F4FXL

Update on the threats on 2m amateur band

XLX reflector direct connection

As i mentionned in this earlier post, with the XLX reflectors came some confusion for the users. A few months (almost 18 months ago actually) I modded ircDDBGateway so that it’ll be able to connect using commands like XLXxxxyL. Jonathan G4KLX accepted the modification and it is now part of the official code tree. The idea behind was to clear up the “is XRFxxx the same as DCSxxx ?”. Now that the latest firmware for the Kenwood THD74 directly accepts XLX selection right from the reflector menu this is going to get really more interesting.

Update on the threats on 2m amateur band

The CEPT meeting is over. Reading the minutes of the meeting raises more questions than answers.

Howto: AX25 as a Systemd Service

In this article we’ll see how to run AX25 as a Systemd service, bringing the AX25 interface up on every boot and also putting the TNC into kiss mode. Having an AX25 interface allows you to share it among different applications like an APRS Digipeater or Winlink.

Putting Bluetooth into the Tinytrak 4

Byonics provides a Bluetooth add-on for the Tinytrak 4. While I love the TT4 I am not a huge fan of their TT4BT Bluetooth solution. It consists of a board with 2 DB9, no case nothing to protect and makes all the think clunky and bulky. Almost 4 years ago I came up with my own more slick and integrated solution and have been happy with it since then.

2m amateur radio band endangered?

A friend brought this news to my attention today. If all this makes its way up the ITU World Radio Conference and gets adopted it is more likely that amateur radio will be kicked out of the 144-146MHz segement as a primary service. Let’s try to get to the bottom of this.

XLX reflector direct connection

Update on the threats on 2m amateur band

The CEPT meeting is over. Reading the minutes of the meeting raises more questions than answers.

Howto: AX25 as a Systemd Service

Putting Bluetooth into the Tinytrak 4

2m amateur radio band endangered?

Why are APRS RX only iGates bad ?

Every now and then I keep on reading on social networks or forums how people set RX only igates up. RX only igates are just bad, really bad. I could just leave you with the following statement “APRS is a bidirectional network and RX only igates are not bidirectionnal. Period” But let me expose how they are breaking the network.

ircddb and quadnet, what is this all about ?

Following my previous article about the REF/XRF/DCS/XLX differences I will try to explain what are ircddb and QuadNet and what they are good for. There is some misunderstanding about what those things are.

DStar Life Hack: Is the station local on the repeater?

While listening to a QSO on a DStar repeater have you ever wondered how to know if the station you are listening to is local on the repeater or coming from a distant source (reflector, other repeater etc…)? BTW, I wrote this because I assume there are still people out there who are using repeaters instead of hot spots for their DStar operation.

APRS.fi is not APRS-IS

There is a widespread belief that aprs.fi is the internet backbone of the APRS network. It is not uncommon to read posts on social networks saying “I am connecting to aprs.fi with aprsdroid” or “I need a password for aprs.fi”. Let’s see how and why this is erroneous.

Compile and install the latest DStarRepeater in Pi-Star

After publishing my article about updating ircDDBGateway in Pi-Star I received messages about how to update DStarRepeater as Pi-Star also ships with a quite outdated DStarRepeater. Updating it will get you the ability to use your ID51+2 and ID4100 in terminal mode.

REF, XRF, DCS, XLX: what’s the difference ?

This is a question often raised by beginners to DStar : what is the difference between all those reflector types? I’ll try to give you an insight on this throughout this article.

Compile and install the latest ircddbGateway in Pi-Star

Pi-Star allows everyone to setup and run a digital voice Hotspot easily, its ease of use largely contributed to the late Hotspot invasion. However, the DStar software shipping with it is quite outdated. It is a version dating back from 2015 and it misses some nice features : Forwarding DPRS data to APRS for Kenwood THD74, multiple ircddb networks capability, G2 Nat Traversal to allow call sign routing without any port forwarding…

Oops! I did it again!

No, I am not writing a blog exclusively about the TYT TH9000D. However I actually managed to run into the dreaded gibberish characters issue for a second time and to recover the radio!

APRS with Tinytrak 4 and TYT TH-9000D

After a couple of frustrations (here and here) I have finally managed to get my TYT TH-9000D running quite well with my Tinytrak 4. After a few weeks using it I must say I am quite pleased with the result, the TH-9000D is sensitive and there are not many APRS frames I miss from the nearby digipeaters. I run it on low power (10W) which is plenty enough. So here it is finally, what should have been a quite straight forward mod from the beginning.