FYI - Here's a free, handy reference guide to have around. It's a version of the DHS "National Interoperability Field Operations Guide" (NIFOG) that has been adapted to be more appropriate for our uses. It contains frequency information for many other radio services that you might want to have programmed in a scanner or radio with some available memories. There is also some tutorial information including some antennas that can be easily constructed.
"The Auxiliary Communications Field Operations Guide (AUXFOG) is a reference for auxiliary communicators who directly support backup emergency communications for State/local public safety entities or for an amateur radio organization supporting public safety.
This reference guide contains information about AuxComm best practices, frequently used radio frequencies, Mutual Aid channels as well as tips and suggestions about auxiliary emergency communicators integrating into a NIMS ICS environment to support communications for planned events or incidents. It can serve as a reference both for auxiliary emergency communicators and public safety communications professionals. You can download the AUXFOG by clicking on the hyperlink to the left and save it to your own storage device. It will only download as a PDF.
While printed copies are not available from DHS, you may download an electronic copy to print as many hard copies as desired."
http://www.publicsafetytools.info/auxfog/start_auxfog_info.php
Thursday, January 2, 2014
Trying Linux and amateur radio software without having to install it on your computer.
The topic of trying Linux without having to actually install it on your computer came up recently. There are several "Live" distributions which can be downloaded to a bootable DVD or USB thumb drive. You can then boot your computer from the DVD or USB drive without having to touch the existing installation on your hard drive.
The simplest approach is to download the DVD .iso, burn it to a blank DVD, and then reboot your computer, telling it to boot from the DVD drive.
The USB thumb drive approach has more steps to create, but can be faster as well as allowing you to save changes between reboots.
Two ham radio oriented builds that have been mentioned:
Both are based on Ubuntu Linux and include software such as FLdigi and Chirp.
If you are interested in trying them, I think there are better tutorials available if you google "ubuntu live" than the instructions that accompany the two ham specific packages mentioned above.
The simplest approach is to download the DVD .iso, burn it to a blank DVD, and then reboot your computer, telling it to boot from the DVD drive.
The USB thumb drive approach has more steps to create, but can be faster as well as allowing you to save changes between reboots.
Two ham radio oriented builds that have been mentioned:
- KB1OIQ - Andy's Ham Radio Linux (Ubuntu remastered for ham radio)
http://sourceforge.net/projects/kb1oiq-andysham/ - Chirp Live:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/chirplivecd/
Both are based on Ubuntu Linux and include software such as FLdigi and Chirp.
If you are interested in trying them, I think there are better tutorials available if you google "ubuntu live" than the instructions that accompany the two ham specific packages mentioned above.
Rigol DS1052E/DS1102 and Linux, Python, usbtmc
[To Be Updated]
This is one of those intersections of electronics, open source, hacking, and programming that really gets my interest.
Here are some links with information on connecting the Rigol scope to Linux, and controlling it using Python via USB. The scope implements the USB test and measurement class, usbtmc.
This is one of those intersections of electronics, open source, hacking, and programming that really gets my interest.
Here are some links with information on connecting the Rigol scope to Linux, and controlling it using Python via USB. The scope implements the USB test and measurement class, usbtmc.
- Scruss.com: My Raspberry PI talks to my Oscilloscope
- Python userspace version of USBTMC github -- This is useful because it seems the kernel usbtmc driver has bugs in even somewhat recent (3.11?) versions.
- Ken Shirriff: Four Rigol oscilloscope hacks with Python 2013-07-19,
- Controlling a Rigol Oscilloscope using Linux and Python, some rudimentary stuff for reading the scope and plotting it.
- Rigol Homebrew Wiki
- Rigol DS1052E Homebrew for all original blog posts about writing custom firmware for the Rigol like pong.
- Hack-a-day entry on Rigol Homebrew
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
How Long is a Nanosecond? (Grace Hopper aka Amazing Grace)
[I originally posted to a mailing list I'm on.]
Google's doodle for today (December 9th, 2013) is commemorating Grace Hopper's birthday.
Time.com has a pretty good summary here:
I suggest watching/listening to the 2 minute youtube video. One of the things she is known for is talking about how long a nanosecond is by giving away 11.8 inch lengths of wire, which is how far light can travel in one nanosecond.
Part of the reason for talking about this is to explain the delays in communicating through satellites. Though the most direct relevance is in computer (and now most modern microelectronic) engineering and training programmers.
It's a good reminder of how intertwined electronics, physics, and software are and how almost every device we touch today has some sort of microcomputer (microcontroller) running software it.
Google's doodle for today (December 9th, 2013) is commemorating Grace Hopper's birthday.
Time.com has a pretty good summary here:
http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/12/09/google-doodle-honors-grace-hopper-early-computer-scientist/
I suggest watching/listening to the 2 minute youtube video. One of the things she is known for is talking about how long a nanosecond is by giving away 11.8 inch lengths of wire, which is how far light can travel in one nanosecond.
Part of the reason for talking about this is to explain the delays in communicating through satellites. Though the most direct relevance is in computer (and now most modern microelectronic) engineering and training programmers.
It's a good reminder of how intertwined electronics, physics, and software are and how almost every device we touch today has some sort of microcomputer (microcontroller) running software it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper
Adafruit Products of particular interest to Amateur Radio DIY Projects
[hopefully I will come back and expand this post a bit later]
Adafruit.com has a few products that are of particular interest to me for amateur radio DIY projects.
These products have been well research and seem to be currently best-in-class to me. Read the product pages and tutorials on the Adafruit site to see what I mean. The projects I'm thinking about are:
Adafruit.com has a few products that are of particular interest to me for amateur radio DIY projects.
These products have been well research and seem to be currently best-in-class to me. Read the product pages and tutorials on the Adafruit site to see what I mean. The projects I'm thinking about are:
- Yaesu VX-8DR
- DIY GPS Module with the Adafruit GPS Module. The stock Yaesu GPS seems to be overpriced and is reported by many to underperform. The Adafruit Ultimate GPS seems like it should do a much better job, but the VX-8 seems to have bugs in it's parser so it requires some field padding that is particular to the Yaesu GPS.
- Bluetooth Serial Link to use an Android Phone's built-in aGPS via a serial bluetooth connection.
- Yaesu FT-857D
- Bluetooth Serial Link
- Eliminate the need for the direct CAT cable connection for better isolation from the computer
- Rig control via an Android Phone app. The FT-857's small control panel has a number of compromises. The stock radio mic doesn't have a keypad for direct frequency entry.
- Uniden BC346XT Scanner
- Bluetooth Serial link for logging scanner activity. Hopefully this will let me get the scanner farther away from the noise generated by the computer while still allowing me to log hits.
Best Chinese Dual-band HT? (Good amateur radio blogs)
Here is a good run down of which Chinese HTs are the top performers in a number of categories from Hans, PD0AC's Ham Gear Blog. The Wouxun which I've been very happy with since 2011 rates pretty well. I still need to pick up a Baofeng one of these days for comparison.
I post some of these things here because I usually I can find things most quickly via google. Then when it takes my a whole bunch of tries to find what I was looking for again, I think I should be posting this stuff for others as well as myself.
- http://hamgear.wordpress.com/2013/07/15/whats-the-best-chinese-dual-band-ht/
- Posted July 15th, 2013
Good Amateur Radio Blogs to Follow
There are a number of really good amateur radio blogs to follow. Some of my favorites in no particular order are:- Hans, PD0AC's Ham Gear Blog
- G4ILO
- KB6NU
- K0NR
- Brick O'Lore
- These were from memory, I still haven't reorganized myself since the shutdown of Google Reader.
I post some of these things here because I usually I can find things most quickly via google. Then when it takes my a whole bunch of tries to find what I was looking for again, I think I should be posting this stuff for others as well as myself.
Saturday, November 30, 2013
USB Serial Converters, You don't need to buy one for each device.
I've been meaning to write about how to avoid having to buy a USB serial converter for every single radio, wireless router, microcontroller, or home automatic project. Particularly because of all of the issues with counterfeit Prolific chips and driver woes. FTDI is the most desirable USB serial converter chip to have, but the premium is $10-20 at least for each cable.
You can use one USB to serial converter cable and adapt it to multiple devices, but you need to match voltages. Devices can either be
The Chinese radio manufacturers (or maybe I should say accessory manufacturers have come up with an answer which could be a blessing or a curse. They are now selling 6-in-1 or 8-in-1 radio programming cable kits which include one USB serial adapter which brings out 3 wires (RX, TX, Gnd) in a 3.5mm TRS phone plug/jack set. There are a set of cables to adapt to a number of different radio styles.
The Good news -- These are available for around $10 and should be useful to peuple who own multiple radios or need to program other people's radios, like clubs and emcomm groups.
The Bad news:
You can use one USB to serial converter cable and adapt it to multiple devices, but you need to match voltages. Devices can either be
- RS-232 (-12Vdc to +12Vdc, or more commonly -5Vdc to +5Vdc). This is the good old-fashioned serial that has all but disappeared from modern electronics.
- TTL (0 - 5Vdc)
- LVTTL (0 - 3.3Vdc)
The Chinese radio manufacturers (or maybe I should say accessory manufacturers have come up with an answer which could be a blessing or a curse. They are now selling 6-in-1 or 8-in-1 radio programming cable kits which include one USB serial adapter which brings out 3 wires (RX, TX, Gnd) in a 3.5mm TRS phone plug/jack set. There are a set of cables to adapt to a number of different radio styles.
The Good news -- These are available for around $10 and should be useful to peuple who own multiple radios or need to program other people's radios, like clubs and emcomm groups.
The Bad news:
- The converter is based on, you guessed it, the same crap counterfeit Prolific chips that fill every group I read with the same driver related questions over and over.
- Because it's plug and pray, it will be easy to experiment and possibly/probably damage some electronics.
- Adding TX/RX LEDs to assist with diagnosis
- Adding over-voltage protection
- Detecting and protecting against reversed connections
- Ability to get at RTS/CTS lines for other uses.
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