Amateur radio ⁽²⁵⁶⁾

Note to self... stop collecting bits for projects and start building instead! Just in, this PCB and chip for the TARPN NinoTNC. Described as a multi-speed, multi-protocol USB-KISS packet radio interface this comes as a very nicely made PCB and PIC plus a bill of parts complete with Mouser part numbers and a spreadsheet that loads into Mouser to make a complete order. This will be a fun build. The TARPN website also has full ordering and step by step construction details. Neat!

Messing around with packet today via the FT817 and Windows 10 PC. I'm getting used to two programs, WinRPR which supports Robust packet, and, of course, UZ7HO's SoundModem. There was a lot of APRS activity via RP on 10.1473MHz USB and it all decodes nicely in WinRPR. Then on to SoundModem on 14.105MHz LSB (Network105). There were a few more decodes since I took the screenshot. My next step is to find a client to tx APRS.

I have an allocation within 44net (aka AMPRnet) and so I set up a gateway based on a Raspberry Pi 4B – well, I had one unused one! My allocation is a /29, so 6 IP addresses. The Pi setup is the Pi 4, a PoE HAT, an Ethernet USB dongle for the second Ethernet interface, and a neat 3D printed case that I have used before and which has the height for the HAT. Software-wise it’s just Raspberry Pi OS, plus a daemon called ampr-ripd which listens for gateway announcements and sorts out routing tables. My link is to the IPIP mesh so I am not doing BGP or anything fancy. My initial experiment used the wifi interface and I could connect to 44net via the phone / wifi AP software running on the Pi. That worked ok but really I wanted to be able to connect a couple of systems and not bother with wifi. As I had an Ethernet dongle left over from the dismantled QO100 transceiver that did the job nicely. The plan is to connect this to a small network switch offering a couple of Ethernet ports to be used on 44net. So far, the…

Tidying up the whole shack make life easier to reach stuff but did not completely cure one issue, that of RF flying about the place and getting into things where it was not wanted. I tried 10m this morning and two things happened. First, it set off the house alarm. Second, wsjt-x would not hold a tx cycle or tuning. The autotune was happy but that acts quickly. Using wsjt-x's tuning for a few seconds, or transmitting a CQ and the FT450D would tx, then off, then try again etc. This has happened before. First off, yes there is RF in the shack and it's due to the rather naff antenna wire in the loft. I need to live with that until I get some wire in the air outside. And yes, I've been saying that for ages! But before it was really down to the mass of cables all entwined and those have been completely tidied up now. So I was rather annoyed that the same issue has returned. And then I discovered that my attempts to dust round the desk had moved the serial cable between the FT450D and the Signalink and it was now laid across the…

It's surprising just how many things one gathers that need Ethernet. Having just made an NTP server out of a Raspberry Pi that took the last port in my 8+2 port PoE switch I needed more ports. The switch is a Netgear GS110TP, 8 Ethernet ports and up to two SFP modules for interlinking. So I have added a second GS110TP linked to the original one via a short fibre lead and two SFP transceivers. The house now has 4 Ethernet switches, all Netgear, making 48 Ethernet ports in total but not all in use, plus 3 wifi access points, Netgear again and all PoE powered. Actually I could have settled for a non-PoE switch as the additional one but this one came cheap, and new in box. All the switches and access points do SNMP too, centrally monitored using MRTG. Why? Because they can!