Built a couple of different Raspberry Pi setup’s for use with a DV4Mini. I utilized the official 7″ Pi touchscreen and two different stands. One of the stands required modification of the config.txt file in the /boot partition to flip the screen 180 degrees. The second stand did not require any modification. Next was the task of getting the dv4mini control panel to run on the Pi. There are binaries compiled for the Pi’s ARM architecture, but finding the most recent versions can be tricky. I discovered some bugs in the ARM/64-bit version of dv_serial. It appears that binary was compiled against the wrong platform. The good news is that dropping back to the 32-bit version appears to work. The last part was figuring out how to run the package from linux. This was accomplished by installing the mono package, which is a cross-platform .NET framework. I will be documenting the process as well as posting some pictures to my website soon.
I attended another VE Session with the WD9BSA Group on August 18th. We tested six people, with a total of 8 exams administered resulting in three new Technicians and 1 General Upgrade. This particular session held some new experiences for me as it was my first one in the role of Team Leader. It was great to learn a little more about the process and how the back-end things work.
Received an email from an Illinois Ham seeking assistance on programming his EFJ 5100 for 33cm. We exchanged several emails and I believe that I have him headed down the right path. I’m certainly he’ll let me know if he requires additional help. The next step may be to arrange a team viewer session to help him out.
Performed a lot of c-Bridge programming activities related to the roll-out of the Indiana Statewide Talkgroup #3118 to the Crossroads DMR Network. We still have a bit of work to do, but it was rolled out to several repeaters without issue. Many thanks to Steve Jones, W9SMJ for making this available!
Received a website comment from a ham looking for help/understanding on how he could make a cross-country trip and utilize DMR. I gave him a primer of the technology as well as the various networks that might be in play across his decided path. However, I believe it highly likely that he’ll find enough TG’s in common during his trip to make it successful as far as DMR goes.
Worked with the Laurel VEC to establish the N9AG VE Team with them. Being affiliated with both the ARRL and Laurel helps us make the most out of our testing sessions as well as reach out to different audiences that otherwise might not attend a testing session.
Resources from the N9AG, IEN and WD9BSA VE Teams are looking for a central spot to potentially host a monthly evening VE session. More on this as our plans develop.
Crossroads DMR finally reached the point where it was necessary to upgrade our c-Bridge from the 15 peer license to the 30 peer license. The folks at BridgeComm were great to work with, as always, and facilitated a straight forward upgrade.
Minor work still continues on the IRC Email server, investigating email bounces, etc., but I’m happy to report that these efforts have dropped down to basic administration!
I think that’s it. I’m already working on some hopefully cool P25 stuff to report next month. Until then….
