K0SWE Blog

I haven't been on the air much lately because I've been doing more research than operations. I've been looking into a mobile radio to supplement my HTs and give me a little more power and reach, and I'm very attracted to a multi-band radio that includes HF. That's taken me down an incredible rabbit hole of what all is possible outside of VHF/UHF. Transceiver The sheer amount of gear needed to get into HF is a little staggering. The transceivers themselves are, of course, pricey. Then one needs mobile antennas suited for the desired bands; mobile options range from basic "hamsticks," a set of whip antennas which need to be swapped out when switching bands, all the way up to a motorized "screwdriver" antenna with its own hydraulic lift. After that, you might need an antenna tuner (I've heard conflicting opinions about this), and at least an SWR meter if not a full antenna analyser to tell whether a tuner is needed. At least in a mobile set...

Winlink of course started out being a Microsoft Windows-based product, and Winlink 2000 still seems to be the most popular client software out there. I figured it was time to at least make sure I could use this more conventional configuration. The most conventional setup I know of is using a radio with a built-in TNC like a Kenwood TM-D710, but I don't have anything like that. I was able to get these two configurations working with Windows: Winlink 2000 via Dire Wolf and SignaLink USB PiPat  via Chrome I'm still going to avoid Windows when possible, but it's good to know I'm not completely inept with it.

One thing that bugs me when working with Raspberry Pis is that they don't have a real-time clock (RTC), so when you remove power, the system clock stops. This isn't a problem when you're internet-connected, because ntpd will just go out to the internet and fetch the current time. However, when working in the field, the lack of an RTC causes Winlink emails and application logs to have the wrong time stamps, which is annoying at best. I did a little research into using my GPS module to update the system clock. Apparently that is supported by ntpd , but the documentation on it assumed a much deeper knowledge of NTP than I have, and it's not clear it even works in a non-internet-connected situation. It also uses a protocol called 1PPS, which has to be supported by the GPS hardware as well as the kernel. That's too much work for me to track down right now. But another option presented itself: Adafruit sells add-on RTC modules which use the Pi's I2C bus. I pic...