Greetings, listeners! May we entice you with another episode of Linux in the Ham Shack? We sure hope so. In this installment, we have a special guest, Peter64, ubiquitous podcaster of Kernel Panic Oggcast fame. He gives us a decidedly downunda perspective on our topics for the evening. Speaking of topics, we have several: new releases, including Debian “Wheezy” and KDE, updates on previous topics including the Tucnak logging application and the Hamux live distro, based on CentOS. Finally, we take a look at a clever and addictive airplane tracker that uses FAA and ADS-B transponders to let you know where your loved ones are when they’re at 35,000 feet. G’day from the team. We’ll keep a shrimp on the barbie for ya.
Welcome to another edition of the Super Happy Crappy Hour!
Announcements:
The Black Sparrow Media mobile app is again hosted thanks to listener donations. Visit the BSM website to download the app and enjoy all of the BSM affiliated shows.
CafeNinja and the Tin Foil Hat Show have joined the Black Sparrow Media network.
If you’d like to participate in the chat room, point your IRC client at the irc.freenode.net server, and join the #lhspodcast channel.
You can listen to the live show by pointing your media player (VLC, Totem, or whatever) to http://stream.blacksparrow.net:8008/lhslive.
Our live recording night will be moving to Wednesday evenings (CST) beginning with Episode 97, scheduled for December 12th, 2012.
If you have used TLF, send us your experience with the program.
Our hosts then embark on several digressions about Gnorman, Lua, and other podcasters.
Feedback:
Torsten, DL1THM, sends an email describing his use of a Raspberry Pi as an APRS digi using aprx software and as a D-Star repeater using a DV-RPTR board. Thanks, Torsten.
Greg responded to episode 94 about uses for the Raspberry Pi, including a media PC with Raspbmc and perhaps as a weather station. Thanks, Greg.
Russ and Richard also talk about D-Star stuff, and D-RATS. (D-RATS has been mentioned in LHS episodes 17, 32, 56, 71 and 90.)
Comment from the Web site from Leif, KC8RWR, in response to episode 91 where Russ rants about the lack of speakers in the head units of mobile radios. Thanks, Leif.
Fred, DH5FS, sent a suggestion to consider TLF as a Linux contest logger. Thanks, Fred. Your email inspired tonight’s topic.
Bill, KJ4KNI, on Facebook expressed his appreciation for help getting Linux Mint 13 with the MATE desktop running on his main computer. He also provides several reasons a ham might wish to use RG6 (75 ohm coax) in radio applications. Thanks, Bill.
Contact Info:
Contact Richard at kb5jbv@gmail.com, Russ at k5tux@lhspodcast.info, or both at the same time at info@lhspodcast.info.
Listen to the live stream every other Tuesday at 8:00pm Central time. Check the LHS web site for dates.
Leave us a voice mail at 1-909-LHS-SHOW (1-909-547-7469), or record an introduction to the podcast.
Tonight’s episode is proof that LHS is at least as popular as the All-Star Game.
Topic:
Interview with Bob Finch, W9YA, principal maintainer of yfktest.
Bob got involved with the yfktest project because he was looking for a logging program like the old DOS program, WR9R.
His ideal logger did not use graphics, did not require a mouse, and was very easy to learn. yfktest was close, but had a few problems, so Bob began submitting fixes and improvements.
Over the past year, Bob began submitting code changes and eventually became the principle maintainer of the program, and has made over 150 patches in that time.
Russ described his problem with the program for Field Day logging. Bob explains that the issue was due to the error checking, and had Russ not tried to enter the signal report into the Class field, it would have worked fine. Russ suggests having a line of text above the fields that provides hints as to what each field should contain. Bob added that to his To-Do list.
yfktest is written in Perl, so no compilation is necessary to install.
Bob is working on a version that is completely contained on a USB stick that would be operating system agnostic.
Rudimentary networking features are in the code now, but disabled. So, it’s possible that networking might be a future enhancement.
Get your copy of the latest version of yfktest by following the instructions in the README.NOW link at bfinch.net.
Bob then describes another of his interests, rocketry, and is involved in the open source/open hardware rocketry project Altus Metrum.
Feedback:
Rich, KD0BJT, of the Low SWR podcast writes to tell us of a Field Day logging program called fdlog. It’s written in Python and has networking capabilities for multiple stations. Rich also mentions the Java-based logging program JL. Thanks, Rich. fdlog is a graphical Field Day logging program written in Tcl/Tk, but hasn’t been updated in about a year.
Leif, KC8RWR, sends us a link to a series of Youtube video tutorials for GNU Radio, the open source software project for RTL Software Defined Radios. He wonders if he could use an NE602 at the front end of the radio for HF, and use a Raspberry Pi to run GNU Radio. Our hosts discuss this and the Signetics NE602, a balanced mixer and oscillator on a chip.
Dave, M0DCM, has been catching up on LHS episodes while convalescing. He describes his system for listening, and some experiences with the Ettus SDR, Funcube Dongle, and digital modes with his new Yaesu FT-817ND.
+1-909-LHS-SHOW
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Greetings, listeners! May we entice you with another episode of Linux in the Ham Shack? We sure hope so. In this installment, we have a special guest, Peter64, ubiquitous podcaster of Kernel Panic Oggcast fame. He gives us a decidedly downunda perspective on our topics for the evening. Speaking of topics, we have several: new releases, including Debian “Wheezy” and KDE, updates on previous topics including the Tucnak logging application and the Hamux live distro, based on CentOS. Finally, we take a look at a clever and addictive airplane tracker that uses FAA and ADS-B transponders to let you know where your loved ones are when they’re at 35,000 feet. G’day from the team. We’ll keep a shrimp on the barbie for ya.
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