LHS Episode #083: Smokey & The First Lady

by Black Sparrow Media Episode #83 Duration: 01:15:03
LHS Episode #083: Smokey & The First Lady

Welcome to the 83rdest episode of Linux in the Ham Shack. Freshly back from the Dayton Hamvention, Russ jumps in by telling everyone his experience at the show this year. The short version: It was great! From there, things move on to a question of FCC rules, at least in the mind of one ham. One of the topics that kept repeating at Hamvention was: What is a good contest logger for Linux? Up until recently, it was hard to think of one. The ncurses-based application yfktest is out there, but thanks to IZ3NVR, our hosts discuss a new option. Tune in to find out what. There's also some feedback, occasional rambling and hardcore lunacy. Everything you've come to expect from an episode of LHS.

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Introduction:

  • Back from Dayton and ready to go.

Topics:

  • Dayton Hamvention 2012

  • LHS had the same booth as last year at North Hall #131. Estimated attendance was 25,000 individuals. Russ recounts the experience. Thanks to Matt, KC8BEW, who stopped by and helped out at the booth. The LowSWR podcasters stopped by, too.

  • FCC Dismisses Texas Ham’s Fourth Petition, Calls it “Repetitive”

  • Our hosts discuss.

  • Contest logging for Linux.

  • Several people at Hamvention asked about contest logging software for Linux, but Russ was at a loss for a recommendation. Upon his return, he discovered…

  • SO2SDR Contest Logging Software

  • Stefano, IZ3NVR/KD2BGM was trying to get so2sdr to work under Linux Mint and while it would compile, it did not run, so Russ set about trying to get it going.

  • It’s not packaged for Debian or Fedora, so it must be built from source, available at the link above.

  • The program is written in Qt, so it can be run on devices which support that environment, including Linux and Windows. Of course, Qt must be installed in order to compile so2sdr.

  • Russ also had to install the following packages on his Linux Mint machine: portaudio19-dev (NOT libportaudio-dev; apparently, libportaudio-dev is too old), fftw3 and fftw3-dev

  • The compilation procedure consists of: qmake make sudo make install

  • so2sdr compiled and ran fine. It did complain that it wanted a parallel port for switching between radios, but you can ignore that if you don’t need to do that.

  • Russ gives an overview of the features and capabilities.

  • There are a few drawbacks:

  • An apparent lack of SSB support? It seems to be CW-only.

  • Frequency input checking is broken.

  • Keystrokes are not intuitive, but are well-documented.

  • However, the built-in help file is quite useful.

Feedback:

  • E-mail from Larry, KG4Q, extolling fldigi and JT65-HF. He wishes there was a version of JT65-HF for Linux. Well, Larry, there is! You can download the source here. Also, WSJT does JT65, too.

  • Chris, K4FH, caught up with Russ at Hamvention and talked about his Linux in the Ham Shack presentation. He managed to put together a fine bunch of slides completely without our help. Sorry, Chris!

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Music: