About Us

Russ - K5TUXRuss (K5TUX)
Russ was first licensed in 1992 with call sign N1UYE. He eventually chose K5TUX to promote amateur radio and Free Software. He is on Echolink (54711), often on the 3905CCN nets, and usually works 80m SSB and 15m FT8. His 9-5 is systems administrator for an ISP providing service using the Free Software philosophy and Linux. Other interests include YouTube, poker, hats, indie music, audio engineering, travel and motorcycles.
Cheryl - YLCheryl (W5MOO)
Cheryl is Russ's significant other and the light of his life. She brings the power of Google, an unbridled enthusiasm and Cheryl's Recipe Corner (winner of the Audience Choice Awards Best Segment award) to the program. She also emcees the Social Media Roundup and can read news articles just as poorly as Russ and Bill. She's definitely a keeper.
Bill - NE4RDBill (NE4RD)
Bill, our latest victim addition, is originally from Naples, FL where he was licensed in 1994 as KE4RGH. He changed his callsign to NE4RD in 2009 and is currently living in Billings, Montana, where he is active on the HF Bands with the Big Sky Contesters Club and the K2BSA Amateur Radio Association. When not on the air he's working, hiking, skiing, soaking in the hot tub and just being a nerd.
Rich - KD0RGRich (K0EB, on Hiatus)
Rich, the most recent member of our Co-host Hiatus Program, is from snowy Colorado. He is a longtime truck driver, ham radio operator and all around funny guy. He is the co-host of the former Low SWR podcast and joined the LHS crew to bring some knowledge and voice characters to the show.
Pete - VE2XPLPete (VE2XPL, on Hiatus)
Pete was born in 1964 and licensed in 1995. He lives in suburban Montreal, Quebec, Canada with his wife, two daughters and two dogs. He works at the Children's Hospital in his home town as a multimedia specialist. As a ham, he enjoys home-brewing, QRP, digital modes and good ol' rag-chewing. When he's not on the air, he enjoys photography, music, canine search and rescue and lots of other outdoorsy activities.
Richard - KB5JBVRichard (KB5JBV, on Hiatus)
Richard has been an Amateur radio operator since 1988. He is currently an Assistant Section Manager, Official Observer, Official Relay Station, Official Emergency Station, and VE Technical Specialist for the ARRL in the North Texas section. He is also an ARES AEC and RACES assistant radio officer for the city of Mesquite.
GnormanGnorman (on Flowers)
The shortest member of the LHS team, fresh from his previous home in the English countryside. He has been hired to be an assistant on the technical staff at Studio 1S. He is Richard's technical advisor and spiritual guru, as well as chief horticulturalist and night watchman. His hobbies include firearms, drinking, fighting and flower arranging.

Together, they are the hosts of Linux in the Ham Shack. Linux in the Ham Shack is a podcast, a state of mind and a phenomenon. Originally begun to help amateur radio operators move from Microsoft and other closed-source operating systems and applications over to Linux and Free Software, the show has broadened its scope. Now consisting of a weekly audio podcast, live streaming audio, YouTube channel, community event sponsorship and general outreach, LHS helps expose amateur radio enthusiasts to FOSS and FOSS enthusiasts to amateur radio. Join us every Thursday night for the live broadcast. Subscribe with your favorite podcatcher and visit us at your local ham fest or FOSS convention. We are Linux,  ham radio and Open Source for EVERYONE.

And don't forget to send your comments and other feedback. LHS definitely wants to hear from YOU.

27 comments on “About Us”

  • Rob says:

    Great Show,, BTW I am N7NUQ… I am on a personal quest to rid my life of all MS products, so to me your the man…..
    Rob.

  • KD8ARO HENRY says:

    Just thought you could help me. I am interested in D*Star on Linux ,Richard hook a fellow Ham up with your vast wealth of knowledge.

  • k6*** says:

    How to build fldigi on Ubuntu 9.10 X64

    regards

    k6***

    1: get source tar balls
    # cd /usr/local/src
    # sudo bash
    # [sudo] password for hamradio:
    # root@hamworkstation:/usr/local/src#

    Browse to http://www.w1hkj.com/Downloads.html
    Copy link of source tar ball.
    Paste link into root shell with the wget command.

    # wget http://www.w1hkj.com/fldigi-distro/fldigi-3.11.5.tar.gz
    # enter
    Extract tar ball
    # tar -zxf fldigi-3.11.5.tar.gz

    Browse to http://hamlib.sourceforge.net/download.html
    Copy link of source tar ball.
    Paste link into root shell with the wget command.

    # wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/hamlib/hamlib-1.2.8.tar.gz
    # enter
    Extract tar ball
    # tar -zxf hamlib-1.2.8.tar.gz

    2: Get Software Dependencies
    # apt-get install libxml2-dev tcl libfltk1.1-dev libxmlrpc-c3-dev pulseaudio libpulse-dev portaudio19-dev libsndfile1-dev libpng12-dev libjpeg62-dev

    3: Building hamlib
    # cd hamlib-1.2.8
    # ./configure
    # make
    # make install

    Test run hamlib rigctl with the settings for your radio.

    # /usr/local/bin/rigctl

    4: Build fldigi

    # cd /usr/local/src/fldigi-3.11.5
    # ./configure
    # make
    # make install

    5: Run fldigi

    Open new terminal shell hamradio@hamworkstation:~$

    # /usr/local/bin/fldigi

    Have fun and good luck

    P.S.
    Check your paths.
    /usr/bin/fldigi will be a different version then /usr/local/bin/fldigi

  • Zappo says:

    Do any of the Ham Radio digital protocols support full TCP/IP?
    Ca I load blacksparrowmedia.com over my UHF/VHF Radio?

    Love the show!!!!

    -ZZ

  • Bob VE3SRE says:

    Great to find your podcast! I’m going to be catching up on the “back issue” podcasts.

    Have been a GNU/Linux user for a number of years and an active ham…though inactive the last few years…hoping to “re-activate” this spring.

    Noticed a new contest logging programme for GNU/Linux…have been watching and waiting for some good contest logging software…about the last reason I can think of for keeping a Windows box around.

    Cheers & 73

  • Don WS4E says:

    I just got an iPhone and was excited to see there is a ustream app for it.

    However only pre-approved streams can be found on it. They apparently want to make sure it meets certain conditions. It looks like lhs and rf streams
    would qualify. You guys might want to look into making your streams available in the iPhone ustream client.

    -Don

    Here is the info:

    Ustream works hard to provide the highest-quality shows on the iPhone. Therefore Ustream shows appearing in the viewing application must meet the following criteria:
    -not broadcasting nudity of any kind
    -not broadcasting vulgar content
    -not broadcasting content that you do not own the copyright to
    -not broadcasting any illegal activities
    -adhering Ustream’s Terms of Service
    -adhering Apple’s iPhone Terms and Conditions
    -having a show logo
    -having at least 1 recorded video

    If you feel that your stream meets this criteria, please email
    networks@ustream.tv with your username, a link to your stream, and a
    description of your average broadcast.

    • Russ K5TUX says:

      Thanks so much for the information, Don. I have sent a request to USTREAM to get Linux in the HAM Shack added as one of the approved feeds so it can be downloaded via the iPhone app. We’ll let you know how it goes!

      – Russ, K5TUX

  • Steve Ke9fh says:

    Hey, It was great meeting you at Dayton. Keep up the good job. I probably never leave microsoft necause of work, but Im a big Ubuntu fan. I hope to have my shack converted to linux soon. I need somed good logging and contest logging. Also some good sat tracking programs.

  • Tim ki6bge says:

    Hi Russ,
    I loaded Linux Mint 9 LDE on an IBM T21. I previously had SUSE loaded on it and both my PCMCIA cards for Wired and Wireless Lan were detected and worked ok. The Wired card is a Linksys and the Wireless is an off brand but both have worked in the same machine with the other versions of Linux. I don’t put the cards in at the same time, but I like to switch between them depending upon whether I’m at home or on the road. With Mint neither card shows up. Can you point me in the right direction. I have used Ubuntu, Suse, Red Hat & a couple of others and never had a problem with Auto Detection. I loaded the LDE version because the Standard version just kept hanging while trying to install. The LDE version was up and running within 15 minutes. I have checked the Linux Mint website, but nothing really seems to help. Also how do I sign on to this site?

  • Rich KD0BJT says:

    Hi Guys,

    For some reason the MP3 RSS feed is not working under gPodder 2.2. It will show up to episode 40 but nothing newer.

    Thanks for the Great Show!

  • Russ K5TUX says:

    Hi, Rich.

    I just tested both the MP3 feed and OGG feed using gPodder 2.2 under Ubuntu 10.04 and both feeds go right up to Episode #043 which is the latest release. Have you confirmed the RSS feed URL to make sure it’s correct? If it is, you may try deleting the feed and re-adding it. Sometimes that will help to clear out problems of this sort. Let me know if you are still having trouble; we don’t want you guys to miss anything over there!

    Russ

  • Danny KG4JCL says:

    I agree with KD0BJT. I had wondered what happened to you guys when gpodder stopped updating the mp3 feed.

    I am currently running gpodder version 2.3 on Fedora 12 with the 2.6.32.16-150.fc12.i686 #1 SMP kernel. The feed shows up as http://lhspodcast.info/category/podcast-mp3/feed/ in gpodder. Firefox 3.6.8 will not load the feed either if I click on the link from the main page.

    I hope that helps. LHS and Linux Outlaws are two of my favorite podcasts. Listening to you guys makes me feel like I am at a club meeting. Keep up the good work.

    Danny

  • Tim says:

    Just thought I’d check in. Just turned 60 on October 5 and still kick’n Listened to LHS 46 you guys might try normalizing. Richard’s audio was low so I turned up the volume and when Russ would come in I would get blasted! Other than having to constantly adjust the volume, I did enjoy the episode. Richard I need another RF Podcast fix (I am working on an audio contribution to send in soon). You two do a great job and I really enjoy both Podcasts. Later. Tim ki6bge

  • Jim KG9EQ says:

    Howdy,

    I discovered your podcast while doing a search for qsstv updates. I’m a fairly new convert to linux, but love the freedom it gives me from proprietary software. I thank you guys for helping us newbies to linux begin to figure things out. Keep up the good work.

    73,

    Jim, KG9EQ

  • James Daldry N2ENN says:

    Today is Thursday, March 24. I just finished installing straight Debian, since I was having video freeze-ups and funky mouse cursor problems with Mint Debian. So, I have the following maker-easierer’s:

    1 Extra repositories – In the System/Administration tab there is a package called “Software Sources”. Make sure that all the square checkboxes are checked, then tick “Close”.
    2. Flash/Gnash – DON’T WORRY ABOUT GNASH!!!!! Once you have the non-free repositories ticked, open Synaptic Package Manager and install “flashplugin-nonfree”. Or, alternately, open a root terminal and type “apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree”. You now have Flash. All the butts will bob up and down properly on the porn pages.
    3. Codecs – All the codecs are already installed in the standard install. Trust me. At least that’s what happens with a laptop install. If they’re not installed in a desktop install, then go back to Synaptic and tick the “good, bad, and ugly” plugins along with the base plugin. In other words, what you have to do to make Ubuntu work.
    Sort of an aside, 99 percent of what makes Ubuntu so easy is tools that are already in Gnome. Until Gnome added its wpa tool, if you wanted to use wpa under Ubuntu you had to edit /etc/wpasupplicant files.That’s why I was using PCLinuxOS back in 2007. DrakeTools had a network setup wizard that would automate the wpa setup.

  • Gary - ke2yk says:

    Hey Guys, It’s been awhile so I am “waving a hand” once again. I also wanted to let you know that I set up a new blog and have added your Podcast feeds. Thanek care be well and best 73… Gary ke2yk

  • AK4RQ-Phil says:

    I wanted to pass on the author and book which many consider an iconic publication that dissects the heart and soul of Unix and a predecessor to Linux. The book is called ‘The C Programming Language’ by Kernigan and Ritchie. This book was published by Prentice Hall in 1978.

    Phil – AK4RQ

    • Russ K5TUX says:

      Thanks for the mention. As it happens, my copy of K&R is behind me on the shelf as I write this. I don’t look to it much anymore but it will always be there. Truly a foundation piece. Sad that we just lost Ritchie as well. Gone, but not forgotten.

      73 – Russ, K5TUX

  • Larry, KG4Q says:

    For the last couple of years I have been doing my hamming using digital modes. I use a 10 year old computer running Ubuntu. For most modes Fldigi is the program but have to run JT65-HF under Wine. If you choose the adif file name to accommodate JT65-HF Fllog will keep a combined log that simplifies uploading to eQSL and LoTW.

    I acquired an old PK232MBX and interfaced it to my VHF and HF rigs. On VHF Airmail will run under Wine for sending Winlink mail. On HF the mail servers want PACTOR III which requires a $1200 modem. Neither seems to be used much and my local ARES group thinks D-STAR, which requires an over-priced radio, is the solution. The 2M repeaters are mostly quiet. What has happened to ham radio?

  • Brian36, Dorset , England says:

    Hi Russ
    I just listened to Mincast 124. Thanks for your input. My interest is Ham Radio with a Linux Mint, but occasionally using Wine for the Windows apps. Yes, FLDIGI is great. I’ve been licensed since ’68 and weened on valves (tubes!) and ended my first career on 10kW ssb transmitters. Before retirement I worked on microwave linked, unix-controlled, digital networks. I keep my hand in with Linux and QRP.
    Now, as you suggest, I shall listen to LHS85 – should be good.
    73 Brian G3XGY

  • David (KE0AZ) says:

    Well Richard, I’m sorry to hear you have to leave the show, but we (Dads, husbands) do what we have to do, don’t we. Thumbs-up and good luck to ya.

    Cute Russ, I’ll definitely stay with the show, and I encourage all listeners to do the same (and tell a friend about the show, too).

    73,
    David
    KE0AZ

  • Pingback:LHS Episode #103: Indoorsman Meets Outdoorsman « Linux in the Ham Shack

Comments are closed.