Radio and rails...

I have removed the Activitypub plugin that was supposed to make it possible to follow this blog from the Fediverse. I was the only follower and it never seemed to work anyway. Less baggage.

My second NinoTNC is built. The parts came today from Mouser in a huge box. I need to adjust the case a little to make it fit nicely but now I have this one I can go mobile and see how access to GB7RVB is. So far, no-one has connected (and yes, the antenna is still in the loft!) I did find a TNC program for the Mac called KISSet which works fine once I remembered to put my callsign in! I wondered why it was sending data and GB7RVB's TNC was receiving - no callsign. Twit. It worked fine after that.

Here is the setup for GB7RVB, not much to see really. The radio is a Tait TM8110 which has been configured according to information on the OARC wiki. The NinoTNC is next to it, both currently sitting on top of my Portsdown. Above, and annoyingly not square because I need to move some cables, is the Pi 4 which is PoE powered from a Netgear switch.

I now have a NoV for GB7RVB, a packet mailbox on 144.950MHz. It is currently set for AFSK AX25 at 1200 baud, though may move to more modern IL2P 4800 baud after trials. It is located here in IO93eu and I would be interested in reports if anyone manages to connect to it. The only service currently enabled is local chat. Early days... it's a bit of a backwater here with no packet and hardly any APRS activity. Maybe this will start it as there are moves elsewhere to build up a national packet network. If one or two other nodes pop up between here and the emerging networks we could make links. If you do not have a hardware TNC it is possible to use software, for example I have successfully used QtSoundModem to drive a Signalink and my FT817, and QtTermTCP to connect via AGW to the modem, with the FT817 set to 144.950 and packet mode. GB7RVB is currently based on the LinBPQ package and runs on a Raspberry Pi 3B, with a NinoTNC (see my earlier post about having built that). It is currently driving an FTM100 set for 5W but will be using a Tait…

I have a Tait TM8110 VHF transceiver that is destined for use on packet radio. This was sold as untested but appears to work fine. However, in testing I was concerned that the bench PSU I connected it to showed a current draw of 0A. The radio was making noise and, connected to the Bird and a dummy load was generating RF. Anyway, I programmed it with the various packet frequencies, power settings and ensured the bandwidth was 12.5kHz and tried it on air. It was working fine on both tx and rx. But still 0A draw. Hmmm. I have two identical bench supplies, Lavolta BPS-305, 30V 5A units. One has a noisy fan so I use the other. I swapped to the noisy one and it shows reasonable current draws for rx and tx. And then the noisy fan decided not be noisy any more (still working though!) so perhaps the noise from this PSU was just it sulking from being ignored.