Code related to ham amateur radio using small single board computers like Raspberry Pi and Orange Pis. Centered around digital modes and in particular Winlink email using pat.
The PMR-171 radio from Guohetec is installed onboard Algol and as it have built in soundcard and can connect with a single USB cable I have connected it directly to the laptop. Simplicity is important when operating from a sailboat on battery power. The PMR-171 cover the from 160 m to 70 cm which is ideal when space is limited. In practice the backstay antenna cannot be tuned on all bands. Unfortunately this cover 80m which as widely used for regional rings.
The G90 is installed at home with a vertical (7.2m high) antenna. Not great, but FT8 and winlink work.
Programming the radios in a all Linux environment is slightly more tedious than using a Windows environmemt. A shortcut is Win10 virtual machine using VirtualBox (this works surpringly well BTW, including USB). However, it's better to use Linux tools. One option is Wine that allow some Windows programs to run under Linux, like the graphical «TYT Code Plug Editor» which is very user friendly tool.
I have collected a set of tools that makes it possible to program the radio using an all Linux environment. DMR info can be found in the DMR section and radio specific in the Q900 and PMR-171 sections.
The directory NanoVNA contain Python script to plot Z and SWR from a .s1p file. The nanovna-saver is a nice piece of software, but the plotting is not it's stongest side. However, a Python script for SWR, Z and Smith diagram is now available.
The directory pat contain files and instructions for installing and using pat (and Winlink) for email using Raspberry Pi 4. This is currently running nicely at home. Connect with VNC from several computers.
Onboard SignalK is used for communication between devices. Position and time is available using a http request. This can then be used to update the init files for pat and for WSJT-X and JS8Call as well as setting the date and time on the system that run the ham radio software. Unfortunately the init files are read when the program is launched, it will not update later. If you move and keep the programs running the current grid position and the position used by the programs might differ.
I have put the Python scrips for this in the directory named on-the-move.
The directory OrangePi contain files and information regarding using Orange Pi single board computers as alternative to Raspberry Pi. See Orange homepage for detailed information. The range of offerings are far greater then with Raspberry and supply is not an issue.
As Raspberry Pi 4 is hard to come by these days evaluating the alternative Orange Pi 4 is ongoing. The Orange Pi 4 is a good alternative. It comes with a faster processor build in 16 GiB eMMC memory for OS, no need for a memory card after the initial installation. The Orange Pi 4 might be overkill, there are smaller boards like Orange Pi 3 or even smaller that should be powerful enough to run the pat and radio software. The only issue is VARA with its x86 emulation and Wine for windows environment, which is a bit demanding.
I have included some instructions to explain and document how to upgrade the G90's firmware using a Pi or a x86-64 based PC running Linux. Script and explanations are found in the G90 directory. See the G90 section.