Category: Show Notes

Show Notes #082

Posted on by Russ Woodman

Introduction:

Announcements:

  • The Black Sparrow Media Mobile App for iPhone/iPad and Android has been updated. You can now listen to all of the old episodes, as well as new ones, via the app. wAVEgUIDES episodes are now included, as well. All streaming content is now available for iPad/iPhone. Please download and enjoy. It's at the Google Play marketplace, as well as via the Black Sparrow Media website, and it's still free!
  • The LHS Hamvention fund drive was a success! LHS will be at Dayton Hamvention 2012, May 18-20, in the North Hall of the Hara Arena in booth 131, the same place as last year.
  • Russ fixed a website bug that may have been causing some visitors to see the Black Sparrow Media site when surfing to LHS. Thanks to John, EI7IG, for pointing it out.
  • Please sign up for the LHS mailing list at https://lists.blacksparrowmedia.net/mailman/listinfo.
  • Please join the LHS subreddit and contribute show topic ideas, news of interest to our listeners, or just about anything else.
  • Please tell your friends about the show.

Topics:

  • Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU, in his recent Surfin' column on the ARRL website, recommends open source Apache OpenOffice and the desktop publishing software Scribus. Note, LibreOffice is a fork of OpenOffice and is also quite functional. Both offer word processing, spreadsheets, database and presentations. Scribus may have a steep learning curve, but it's a very powerful program. Easy tasks are easy to accomplish. Complex projects may take more effort to learn. Also note that many open source programs, like OpenOffice, Libre Office and Scribus, are available for Windows, OS X, as well as Linux.
  • Take a look at the ham radio section at Linux Journal which also has links to their Ham Shack forum.
  • Richard discovered several open source ham radio applications at Sourceforge: ircDDB_gateway, CQiNET, phppredict, contest loggers, fldigi, paclink-unix, OpenMOR, software for SDR radios, Ham Radio Net Logger, and more. So, don't just look in your distributions repositories for applications. You may have to compile the programs from SourceForge yourself, but it may be worth the trouble.
  • Finally, a reminder to visit KE2YK's Random Oscillations website.
  • An overview of ham radio apps for Android phones, available at the Android market, aka Google Play:
    • Morse Code apps:
      • Morse Decoder ($4.99)
      • Morse Code Reader (Free)
      • Morse Trainer Lite (Free)
      • Morse Trainer ($2.99)
      • Morse Code Trainer (Free)
      • Morse Code Keyboard (Free)
      • Morse Code Teacher ($3.99)
    • QSO Logging:
      • Amateur Radio Call Log (Free)
      • HamLog ($0.99)
      • Hamroid Free (Free)
      • Hamroid ($6.53)
    • Miscellaneous:
      • QSY (Free)
      • DroidPSK ($4.99)
      • DXCluster ($2.49)
      • DTMF ($2.49)
      • Echolink (Free)
    • A few more from Bill:
      • APRS Viewer (Free)
      • Ham Radio Tools (Free)
      • Who Is Calling Me? (Free)

Feedback:

  • Ronny, K4RJJ, regrets that he won't be able to act as the LHS ambassador at the Knoxville hamfest. If you'd like to be our representative at the Knoxville, or any other event, please contact us via the Ambassador link on the website.
  • Roy, KK4ATD, reiterates how much fun it is to be an LHS ambassador.
  • Chris, K4FH, says he offers a presentation at club meetings he calls Linux in the Ham Shack. He's hoping Richard or Russ has some material they can share.

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.
  • Sign up for the LHS mailing list.
  • Sign up for the MAGNetcon mailing list.
  • LHS merchandise is available at the Merch link on Web site. Check out the Badgerwear or buy one of the other LHS-branded items at PrintFection.com/lhs or Cafe Press. Thanks!
  • Thanks to Dave from Gamma Leonis for the theme music.

Music:

  • "Gunpowder Chant" by Diablo Swing Orchestra from the album "The Butcher's Ballroom," courtesy of Jamendo.
  • "L.E.O." by Oleg Serkov from the album "Epoch Symbol," courtesy of Jamendo.

Show Notes #081

Posted on by Russ Woodman

Introduction:

  • Loctite... not just for noisy children any more.

Announcements:

  • The Fourth Annual Southeast Linuxfest is scheduled for June 8-10, 2012 in Charlotte, NC.
  • Please sign up for the LHS mailing list.
  • Please join our new Subreddit and contribute news stories, discussion topics, and any other items that may be of interest to our listeners.
  • Scott, N8VSI, has tentatively agreed to be our ambassador at the Ohio Linux Fest in Columbus, Ohio in September, 2012.
  • It looks like LHS will be at the Dayton Hamvention, May 18-20, 2012 in Dayton, OH. If you'd like to help make that happen, please donate!
  • LHS is syndicated by the Kamiak Butte Amateur Radio Association, KB7ARA. The linked repeater sites cover almost all of Washington State, some of Oregon, and a bit of Canada as well. They are IRLP and Echolink connected.
  • Ronny, K4RJJ, will be our ambassador at the Knoxville Hamfest on June 8th, 2012. Ronny calls in to discuss the upcoming Knoxville Hamfest, and his previous experiences as LHS ambassador.

Feedback:

  • David, KE0AZ, writes to ask if LHS will be at Ham-Com, June 8-9, 2012, in Plano, TX.
  • LinuxCanuck writes to defend Kubuntu against Richard's recent tirades.

Topics:

  • IRSSI Tips and Tricks
    • Irssi is a terminal based IRC client for UNIX systems. It also supports SILC and ICB protocols via plugins. Russ offers some tips on making Irssi a bit friendlier.
    • The functionality and ease of use of Irssi can be extended by installing and using third-party scripts. These scripts are written in Perl and available at scripts.irssi.org.
    • Once you download the script file, which we'll call "dlfile" in the example below, you can install it and have it automatically run with Irssi by performing the following steps: 
      # Create the scripts and autorun directories:
linux> mkdir -p ~/.irssi/scripts/autorun   
# Move the downloaded script file to the scripts directory:
linux> mv  ~/.irssi/scripts
# Change to the autorun directory:
linux> cd ~/.irssi/scripts/autorun
# Create a link to the downloaded script:
linux> ln -s ../ .
    • Some interesting scripts Russ is using:
  • Our hosts discuss the new release of Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) with the MATE and Cinnamon desktops.

More Feedback:

  • Stefano, IZ3NVR and KD2BGM, asks for help finding a good Linux contest logging program that supports SO2R (single operator, two radios) and CW keying. We don't know of any, but perhaps one of our listeners can offer a suggestion.
  • John, KD7AAT, offered a bit of criticism about the political content of episode 79 with Fab.
  • Mike writes to extol the virtues of Linux Mint Debian Edition with the XFCE desktop, and hopes Richard will find it a suitable alternative to Linux Mint or Kubuntu. He also suggests Crunchbang Linux. Richard and Russ respond.

Donations:

  • Don sent a nice donation for the Hamvention fund. Thanks, Don! We also received donations from Bob K., Charles H., Scott P., Craig B., and Harrison K. Thank you, everyone!

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.
  • Sign up for the LHS mailing list.
  • Sign up for the MAGNetcon mailing list.
  • LHS merchandise is available at the Merch link on Web site. Check out the Badgerwear or buy one of the other LHS-branded items at PrintFection.com/lhs or Cafe Press. Thanks!
  • Thanks to Dave from Gamma Leonis for the theme music.

Music:

  • "Gold and Steel" by Isaac Graham from the album Empty Vessels.
  • "Charly" by Higgins from the album Zs.

Show Notes #080

Posted on by Russ Woodman

Introduction:

  • Tornado season has begun in Texas! Check out the videos at kcares.info

Announcements:

  • The donations for the LHS to Dayton Hamvention fund have stalled. If you'd like to see LHS return to the Hamvention this year, please make a donation in the next week or two. All donations will go toward the cost of the booth in the vendor exhibition hall. If we fail to raise enough to attend, then the funds will go toward the expenses of producing LHS.

Topics:

  • Richard's Linux Adventures
    • Thank You Kubuntu, for once again obliterating Richard's boot sectors.
    • Russ suggests using dd to perform what is essentially a low-level format of the drive. For example, 
      dd bs=1m if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda

      NOTE: This will totally erase your hard drive! Use caution!

    • Matthew, KC8BEW, in the chat room, suggests using Spinrite to repair a hard drive.
    • Richard declares that Debian is the Jesus Christ of Linux distributions, as it raised his hard drive from the dead, at least temporarily. It was the only distro he found that managed to install grub on the drive.
    • Richard also declares that Linux Mint sucks... at least for him. Audacity caused 100% CPU usage, spell check didn't work, and it crashes.
    • Also discussed: CentOS, Scientific Linux, Fedora, PCLinuxOS, Xubuntu, lubuntu.
  • Richard is writing an ebook on the National Traffic System.
  • Russ again suggests Richard try Debian, but Richard says it won't let him install Firefox. Maybe there's a hardware issue? (Perhaps memtest might find a memory error? -Ed.)

Donations:

  • We received several donations from visitors to the Dalton Hamfest and the KARC Hamfest. Thank you to our ambassador Ronny (K4RJJ) and to everyone who stopped by our booth at those events.
  • Russ hoped to interview Roy, KK4ATD, our ambassador to the RARSfest last week. Apparently, the LHS booth was a great success.
  • If you'd like to be an ambassador for LHS at an event, email us at ambassadors@lhspodcast.info and visit the Ambassadors link on the web site.

Feedback:

  • Fab, co-host of Linux Outlaws, left a couple comments on the website expressing his gratitude for being on the show.
  • Bob (W9YA) offers Russ some suggestions for entering the contact exchange information in YFKtest.
  • LinuxCanuck left a comment saying he enjoyed the episode with Fab, asks for help getting the feed links on the web site to work, and offers some thoughts about Kubuntu.
  • Roy, KK4ATD, the LHS ambassador to RARSFest, calls in to the show and describes the event. He's also building a repository of ham radio packages for CentOS, called Hamux.

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.
  • Sign up for the LHS mailing list.
  • Sign up for the MAGNetcon mailing list.
  • LHS merchandise is available at the Merch link on Web site. Check out the Badgerwear or buy one of the other LHS-branded items at PrintFection.com/lhs or Cafe Press. Thanks!
  • Thanks to Dave from Gamma Leonis for the theme music.

Show Notes #079

Posted on by Russ Woodman

Introduction:

  • An absolutely FABulous episode, in which we interview Fab Scherschel from the Linux Outlaws podcast. Fab's de-facto father-in-law is DC5JM!

Announcements:

  • Ronny, K4RJJ, attended the KARC Hamfest over the weekend as the LHS Ambassador. Details, photos and video will be on the web site very soon. Thanks, again, Ronny!
  • Roy, KK4ATD, will be our ambassador at the RARSfest in Raleigh, NC on April 7th. Thanks, Roy!
  • The LHS Web site now has a 'Chat' link which gives you the ability to join the #lhspodcast IRC channel without having a client, straight from the LHS web site.
  • LHS hopes to attend the 2012 Dayton Hamvention. Please donate to the cause to help make that happen!
  • A recent iOS update broke the Black Sparrow Media app for iPhones, but that will get fixed, soon. Look for new podcasts in the future. Visit blacksparrowmedia.net/join if you'd like to add your podcast to the Black Sparrow Media network.

Interview:

  • Russ and Richard interview Fabian "Fab" Scherschel, co-host of the Linux Outlaws podcast.
  • Fab transitioned from Windows to Ubuntu in 2007. The biggest issue was games, but he bought a PlayStation 3 to satisfy that requirement. Minecraft runs well on Linux.
  • Fab's primary motivation for Linux Outlaws was to practice his English.
  • Our hosts then discuss Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Canonical and Debian.
  • We then talk about software patents from a UK and German perspective.
  • Fab is switching his servers from CentOS to Debian, primarily because there is no upgrade from one major release of CentOS to another. He also likes to try different distributions so as to maintain impartiality.
  • Fab asks how Linux in the Ham Shack began.
  • You can contact Fab via Google Plus.

Feedback:

  • LinuxCanuck asks for help accessing links and RSS feeds from the website. Everything seems to be working on this end.
  • Phil, AK4RQ, recommends the book 'The C Programming Language' by Kernighan and Ritchie, originally published by Prentice Hall in 1978. Thanks, Phil.

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.
  • Sign up for the LHS mailing list.
  • Sign up for the MAGNetcon mailing list.
  • LHS merchandise is available at the Merch link on Web site. Check out the Badgerwear or buy one of the other LHS-branded items at PrintFection.com/lhs or Cafe Press. Thanks!
  • Thanks to Dave from Gamma Leonis for the theme music.

Music:

  • "Vertigo" by Obsidian Shell from their album Evershade, courtesy of Jamendo.
  • "Faces Nameless" by Reform the Resistance from their album And It Begins... courtesy of Jamendo.

Show Notes #078

Posted on by Russ Woodman

Introduction:

  • Richard says life has been good, lately, except for Linux Mint, but we'll get into that in a moment. Announcements and feedback are at the end of the show.

Topics:

  • Linux Mint Sux!!! (At least, for Richard.)
    • Richard's never-ending quest for a Linux distro that works for him. In the past few days, he's tried various Debian-based distributions:
      • Linux Mint 12, with Gnome 3, MATE, and Cinnamon, but he didn't like any of them. Too few configuration options for the desktop and gtkpod didn't work, and that was a deal-breaker.
      • Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE): one of the CPU cores wasn't running; fixed that, installed software and updates, but gtkpod didn't work there, either.
      • Crunchbang Linux: too minimalist and too much configuration.
      • XFCE on LMDE was close. Richard replaced the Thunar file manager with Nautilus.
      • Xubuntu which is Ubuntu with XFCE. It looked good, was configurable, but lacked a few features.
      • Kubuntu, which is Ubuntu with KDE. He tried installing it from the live CD, which took 25 minutes to complete. After the reboot, it generated all sorts of hard drive errors. While it's possible that the hard drive did fail, but Richard blames Kubuntu for causing the problem.
  • Russ discusses OpenMediaVault, an open network attached storage solution.
    • It's an alternative to FreeNAS.
    • Debian-based with a simple install process, while FreeNAS is based on FreeBSD.
    • Supports many features of FreeNAS, including CIFS/Samba, NFS, FTP, SSH, BitTorrent (via plugin), TFTP, and DAAP (via plugin).
    • Russ tried it in a virtual machine, and it installed easily. Once installed, all configuration occurs through the web browser.
    • While it's perhaps not as mature as FreeNAS, it's also a newer project, so it's likely to improve. At the moment, Russ prefers FreeNAS, especially v0.7, but OpenMediaVault may very well catch up and surpass FreeNAS.
  • Linux Contesting Software revisited. We covered a few in Episode 70, and here are a couple more.
    • Bill, W9YA, one of the maintainers of YFKtest, contacted Richard to inform him that YFKtest has had a major facelift, as well as adding a few features and fixing some bugs. It's available as v 0.0.10 from the subversion repository. Russ downloaded the compiled version. He picked a contest, filename for the log, entered his call sign, mode, and some other information, but he had trouble entering a contact.
    • Minos Contest Logging Software is a contest logging suite for VHF and UHF Amateur Radio Contests. The current version is 1.5.4, and is available as a download or via the Subversion repository. It's a Windows application, and there are directions on the Web site for running the application using WINE. If only they'd simply re-release with Linux-native code. Russ tried it and it does run quite well under WINE. It's an open source project under the BSD license.
  • Allstar Link Node Update: Russ now has an Allstar Link node number assigned, 28357. Allstar Link offers several packages: Limey Linux, ACID CentOS or Pickle Linux (for the BeagleBoard). Russ has been trying to get the ACiD version running on his LMDE machine so he can use it with his existing Asterisk installation. Meanwhile, Russ has his Echolink station working, node 54711.

Feedback:

  • We received a voice comment from Ed, KB4VWA, who's having trouble with some MFJ TNCs he recently bought at the Dalton, GA hamfest. Richard responds, though he's had the least experience with MFJ TNCs. There are several possibilities: wrong on-air baud rate, bad connection, wrong dip switch settings, or poor or filtered audio into the TNC. Try using the jack on the back of the radio for the audio. Maybe the radio is not exactly on frequency?

Announcements:

  • The OGG and MP3 feeds for the LHS Music and LHS Up All Night audio streams from the LHS web site have new links, so check your settings. The live streaming feed is mp3, so it works everywhere.
  • The wAVEgUIDES podcast joins the Black Sparrow Media network! Visit blacksparrowmedia.net/join/ if you'd like to add your podcast to the Black Sparrow Media network.
  • Episode renumbering: Ever since naming episodes 18a and 19a, it's been bugging Russ, so they were renumbered to eliminate the letter suffixes.
  • LHS hopes to attend the 2012 Dayton Hamvention in May. Please donate to the cause to help make that happen!

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.
  • Sign up for the LHS mailing list.
  • Sign up for the MAGNetcon mailing list.
  • LHS merchandise is available at the Merch link on Web site. Check out the Badgerwear or buy one of the other LHS-branded items at PrintFection.com/lhs or Cafe Press. Thanks!
  • Thanks to Dave from Gamma Leonis for the theme music.

Music:

  • "Requiem For A Fish" by The Freak Fandango Orchestra from their album Tales Of A Dead Fish, courtesy of Jamendo.
  • "Boats (Swept Away)" by I Am Not Left Handed, from their album Time To Leave, courtesy of Jamendo.