less version by Geekworm. I believe it may be sold under several other names as well. There is a dual-fan version of this case, but based on personal experience, I would not recommend using it because the fans are junk and the fan wiring prohibits the use of hats on the GPIO pins.

This Argon Artik fan is a very quiet, programmable fan hat set on an extended GPIO so it clears the case nicely. In this configuration, the RPi 4 CPU temps have never gone above 43 degrees Celsius, and the fan speed has not yet run higher than 10%, or at least the 25% LED indicator. I haven't timed the fan cycle, but it's off far more than it's on, which should lead to a nice long fan life. Custom programming provides a scaled response to CPU temperature rise. I programmed this to:

• 43 C, fan on 10%
• 45 C, fan on 25%
• 50 C, fan on 50%
• 55 C, fan on 75%
• 60 C, fan on 100%

As you can see from the photo, a second hat can be mounted nicely on top of the fan using a male/male pin set. Here, a ZUM Radio repeater controller is mounted on top, and the fan works flawlessly cooling the Pi as well as the repeater controller. An RTC or other less-than-full-size hat may be a little awkward, but for the big boards, it's a go.

Raspberry Pi 3 model B+ with the same setup works fan-tastic

How much do I like this setup? I have the same thing on all of my RPi's, and I must say, this makes for one cool Raspberry Pi!

GOTA

updated: 10/05/2020

Buy Sell Trade

AnyTone Smart 10 meter radio

This is a tiny transceiver I got for an experiment, but then lost interest. It is well known for modifying to get on 10 meters or "11 meters" CB by a simple solder bridge. I bought a tiny double side-by-side SPST switch to solder in and use like jumpers. I never did get it soldered in, but I have several of the tiny switches, if you are so inclined. 

Buy or trade: $25

LDG analog meter for Yaesu FT-857D

Works great, and like new condition. Switched backlight.

Buy or trade: $10

APRS SDR iGate Update

The distance from stations heard in Michigan seems to indicate some assisting propagation over Lake Michigan.

After four days of almost continuous operation, the APRS SDR receive-only iGate seems to be working well. I did two reboots to test the auto-connect between Direwolf and APRS-IS and it worked perfectly. The Xastir software was restarted manually and the configuration settings loaded and returned to my settings as expected. 

Seeing that the data was feeding as it should, I closed the terminal window displaying the Direwolf journal, so now I'm just viewing the Xastir map. I have the map intensity is set to 70% so station activity stands out better. I may play around with this a bit, and I may look for a different map.

On the iGate Data page, I have some performance statistics listed, but a picture is still worth a thousand words, and maybe three bar graphs. Here is a station heard radius provided by APRS Direct. The radius they are showing is about 18 miles. I agree with their assessment, as this is the area from which a majority of stations are heard by my station.

 

Here's a few stations that fall outside of the majority curve. The KD9JSX-14 mobile station was heard from a distance of 32 miles. The AB9HH-10 station in Milwaukee, at a distance of 42.7 miles, accounts for over 65% of all packets received. The KB9OIV-1 station comes in from 46.7 miles, and three Michigan stations are heard from 89.4 miles over Lake Michigan.

Raspberry Pi APRS with SDR

For complete information on this project, see the APRS page.

While experimenting with the Raspberry Pi 3B+ APRS receiver, the Pi is temporarily running Gqrx SDR software with an AFSK1200 decoder. 

How does the RPi 3B+ handle the demand of processing with the SDR? The CPU is averaging a pretty busy 55% load. The Argon programmable fan is doing a good job keeping everything cool as it cycles on at 42C with 10% fan speed, and off at 38C. The fan cycle time is about 1:3 minutes on/off in a 69F degree environment. 

In comparison, monitoring the CPU load on the K9KMS MMDVM repeater while it's in use (not idle), I found it to be less than a 2% load. This MMDVM repeater runs on a Raspberry Pi 4B, so it's not exactly an apples-to-apples comparison, but running the Gqrx software to get the APRS data is obviously much more demanding. This will likely result in a shorter life expectancy for the RPi using this approach, so scratch Gqrx off the list and find something to process data, not radio frequency.

On Sep 21, 2020 at 17:39 UTC, the decoder ran until 00:30 (6+ hours) and logged 1,029 hits, an average of 171.5 hits per hour. Not too bad considering the surrounding forest and lowland lakefront area.

Read about this project's exciting continuation on the APRS page!

DMR Round 2

 I listened all day to TAC310 and all I heard were mic clicks and almost no talking. Two new-to-DMR hams started talking, but their radios were so over-driven and had so much packet loss, they were hardly intelligible. Lower the mic gain, fellas. The couple of others I heard were "Testing 1, 2, 3...". I really am trying to give DMR a fair shake, but I need some air-time experience before I can develop any sort of opinion about the mode itself, not just the programming. That's just not happening. 

"Stop listening and start talking!", you say? Yeah, no DMR repeaters near here, so it's all by hotspot. I tried talking the other day, but HughesNet satellite internet has so much latency (seconds, not milliseconds) and speed fluctuation (from 3Mb/s to 4,000 bits/s - really, no joke), that I can't do anything requiring a live, continuous connection, like a VPN or, say... radio transmissions on WIRES-X or hotspots. I'm serious! The other day it took 55 minutes to download a 73 MB file, and that's not uncommon! What's up with that? Sure makes me very thankful for real RF! Star Link! Where are you?!

Round 2.5: This evening, Lon and Tom, both 2-land stations, were on TAC310 just t-t-t-t-t-t-talking away! Boy, it was g-g-g-grea-t-t-t-t-t-t-t to hear hams on DMR like I hear on America-a-a-aLink. Finally, there is hope. Maybe I can see some li-i-i-i-i-i-i-ght in this dark tunnel...   ...rescued me from the thought of b-b-b-b-b-b-eing single-mode'd-d-d-d-d-d-d. Diversity, I say. Div-v-v-v-v-versity of digital modes l-l-l-l-l-leads to new front-t-t-t-tiers in the world of amateur radio. And that, m-m-m-m-m-my friends is....

...just havin' fun!

Wire Antenna Suspension System

Back in October, 2019 I started planning a way to get the Barker & Williamson BWD-90 folded dipole up and running. Well, now it's up and here's how I did it.

Materials

350 feet of good 3/16" cord

Three (3) stainless steel pulleys (only 2 if your tower standoff arm already has pulleys)

Three (3) weights of the same weight (I cut solid metal bars to 5 pounds each)

Tools

A good throw line with launcher

A cutter for the cord

A lighter to melt the cord ends

How To

With a throw line, pull the two pulley cords (the red lines in the drawing) up and over the two support branches. Temporarily, leave the end with the pulley within reach from the ground.

Attach a cord to each end of the dipole antenna. 

Pass the antenna cords through the pulleys, leaving a generous length of cord on each end to accommodate for it's final horizontal length and vertical height. 

Temporarily attach a weight to each of these antenna cord ends.

If you are using a center support cord, attach a cord to an insulated center part of the antenna. Take the other end and run it through the center pulley. Tie a knot so it can't fall out of the pulley.

Pull the pulley cords, lifting the pulleys to full height. Leave about 18 inches of cord between the pulley and the support branch. While lifting the pulleys, the antenna cords should be moving through the pulleys and start raising the antenna.

When the pulleys are up in final position, cut the pulley cords just above ground height. Tie a loop and attach the loop to the base of the tree with a screw eye.

Pull the center antenna cord up to bring the antenna center into final position. Just above ground level, cut the cord and attach a weight. Temporarily secure this line to the tower to maintain the center positioning.

Pull the end cords to bring the antenna ends into final position. Just above ground level, cut the cords and attach the weights. The weights must be free to move, unrestricted, up to the pulleys.

Remove the device temporarily securing the center cord and weight. All three weights should now be just above ground level and free to move up as needed.

From time to time you may need to lower the antenna, so keep a length of cord to attach on the pulley lines for lowering. 

With this system, there is no extra cord laying on the ground to get caught in the lawn mower!

Enjoy your free-floating, suspended wire antenna without worry every time a storm blows!

FT-7900R ZUM Repeater Build - Part 3

Repeater Build Part 1 - Repeater Build Part 2 - Repeater Build Part 3

Over the last two weeks, I have been experimenting with various settings on the FT-7900R ZUM Radio Pi-Star repeater. After going through frequency calibrations, TX delay and TX/RX offset settings, I'm still having an issue with one particular thing.

The Problem

I have been unable to mitigate what seems to be a delay in the digital processing. This occurs after releasing the PTT of a transmitting radio. A short <1 second clip of the last transmission is heard coming back over the transmitting radio from the repeater. If you have ever heard a short-path long-path echo, you know what I'm trying to describe. It's more annoying than anything else, but something I'd rather not have happening, if at all possible.

Having gone through everything I could think of with the Pi-Star software settings (a short list for me), I began looking at hardware. Everything appeared to be working as it should, but then I had a light-bulb moment: "Maybe it really is a signal processing-induced delay."

Modification

The repeater is built around a Raspberry Pi 3 B+ that I once used as a desktop computer, even though it was pretty slow. When the Raspberry Pi 4 came out, I made the 3B to 4B change, and Wow! What a difference in performance! So if it made such a huge difference in a desktop environment, I wonder what it will do in a repeater controller environment. There's one way to find out.

A few minutes later, I had the Rpi 3 B+ disconnected from the ZUM Radio controller and replaced with a Raspberry Pi 4 B 2GB fitted with a full heat sink case and Argon programmable fan. I swapped out the Raspberry Pi OS card with a back-up copy of the Pi-Star repeater image and in under five minutes, the repeater was up and running.

Result

Almost any reasonable thing is worth trying when you are experimenting. For this repeater project, it has been a little of this. a little of that, old parts, spare parts, and a lot of fun. As for the Raspberry Pi 3 B+ to 4 B computer swap, I hear no perceptible difference with the original delay echo problem.

Hey, if nothing else, it looks like the blinking LED on the USB/Serial converter for the Nextion display is blinking a little faster, but that could just be me. So for now, I'll leave it with the Rpi 4 B and monitor the CPU temperature and Argon fan activation cycle frequency for a while.

New Hypothesis

Maybe the delay echo is caused by the collinear antenna setup feeding back, even running at very low power. I guess I'll find out when I get my frequency allocations from the Wisconsin Association of Repeaters and get a duplexer ordered, tuned, and installed.

Repeater Build Part 1 - Repeater Build Part 2 - Repeater Build Part 3

DMR Trials and Tribulations

First off I have to say, if I had started in amateur radio with DMR, I might be typing a blog right now for some other interesting hobby. From that, you can probably guess the last several days have been, oh, less than fun, more than troublesome, and filled with frustration over DMR.

It all started when I was downstairs looking through some boxes for coax ends. Buried in the bottom of a box, I found my virgin, never-QSO'ed, plastic bagged and ready to sell, new Tytera MD-390 DMR handheld radio. The castaway. And yet again, a reminder that gut feelings can be very meaningful and should not be ignored.

Forgetting the past, and ever-hopeful for a better today, I pulled the radio and it's paraphernalia from the box and brought it all upstairs to my desk. In hindsight, this was the first of several follies that day.

Carelessly ignoring the admonishments offered by my better conscience, I opened the plastic bags. Immediately, it seemed the radio was cooler looking, brighter, more awesome than the last time I remembered. It felt so good in my hands. Was I mistaken before? I thought I came to hate this radio. But now it seems so good, so right, so tech-savvy cool. 

Yes, with all the enthusiasm that purportedly follows the DMR mode, I recklessly dove headlong into re-researching codeplugs and DMR repeaters in Wisconsin. 

Self-Talk

Day 1

Maybe I just didn't give DMR a fair shake the first time.

Oops, I forgot I deleted the Tytera CPS software from my Windows 10 laptop because it caused problems and crashes. Ah, but I'm sure there's been updates... 

Google search.  Hey, there's a firmware update for my radio. I should probably do the update so I have the very latest technology for this awesome radio. 

Download firmware update. Downloading... still downloading... the CPS software. 

Man, HughesNet is slow! Fifty five minutes to download a 73 megabyte file! ... Finally! 

Install. Okay. Hmm. 

Reinstall. Click, click, press and hold, power on. Update. Finished, I think (in Chinese). Cool(?). 

Power on. What?! White screen?! $#@%!

Google search: white screen md-390. No. No. Ah, okay. 

YouTube. Ten minutes later, the radio is in pieces.  Hmm. On the inside, this radio doesn't look exactly like the one in the video. Ah, bad advice. 

Re-assemble. 

Google search.  No... No... No... Yes. Download and revert to the old firmware.  Success, if you can call it that.

Three hours later. I'm right back where I started, but now I'm hangry. Time for a late lunch. 

What a crappy day so far. You know, I think I've had enough DMR for today. I'm sure when I pick it up again tomorrow, everything will work out just fine. I mean, people on the internet are so excited about DMR, like it's the biggest thing in amateur radio since, since Al Gore invented the internet. Right?

There it is, sitting on my desk, staring at me, begging me to build codeplugs and get on the air! 

Alright already! There's still time left in the day. 

Google search: wisconsin dmr codeplugs.  No, wait. I can only use the TG's that are on the repeaters. 

Google search: wisconsin dmr repeaters.  Hmm. Okay, that's not very many repeaters, and why are most of them around southern interstate roads? And why aren't the TG's listed? Oh well. I'll just pick one...

Google search: chicagoland dmr.  Okay. Here's a big list of the TG's and repeaters under ChicagoLand CC. 

What, no downloads for the popular MD-380/390? 

Oh well. I'll just build my own codeplugs from this giant spreadsheet they provide. 

What, only in PDF format? Where's the CSV file? 

Okay, I'm just going to make codeplugs for the closest four repeaters. 

Okay, I'm just going to make codeplugs for the best sixteen TG's for the four closest repeaters. 

Okay, I'm going to pick this up in the morning.

Day 2

Ah, fresh coffee in the morning, and there's that awesome DMR radio just waiting to get on the air! 

Man, what's up with the CPS programming software? I can't read Chinese. Oh, that's better. Now go to import... 

Where's the "import" button? No import button. You've got to be kidding me. 

Wait, there's import... Import .txt file? But what text format? 

Export useless file I saved from last year to see it in the .txt format. You have to be kidding me! 

Two hours later. There, I finally have a Contacts list to import. What crappy software. 

How do you sort it alphabetically? Great, no way to sort Contacts, or anything! 

Finishing up the codeplugs. Oh wait, that's just one repeater... Ugh!

There must be a better way to do this! The internet said everyone and his brother has the TYT MD-380. The MD-390 is just an upgraded MD-380, so that's good, right? 

Google search: rt systems md-380/390.  What, no software?! 

Google search: chirp md-380/390.  Oh, of course, nothing. I guess I'm stuck with this Tytera CPS software that crashes more often than the test dummies at NHTSA!

End of day two, and I think I'm done. 

I now have four (4) ChicagoLand repeaters, each programmed alike with the same sixteen (16) TG's. Let's see, that would be sixty four (64) codeplugs to get sixteen (16) TG's on four (4) of the many (lots of them) ChicagoLand repeaters. 

Somehow I feel sort of disappointed after considering the cost/benefit analyses here. 

Finally, it's time to make this awesome radio fly the airwaves! 

Click, click, twist. Power on.  I'm on the big X300 antenna on my 55 foot tower with 5 power-packed watts of pure DMR! 

Click the PTT and... ... ... burp!  What, no Milwaukee tower connection? I'll try Allenton. 

Click... ... ... burp!  This is a bummer, for sure.

Okay, how about simplex? Yeah, that will work! Oh wait, do I need codeplugs for simplex?

Day 3

I'm heading to HRO with Stu for stuff. 

Hey, I'll bring the DMR and see if I can connect to Milwaukee when I'm down there. Cool! 

Power on, beep, on Milwaukee 'Wisconsin TG". Push PTT... dit, dit, dit. Hey, I'm on! Way cool! 

Listening... nothing. "This is K9KMS, first time on DMR, on the Wisconsin TG, Milwaukee repeater."

Nothing. Hmm. "This is K9KMS, first time on DMR, on the Wisconsin TG, Milwaukee repeater." 

Nothing. Now it somehow doesn't feel right to say, "first time on DMR" again. 

Still nothing heard. I know, I'll try TAC310... 

Still nothing heard. Okay, I'll go back to the Wisconsin TG.

Hey Stu, maybe I don't have this programmed right. It seems right. I mean, it beeps like the tower recognizes me, right? A fast dit, dit, dit? I'm on, right?  

What's that, Stu?... DMR means Digital Mobile Radio. It's like... Oh, never mind. 

Lets try Wisconsin TG again. "This is K9KMS, first time on DMR (not really any more), on the Wisconsin TG, Milwaukee repeater." 

Waiting, waiting... then, "Blah, blah, blah". Cool!

"Station ending in blah, blah, blah, this is K9KMS, my first time on DMR and I'm checking to see if I programmed my radio correctly. How is my audio?"

Answer: "Well I'm talking to you, aren't I". Okay, I can see this is going to go really well. 

Blah, blah, blah... blah, blah... (for five minutes...). Does this repeater not time-out or something? 

"Okay, well I'm destinated, so I have to go. Thanks for the QSO. K9KMS, 73". "Blah, blah, blah, bye." 

Well, that was interesting, eh? Somewhat disappointing, but interesting, eh Stu? 

What's that, Stu? ... It's like C4FM but different, you know, with time slots, two of them, and these color codes, and talk groups, which are sort of like rooms, and you have to build lots of these things called codeplugs, one for each... Oh, never mind. 

Where do you want to go for lunch? ... How about the Jewish deli? Sounds good. 

Powering down...

FT-7900R ZUM Repeater Build - Part 2

Repeater Build Part 1 - Repeater Build Part 2 - Repeater Build Part 3

October of last year I set out to make a MMDVM repeater with my Yaesu FT-7800 and FT-7900 transceivers. At the time, the setup was in simplex mode as I researched duplexers for the two frequency, one antenna system. And there the project sat in the shack just taking up space and collecting dust. With my invested time accumulating and the research folder growing thicker, I found several characteristics about my repeater build that I decided to change.

Enclosures and Heat

In the former computer case with all the components situated side by side, the homebrew repeater occupied a large footprint in the shack. Taking a second look at this, with the transceivers being the same size and short in height, stacking them greatly reduces the required footprint.

Since my components already have protective cases on them, placing everything into yet another case is unnecessary and only inhibits heat dissipation. In the stacked configuration with the receive radio on top, mounting them on a single Yaesu SMB-201 cooling fan will allow better open-air circulation as well as direct fan cooling to the bottom of the transmitting radio's heat sink.

Power

For now, I am keeping the repeater in the shack, so a second power supply is not needed. My Yaesu FP-1030A has more than enough capacity to run the repeater while also running my FT-991A, FTM-7250, and a few other accessories. If and when the time comes to move it out, I have a 23 amp power supply with an attached RIGrunner 4004U ready to go. This will not only power the two radios, but the RPi controller as well with it's two USB 5 volt ports. Handy dandy cotton candy!
Raspberry Pi Cooling

The Raspberry Pi 3B+ and ZUM Radio GPIO hat setup I originally made was satisfactory, but a passive cooling setup would be better. To fix this, I put the RPi in an aluminum heat sink case, added a programmable Argon One Artik fan hat on an extended GPIO, and placed the ZUM Radio board on top of that. I placed the Pi setup on it's side (GPIO edge down) to allow better natural airflow up the warm faces.

My three other Raspberry Pi 4B's require cooling so each have an Argon One fan, but in this 3B+ application it really isn't necessary, though it's a nice feature to have if things do get too warm. I programmed the fan to turn on at 42 degrees C at 10% speed. With this, the fan rarely activates, and then only briefly. The higher quality fan, reduced run time, and modified speed should greatly extend the life if this setup. After watching this setup for some time, I found the Pi temperature stays around 39 C with only passive cooling.

Here, the MMDVM repeater RPi is on the left of my shack's four-Pi setup. All computers are on a LAN switch to help reduce RF exposure in the shack.

Wiring Harness

One thing I don't like is having a harness that's too long or too short for whatever the project is, especially in the shack where extra wires can turn into interference-producing antennas. For this reason, I modified the harness and made two ends using two standard RJ45 jacks. The DIN cables were shortened to 16 inches and combined into a single RJ45. The repeater board connection was also joined to a single RJ45 jack. The two components now connect together with a standard computer network cable of whatever length is needed for the components' location. Perfect!

Antennas

The biggest change of plans may forgo the use of a duplexer and single antenna setup. Instead, I may go with a less expensive collinear setup using two Diamond X50 antennas mounted on separate tower standoff arms. I've been running a similar setup at 5 watts for a short time and found it works quite well. So far, I have one LMR400-fed antenna up and working on the tower arm.

Considering my location in a tall forested lakefront area widely known as a difficult corridor for RF, and having a tower only 55 feet tall, there is no point in spending a lot of money on any setup here. Besides, this is for experimentation and just having fun with RF. That's a big part of what this is all about, right?

Nextion Screen

Having all this figured out left me with a little unused creativity, so I redesigned my Nextion screen appearance and layout. Thanks to WA6HXG for the original Nextion 3.2 HMI file, I just moved a few things around, changed the fonts and background images, and called it a day. The colors in this photo are off, but you get the idea. Still on the to-do list are: (1) purchase and install the X50 antennas, and (2) receive frequency allocation from Wisconsin Association of Repeaters.

Repeater Build Part 1 - Repeater Build Part 2 - Repeater Build Part 3

Updated Shack - Episode II

Episode I - Episode II

I thought I was done making changes and additions to the shack, but I guess not. Just as summer arrives, so too, some new things have arrived at the shack.

The first addition to the shack is a Heil PR781 mic mounted on a PL2T boom, with a Pro 7 PTT hand button. The CC-1-YM wire harness connects everything to my Yaesu FT-991A. Using the equalizer settings suggested by Bob Heil, the audio reports are very favorable to this setup. Thanks Bob!

The second addition is KF7P combo antenna tower standoff arm which now suspends the center of my trusty old Barker & Williamson BWD-90 folded dipole antenna in a flat-top configuration at 40 feet. The antenna's heading is 140-320 degrees. So far, signal reports have been very good, but no DX attempts as of yet. Field Day, 13 Colonies and other special events, and POTA stations have been my focus for most of June. The 10 meter openings afforded fantastic QSO's all over the USA. A review of my log should help map out what the antenna is doing in it's current configuration and location.

The third addition is an MFJ-4712RC remote antenna switch between the BWD-90 folded dipole and the GAP Titan DX. It is interesting switching back and forth between each antenna and hearing their different characteristics. The folded dipole is far quieter and much better at pulling out even the quietest of signals. Love that Barker and Williamson BWD-90!

The Raspberry Pi computers also got an update. The 8G and 4G RPi's now sport an Argon Artik fan hat on top of a Geekworm heat sink armor case. Talk about nice! The fan hats are programmable for temperature and fan speed settings in custom configurations. I set mine to run 10% at 43 C, 25% at 47 C, 50% at 50, 75% at 53 C, and 100% at 56 C. With the huge Geekworm heat sink, the fan hat runs maybe every five minutes for a short time, even with the RTL-SDR dongle running the CPU with a constant 20-30% load. And with temps never getting above 43 C and the large fan running at only 10% every time it turns on, they are extremely quiet. No more worrying about heat on a Raspberry Pi 4!

The latest addition is the software package Barrier from the Raspberry Pi OS repositories. Super simple to set up and run, this package allows me to run my two (or more) desktop Raspberry Pi computers from one keyboard and mouse setup. Simply slide the mouse cursor to the edge of the screen, and it seamlessly goes to the other computer and screen. My small desk space just got a lot bigger with only one keyboard and mouse on it! Amazing! Open a terminal and run sudo apt install barrier on each computer. Select one as a server and the rest as terminals. Details here.

Episode I - Episode II

Updated Shack - Episode I

Episode I - Episode II

The planet earth has seasons, and that's a good thing because who can take twelve months of winter? I go through seasons too, probably just like you. Sometimes I get kind of bored with things and just need a change. Other times, after using something for a while, I get to a certain level of frustration that I ask myself, "Why do I put up with this?". Then the creative juices begin to flow and my tiny Shack gets an update!

I decided to take my credenza and add a small shelf to the front to hold a keyboard or two. Then I added a small back-angled shelf on top to hold the radios and allow small storage under the radios. Lastly, I added a back panel to mount two monitors, an antenna selector switch (behind the right monitor), and a RigRunner 4007U (below the monitors). The HP VH240a HDMI monitors with built-in speakers are mounted with Mount-It! MI-2829 tilt-swivel brackets. Two large pass-through holes at the base of the back panel put all wiring behind the credenza for a nice, clean install. A small shelf up top is home for the HTs, the ZUMspot and some other small things.

The shack is now run entirely on a Raspberry Pi 4B 4GB with the latest Raspberry Pi OS. The Debian Ham radio bundle which includes CQRLOG, JS8Call, WSJT-X, FreeDV, and a few other helpful programs, drive my USB connected Yaesu FT-991A. A Rowetel SM1000 sits to the right of the FT-991A. Also pictured is a Yaesu FTM-7250DR, and my old FT-7800R which will be trading places with my less-old FT-7900R, now used for local repeaters and simplex in my workshop.

Right now, I am quite content with this setup. But yes, I still have to get the old Barker & Williamson BWD-90 folded dipole up for HF. I like the GAP Titan DX, but verticals are so noisy compared to the folded dipole. And then I should probably do this, and maybe do that, or maybe just... be content!

So now I can enjoy Ham radio again at my tiny new shack. And then the next season will come. Change can be good, and God is always good!

Episode I - Episode II