Uvk5

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.

I further tested my AllStar node talkin to the 985 repeater. I discovered the bit of a delay caused my node to often skip a moment in the beginning of others’ transmissions, so I’d miss a second at the start. Also, since it’s simplex, I couldn’t throw any DTMF commands at it while the node is trasnmitting. I had to use the web interface to disconnect if others were talking at the same time.

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.

I loaded F4HWN 3.3 onto my UV-K5 to have a look. It only has 3 scan lists, and it’s awkward to cycle through them. I found starting the spectrum analyzer to be cumbersome as well, since i couldn’t attach it to a long-press of a button. The single VFO view is pretty nice; it puts lots of nice info on the screen, and it’s big. Ultimately, I went right back to AubsUK for the scan features.

There are easy instructions to build your own yagi on Instructables. I had just picked up some hose clamps and had the other necessary pieces: a broken tape measure and some 3/4-inch schedule 40 PVC and connectors; so I was ready to build.

The wiring on mine is held in place by the clamps and banana clip adapter. I always like those for prototyping. As directed, I tuned the antenna by moving radiators in and out and measuring with the NanoVNA.

The antenna is noticeably directional, so I can use it to find directions of signals. The S-meter and dB signal strength numbers on AUBS firmware make it easy to evaluate strength and direction.

I transmitted with it to the K3IR repeater as a test during a net.

I’m trying out the Aubs 00.07 firmware on my Quansheng radios. It’s based on the latest egzumer, and so far has kept up-to-date, and it has its own plugin for Chirp.

It has some really cool features for scanning:

• scan on start, a feature I requested of egzumer, but was denied by egzumer.
• 10 scan lists. I organized mine as:
  • 1 = local repeaters and popular simplex
  • 2 = all simplex, Ham and GMRS
  • 3 = non-local repeaters and other listening
  • 4 = satellites
• press * to lockout a frequency from scan.
• fast scan like egzumer
• frequency spectrum analyzer, but no memory spectrum analyzer like nunu.

This is my daily driver now on both my radios.

I’ve installed the NUNU fork of the egzumer firmware on the uv-k6. It has a cool channel spectrum analyzer for super-fast scanning that can see all the active channels at once in the graph. There’s no good way to proceed to the next channel, but that’s not a huge problem.

The firmware also includes some unneeded “NUNU” mesh messaging protocol.

I installed a new firmware, egzumer, on my Quansheng UV-K5. The firmware has some handy features:

• It displays name and frequency at once
• It leaves the backlight on all the time at a lower level

I flashed minor updates to the UV-K5 using Chromium and https://whosmatt.github.io/uvmod/. This got me the following features:

• RSSI meter
• Mic boost
• Better menu strings
• 18mhz-1300mhz for receive
• Backlight on for longer