AllStarLink

I finally got my AllStarLink 3 node up and running. I had registered for a node number, and I had bought the pieces to have them ready to go. The little Pi Zero W boards I have wouldn’t boot, so I used a Pi 4 instead with the USB radio device.

Initial Installation on Pi 4

I started out with the official instructions:

  • Downloaded the image for the Pi
  • Installed the Pi Imager by deb file instead of just dding it to the device, since the imager conveniently allows pre-configuring:
    • user
    • locale
    • WiFi network

Configured the Cheap Ausinc UHF AllStar Radio Dongle

I purchased the hardware from Amazon a while ago. It has a USB-C port, and the cable is flipped for different modes:

  • one way to program the frequency via USB serial
  • other way to use the USB sound device for TX/RX The product description mentioned the different modes, but I didn’t recognize it. I learned about the flip from a video

I downloaded the srfrs.py Python script to the Pi, and used it to configure frequency and tone to protect default access to it:

./srfrs.py --port /dev/ttyUSB0 --frequency 438.1 --ctcss 94.8

Matthew, KC3WRY, suggested this frequency in the 70cm of the band. I was reading and wondering about 446.1 or 433 or so.

More Configuration and Confirmation

I followed another video for more configuration and confirmation of the settings from intro video.

I made another pass at web-based configs and asl-menu. I set it to be a SimpleUSB device in simplex mode, and I tuned the volume settings. I had no TX until I set “Change CTCSS From = no”. I don’t know what that setting does, but the tip came from the video. Then I could use the allmon3 web interface to connect up to Parrot+ node (55553) for testing, and it reported, “volume just about right.” I could connect and disconnect to nodes from the web interface. There are other commands in the web interface to say the time or id the node on demand.

I could send DTMF commands from my UV-K5 with the F4HWN firmware:

  • * starts DTMF entry, PTT sends the codes.
  • *1 <node number> disconnects from a node
  • *2 <node number> connects to monitor another node
  • *3 <node number> connects to transcieve to another node
  • other scripts, like “disconnect all” don’t seem to work yet.

The W3GMS admins granted me access to connect my node to the repeater, so I’ll have a chance to try it out there. I was also able to connect to K3IR.

N3KZ

I used the N3KZ repeater system, specifically the York node on 442.050, for the first time from home. I spoke to N3RCI, who I usually hear on KX3B. He was on the node in Havre de Grace. I used the 1/4-wave ground plane antenna in the tree.

I continue to be amazed that a 70cm repeater node has such reach. I used the York node, but I often hear the nodes in Cumberland, York, and Lebanon; sometimes I even hear Chambersburg…on UHF. It just doesn’t seem like it should be possible.

n3kz  uhf  70cm 

Olivia

I stumbled into a couple Olivia signals on 14071kHz, and on a good guess, I fired up fldigi, and I was able to decode them. They were Olivia-8/250 encoded. I found lots of good documents on Olivia to read some mmore about where they’re likely found.

digital  hf  olivia 

SPARC Member Meeting: 2024-11-26

Club Business

  • Elections
  • Ideas
    • Looking for help with fox hunt
      • have the transmitters
      • can get help from other clubs

Presentation: DMR with Jason

  • originally designed for professional radio installations.
    • lots of motorola gear
  • developed in europe first
  • digital voice
  • data
  • components
    • radios
    • repeaters
    • controllers (for routing traffic)
    • network infrastructure
  • lots of networking and linking over large areas.
  • types
    • tier 1 - consumer
    • tier 2 - professional, trunked
    • tier 3 - trunked, large-scale
  • TDMA (time-division multiple access) - 2 channels / slots
  • narrow bandwidth 12.5khz band
  • modes
    • private
    • group
    • broadcast
    • data: text, gps, telemetry
  • radio id is assigned by radioid.net to you and your call sign
  • talkgroup = collecting a bunch of radio ids into a single contact
  • popular public networks:
    • tgif
    • brandmeister
  • can also be a private network
  • hotspots access dmr network via the internet
  • delmarvadmr.com
  • 3 building blockse
    • talk groups
    • channels
    • zones
sparc  k3ir  meeting  dmr 

985 Workbench: 2024-11-25

My Week in Radio

  • Took down my 2M antennas to straighten and resolder.
  • Catching up the radio blog with my recent experiences.
  • Trying F4HWN firmware on Quansheng radios
    • previous firmware, AUBSUK, for my Quansheng radio was skipping channels when I activated more than 1 scan list.
    • larger display with single VFO
    • rethinking my scan lists
    • the S-meter is calibrated differently from the other firmware
  • no questions, because I should just be reading the antenna book
  • FT Challenge coming up in 2 weekends. *** Others
  • KD3ACF, JT:
    • acquired a j-pole for the attic
    • new ham with an HT
    • magmount on the car, tested with WA3VEE from Manheim High School
  • W8CRW, CR:
    • 985 activities
    • Red Rose activities
    • Salem CCARS acitvity
  • W3QP, Tim:
    • trip to HRO
    • planning trips
  • WA3VEE, Ron:
    • working on an old receiver
      • re-capping
      • Hammerland hq140x
      • terrible, loud 120hz buzz, so ordered capacitors to replace them
      • cleaned
      • fixed
      • needs just a little more work, alignment
    • got over to KC3YSM, Steve’s place to help with his antenna
      • analyzed
      • Buckmaster OCF dipole
  • KC3RFG, Jim:
    • watching 10m
    • Croatia, Belgium
    • repairing the 160m/75m dipole, new balun
  • AF3Z, Jim:
    • testing his 1-tube QRP transmitter
    • practiced some CW with a friend on 10m
    • found sweden and belgium lower in the band.
  • KC3OOK, Bill:
    • 985 net, simplex net
    • working on tower
    • helping Joe, W3GMS, assemble his new tower
  • KC3SCY, Luke:
    • lots of time off from school this week
    • 10m has been wide-open
    • spent some time on 40m SSB and AM
  • KC3VRW, Phil:
    • attempted to build a 10m inverted-V
    • MFJ tuner
    • trying tech HF frequencies

Questions

  • W3QP, Tim: Follow up on battery measurements for the TSA, Watt-hours instead of Amp-hours.
    • bigger batteries have bigger thermal events.
    • Wh is the amount of potential power.
    • Wh doesn’t require doing the math to consider voltage in combo with Ah.
    • 18Ah at 12V.
    • The nominal voltage for the cells is less.
    • Expected usable volts are even less, so Wh is less than just V*A.
    • Nominal voltage can be different across different battery chemistries.
    • Nominal voltage may not be obvious.
    • 11.1 Nominal voltage might be 12.6V at peak charge.
    • Volts and Amps are important for application, but Watt-hours is better overall for capacity.
  • AF3Z, Jim:
    • tinkering with Hartley oscillator: mica capacitors, ceramic capacitors, what’s the difference of all the different capacitors?
      • WA3KFT, John:
        • ratings: capacitance, voltage.
        • The “dry electrolytic” is a paste, not oil.
        • main purpose is filtering AC converted to DC.
        • filtering some frequencies
        • ceramic capacitors are pretty stable, until overheated.
        • mica capacitors are small capacitances, pF. used for frequency stablizing.
        • variable air capacitor
        • oil filled are higher capacitance and used for low frequencies in power supplies, etc.
      • WA3VEE, Ron:
        • film capacitors
          • different dielectric
          • used for audio.
        • paper capacitor
        • dielectric is anything that separates the plates.
        • air capacitors
      • W3QP, Tim:
        • silver mica are maybe lower loss than ceramic
        • multi-layer capacitors for higher currents
      • W3DIB, Greg:
        • negatives of certain capacitors:
          • some dielectrics leak
          • tantalums can dead-short, like in a power supply.
        • saw a cool video of people building filters for cheap radios in places with heavy RF to keep them working better.
      • WA3VEE, Ron:
        • they leak when they get overheated.
        • leads to the plate have a little resistance so generate heat.
        • capacitor can have a vent that leaks under pressure.
      • NA3CW, Chuck:
        • capacitors are deceptively complex
        • all components have some bit of capacitance, inductance, resistance.
        • vacuum dialectric for especially high voltage.
        • lots of trade-off characteristics
        • some are piezoelectric (microphone), like a condenser microphone
  • WA3VEE, Ron:
    • homework: does a capacitor allow current to flow through it? KC3SQI, Wayne:
  • solar telescope demos on December 11 at some park

21 Tech Net: 2024-11-24

My Weeks in Radio

  • QRP on a couple hawaiian islands
  • not much 2m activity
    • added some repeaters and scanned
  • POTA
    • Xiegu x6100 mostly turned up to 8W
    • mostly 10m-30m and everything in between
    • challenging to be on an island where you have to go thousands of miles or you reach no one.
    • antennas:
      • 40M EFHW where I had room,
      • 41ft long EFRW with less room
      • vertical whip and coil attached to a fishing pole for a less conspicuous setup on some beaches
    • 6 parks and 2 trails on 2 islands:
      • sandy beaches
      • rocky lava fields
      • inside diamondhead caldera
      • atop steaming kilauea
    • reached:
      • west: Australia, New zealand, Fiji, Japan, Russia, China, South Cook Islands, Samoa
      • east: North Carolina, Kentucky, Ohio, Dominican Republic, Argentina
    • practiced some CW on the beach when I didn’t get out the computer
  • back to a home park yesterday, but the weather was not as nice.
  • took down my home-made 2m antennas and straightened them up.
  • trying F4HWN 3.7 firmware for Quansheng radios
    • from a scanner-centered AUBSUK firmware that was skipping some channels
  • looking forward to that FT Challenge contest

Other News

  • contests
    • CQ WW CW this weekend
    • no contests for the Thanksgiving weekend
    • following weekend
      • 160m CW arrl contest
      • FT challenge contest
  • KA3TKW: R&L electronics: TYT MD-9600, GD-77 open firmware
  • digipeat through the ISS
  • high pass of ISS tonight at 9:10pm.
  • 224.220 repeater is up and running, but not linked yet.
  • KC3NNO: mini dxpedition to canada
21  ka3tkw  net  tech 

Antenna Maintenance

The home-brew yagi blows around in the wind a bit, so I brought it down this morning as it started to snow, so I could straighten and tighten the elements. I realigned it for the 985 repeater, and checked it to be giving -96dBm.

I also resoldered some radials on the 1/4-wave ground plane antenna that go knocked loose in the tree.

antenna  yagi  985  w3gms  fm  vhf 

Next Firmware: F4HWN

Problem: AUBSUK multiple scan list

The scan lists aren’t combining correctly on AUBSUK firmware. It’s skipping entries based on ordering. I realized I was missing most of simplex channels, but seeing the GMRS channels, when I enabled my “simplex” scan list in combo with primary repeaters. There’s an existing issue logged, but it’s hard to describe and to reproduce, I think.

Trying the Next Firmware, F4HWN 3.7

F4HWN is available on GitHub. I loaded it on both radios in place of AUBSUK to see how I get along. I’ve found a few features I really like:

  • Scan on start: if it’s scanning when I switch it off, it’ll scanning when switched on.
  • 3 scan lists: 1, 2, 3, 123, 0, all
    • they don’t recombine as freely, but I have:
      • simplex, repeaters, satellites on 1
      • GMRS on 3
  • scan is just as fast as others, so we’ll see if it’s tolerable.
  • “main only” display is nice, much easier to read.
  • spectrum analyzer with scan range, but I can’t assign it to a button.
    • Fn-5 is only way to activate it.

I think the S-meter is calibrated much differently from AUBSUK, and other firmwares I’ve loaded, calibration for VHF/UHF vs HF, The S-meter seems to read higher than I expect with lots of S9+.

The spectrum analyzer with a range seems wonky at times: it may be scanning the entire range, but the graph doesn’t seem all there. I noticed it with the scan of 144MHz-148MHz.

985 Workbench: 2024-11-18

My Weeks in Radio

  • QRP on a couple Hawaiian islands
  • Not much 2m activity on the islands
    • added some repeaters and scanned
  • POTA
    • no summits
    • all successful activations via FT8/FT4
      • allowed me to use pskreporter to study my propagation on different bands, even if other stations didn’t answer my call
    • practiced some CW on the beach when I didn’t get out the computer
    • mostly turned up to 8W
    • mostly 10m-30m and everything in between
    • challenging to be on an island where you have to go thousands of miles or you reach no one.
    • 6 parks and 2 trails on 2 islands:
      • inside Diamondhead caldera
      • atop steaming Kilauea
      • rocky lava fields
      • sandy beaches
    • reached:
      • west: Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Japan, Russia, China, South Cook Islands, Samoa
      • east: North Carolina, Kentucky, Ohio, Dominican Republic, Argentina
    • antennas:
      • 40M EFHW where I had room,
      • 21.5M-long EFRW with less room
      • vertical whip and coil attached to a fishing pole for a less conspicuous setup on some beaches
  • It may be time to start cobbling together an allstar node.

Others

  • W3JAM, Jeff: Jerry Sevic (w2fmi) books on transformers and baluns
  • KC3TMZ, Matt:
    • Lives in a park
    • Built a dipole and analyzed it
      • really good SWR: 1.048:1
      • 20 ft into the tree
      • reached California on 20m
      • ran into ARRL Sweepstakes
      • dipole in a tree is a lot of work
      • playing with Inovato Hamclock
  • WA3VEE, Ron:
    • worked ARRL Sweepstakes a bit
    • cleared the bench
    • may have gear to sell soon
  • KB3ZIM, Bob:
    • avoided ARRL Sweepstakes
    • enjoying 10m
    • some 10m AM as well
    • spent time in Honolulu and enjoyed the Diamondhead years ago
  • KC3RFG, Jim:
    • had a balun fail
  • KC3YSM, Steve:
    • getting an HF antenna up with help from Chuck and Bill
    • George lent the launcher
  • KC3TYX, Vic:
    • Sweepstakes: 75 contacts
    • VaraC for keyboard chat on HF
      • lost settings and had to setup again
  • W3QP, Tim:
    • found the 4th edition of the balun book on archive.org
    • winding 2 wires around the toroid is a lot like winding coax
    • winding 4 wires in opposite directions will give more bandwidtch
  • NA3CW, Chuck:
    • learned lots from W2FMI book
      • W2FMI tested everything extensively
    • got Steve’s antenna in the air…through the vines, thorns, etc
    • normal nets, including PMA AM net.
    • working on an ultimate transmatch tuner
  • KC3OOK, Bill:
    • helped with Steve’s antenna today
    • 2m band opening on Sunday: PA to Ottawa on DXView
  • W8CRW, CR:
    • 985 breakfast
    • showed wife around 10m tech area
  • AF3Z, Jim:
    • built a Hartley transmitter for 1929 AMA event
      • 1 tube
      • 1-2W
      • worked 5 stations over 80 minutes
  • KV3JGB, Matt:
    • 985 breakfast
    • launched an antenna with help from 985-ers after breakfast
    • starting cwops
  • W3MFB, Mike:
    • just chatting locally on the radio
  • W3FES, Fred:
    • building out a new, larger ham desk
  • W3MOW, Mike:
    • quiet week

Questions

  • KC3TMZ, Matt:
    • setting up shack in the garage, and ordered a hamclock. wifi is a bit weak. can he extend with a yagi?
      • W3CRW, CR:
        • years ago, had a yagi antenna for wifi, and it worked
        • wifi extender/repeater does even better
      • W3DIB, Greg:
        • trench fiber instead of cat5/6.
          • isolated from electrical storms
        • if you don’t need a ton of bandwidth, try wifi halow bridge on 900mhz.
          • 4Mb
        • yagi antenna may pull in noise from others
      • KB3ZIM, Bob: Adam, KB3ZUV, another 985-er, is working on a similar project
    • flying with HTs?
      • WA3VEE, Ron:
        • bring a good copy of your license printed from cores
        • batteries must be carried on, not checked
      • KB3ZIM, Bob:
        • batteries are the concern
        • check size with the airline
      • KC3WWC, John:
        • wonderous bag of radio gear
          • HT
          • 10Ah lifepo4
          • QRP radio
          • antenna wires
          • if you check any gear, separate out the batteries to carry
      • WA3VEE, Ron:
        • sent link to website
        • limit 8wh, do the math.
        • precheck helps smooth the screening
      • W8CRW, CR:
        • CR has more trouble with carrying powertools since they’re not marked than HT
  • KB3ZIM, Bob:
    • wants to get a wire for 160M in the air.
    • could be a long wire with a tuner
    • what’s a good length for a random wire
    • W3QP, Tim: lots of tables out there
    • KC3WWC: google “udel random wire”
      • always choke and counterpoise to avoid common mode current
    • KB3ZIM, Bob:
      • google “ham radio secrets”
        • talks about tuning the counterpoise
      • could try a super-slinky
  • W3DIB, Greg:
    • recently got on RF instead of
    • has anyone reverse-engineered the serial connections for Yaesu
    • W3QP, Tim: could use wireshark to look at serial traffic through usb serial adapter
    • KC3WWC, John: there’s cat and drivers for everything
    • W3DIB, Greg: this is a lesser radio without cat control, so he’s looking to control all the comms himself

Hawaii

I went to Hawaii for the first couple weeks of November 2024.

I packed up all the POTA radio gear and headed out to fly to Hawaii. I carried all my radio gear and big battery in my carry-on backpack.

I added a few repeaters, and scanned 2M, but didn’t hear anyone on my UV-K6.

I started out operating FT8 at the resort with the EFRW (12.5M) strung between columns on the patio. I could reach stations in Hawaii, Fiji, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and Oregon on 10m, 12m, 17m, and 20m. I had to turn up to 8W to get heard.

For parks, I operated 6 parks and 2 trails across 2 islands: beaches, lava fields, and volcanos.

On 2024-11-04, I activated US-0753, Pu’uhonua o Honaunau National Historical Park, with the EFHW for 40m strung across trees in the picnic area near the rocky coast. I accidentally split the day, since I wasn’t familiar with the timezone offset. Fortunately, I had enough contacts for an activation in each of the 2 days. Much of the west coast of the big island also counts as US-4565, Ala Kahakai National Historic Trail.

On 2024-11-08, I activated US-0037, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, with EFHW stretched from a shelter and picnic table to a nearby tree on West Rim Road in the park. I struggled for a bit from my start at 10am. Conditions got better near 2pm local time, and I finished up my activation while having lunch with Emily.

On 2024-11-10 I went to US-2214, Kekaha Kai State Park, after running around a bit to find a spot. I wanted to work fast, and there were no trees in the vast lava field, so I deployed the whip and coil bungied to the fishing pole and the grill of the car. That activation went pretty fast.

On 2024-11-13, I visited US-0739, Kaloko-Honokohau National Historical Park, which is also US-4565, Ala Kahakai National Historic Trail. It had closed an earlier day, so I couldn’t activate that day. It was good, because I hiked the mile or so to setup on the beach and toss the counterpoise for the vertical whip into the ocean.

On 2024-11-16, I walked across Waikiki to US-10923, Artillery District of Honolulu Historic Site. It was pretty early morning and slow. I strung the shorter EFRW (12.5M) from a table to a tree in an inverted V. I chatted a while with another traveling ham, and I didn’t manage to complete my activation. I ran out of time, and packed up.

My last activation was on 2024-11-17, at US-6425, Diamond Head State Preserve, I setup at a picnic table near the hiking trail, US-10913, Diamond Head Summit State Trail. The whole park is in the caldera of the volcano. The EFHW stretched from table to a tree. The antenna wire disconnected from the transformer, but it was close, so it received OK, but trying to transmit showed a high SWR where the antenna would never usually. It was super-windy as the sun set early over the mountain surrounding me.

hawaii  pota  hf