Category Archives: HAM Radio

CW Straight Key, Steampunk Style. Made From Salvaged Materials

A CW (Morse Code) Straight Key is one of the simplest HAM Radio goodies to build. The concept is simple, short out the two Key leads. This leaves plenty of room for creativity and style with this make.

I used a piece salvaged aluminum around the size of 3mm X 13mm, a scrap piece of 2×2, some screws, washers, a spring, some ring connectors, a fulcrum pin, and a 3.5mm mono plug. I had all these parts in various “junk bins”.

First thing I did was use Inkscape to  make a simple SVG shape for carving out the wooden base from the 2×2.

 

 

 

 

CW-Key SVG Files

I used OpenBuilds CAM (OBCAM) to create the GCODE and OpenBuilds Control (OBC) to send the GCODE to the CNC.

Next I used the surfacing feature of OBC to make a little jig to hold my aluminum piece. Then I milled the Aluminum to match the base.

With the parts all made it was just a matter of assembling and then adjusting everything to work smoothly. Add some stain and sealer and I am ready for field day!

Check out the full video on YouTube and please take a second to subscribe to my channel:

73 – KK6VHH

Kenwood TS-440S IC-10 Upgrade and DIY CAT Control for Linux

My radio club, SFARC, has helped me get into an HF rig, namely the Kenwood TS-440S. This radio is a bit old (1986ish) but, IMHO, this thing is awesome. It has a fairly compact form factor, runs of my 12V off grid power without issue, and with the following upgrades will talk to my computer.

I first purchased a digimode cable that has opto-isolated audio input/output as well as a USB PTT coupler which is allowing me to experiment with digital modes on this transceiver. While this is great, I would like to be able to view and control the frequency of my radio from FLDIGI via HamCAT or hamlib. Turns out this will require a little bit of hacking (awesome!) to get it working.

Kenwood TS-440 Digital Interface Cable

Issue #1: The 13 pin DIN, ACC 2, only provides audio and PTT functions. If I want to provide a serial interface I need to use the 6pin DIN, ACC 1, interface. I need to build an interface cable.

Issue #2: This interface is a serial connection using TTL voltage (5.5v) but with the same logic as a standard serial port. I need an FTDI breakout board with inverted logic.

Issue #3: The 440 requires an upgrade kit (IC-10) to provide serial communication capabilities. This kit is semi-rare and costs about 50 bucks.

In this article issue #1 will be addressed with a six pin din plug ordered from amazon.

Issue #2 will be handled by an FTDI USB board I already have on hand and an XP virtual machine running FD_PROG to invert the logic. Unfortunately this makes this solution NOT 100% Linux. To resolve this I will use the command line Linux program ftdi_eeprom to clone my firmware and post it here so Linux only users can use ftdi_eeprom or flashrom to program their FTDI boards with ease.

Issue #3 is easily resolved by ordering the chips individually or by purchasing one of my $15 IC-10 kits from eBay.

IC-10 Chipset for Kenwood TS-440 / R5000

#1: Build the plug.

After receiving the plug from Amazon, I repurposed a shielded USB cable to build the plug. I hooked up all the wires even though CTS/RTS were not required. RFU style as it were. Perhaps adding flow control in the future would speed things up. I don’t know I haven’t tried. Anyway….

Disassembled Plug

These are the pin numbers as viewed from the solder side:

  1. GND
  2. TXD
  3. RXD
  4. CTS
  5. RTS

Here is how I hooked up the 5 wire USB cable:

  1. GND -> Cable shield
  2. TXD -> Green
  3. RXD -> White
  4. CTS -> Black
  5. RTS -> Red
Wiring Diagram

#2: Install the chips.

After I received my chips, I installed them following this guide. To sum up, remove the top and bottom cover from the radio. Then remove the face-plate screws and then loosen the 5 small screws for the metal grounding plate so it may be removed. Once this is done the chip slots will be exposed ( they are the only two empty slots on the back of the face-plate ). You will need to use a flat surface to bend the pins slightly inwards so that they will line up with the sockets when you insert them. Pay close attention and make sure the chips are fully seated properly into the sockets.

Once this is done reassemble the radio and ensure that it is working properly. Now the ACC 1 port has serial com capabilities.NICE!

#3: Hook Up the FTDI Breakout Board

The only pins required for communication are GND, TRX, and RTX. You supposedly can use a 5 wire connection using CTS/RTS flow control but it is not necessary. The FTDI breakout I used for this project only made CTS and DTS readily available so I went with the three wire setup. There may be advantages to having flow control and I would be interested to hear input on this in the comments.

My Notes

Attach the TX from your rig to the RX on the FTDI and the RX from the rig to the TX on the FTDI. GND goes to GND.

FTDI on the proto board

#4: Program the FTDI Board

Although the wiring is done, we still need to invert the logic on the FTDI board. There is no linux app to easily do this so I ran the FD_PROG utility using an XP virtualbox install to run this program. There are multiple drivers available from FTDIChip, make sure you use the correct driver for your system.

If you don’t have a windows install to program your FTDI chip, you can flash the following firmware to your FTDI chip using ftdi_eeprom. This firmware has the inverted logic necessary to communicate with your rig.

  1. FTDI Firmware File
  2. ftdi_eeprom Config File

Download both files to the same location, plug in the FTDI and program it. Something like this:

ftdi_eeprom --flash-eeprom ftdi.config

#5: Time to play radio!

You can now use FLDIGI or similar to read/send the frequency and PTT key your radio. Software config is beyond the scope of this article, but this is what it looks like:

If you enjoyed this article you can support me by subscribing to my YouTube channel and/or visiting some links from my sponsors. Thanks!

References:

  1. FTDI Chip Utilities
  2. FTDI Chip Drivers
  3. Installing an IC-10 kit into a Kenwood TS-440S/AT HF Radio
  4. TS 440 Serial Communications Interface
  5. TS-440 SAT Modifications
  6. Kenwood TS-440 mods reviews software and diagrams
  7. Build an Easy USB Computer Interface for Your Old Kenwood Rig

Viewing ISS SSTV Images Using GQRX and QSSTV and RTL Dongle on Ubuntu 20.20

When the International Space Station passes overhead it is still possible to view the SSTV (Slow Scan Television) images they are sending on 145.800Mhz using your Linux computer and a Realtek SDR USB Dongle. I did this on Ubuntu 20.20 but it should work on any Linux running pulse audio.

NOTE 1:  12-31-2020 is the last day the ISS will be transmitting images (for now). This tutorial can still help you get GQRX sending audio to QSSTV or any other “recording” app.

Step 1: Install and configure GQRX

First, get GQRX running using this How To: https://gqrx.dk/download/install-ubuntu

NOTE: When I installed GQRX on Ubuntu 20.20 only the myriadrf repos worked. Your mileage may vary.

You now need to run GQRX and configure it to work with your dongle. This is out of the scope of this howto and much info is available via Google. Once you can listen to radio via GQRX it’s time to move to the next steps.

Here is what my settings for the ISS look like:

Step 2: Install and configure QSSTV

I followed this guide to get QSSTV working, however, I found that howto a bit over complicated and many of the steps unnecessary if you already have GQRX installed. I was simply able to install QSSTV like this:

sudo apt install qsstv

Run QSSTV and in the configuration for sound set input and output to Pulse Audio.

Step 3: Install Pulse Audio Volume Control

Now that you have both your apps, you need to install some stuff to get pulse to make them play together. First install pavucontrol:

sudo apt install pavucontrol

Step 4: Invoke the NULL Sink

Finally it’s time to make a dummy sink. This is the glue that puts it all together. Using pavucontrol, any app can be outputted to the null sink and then any other app can record from this null sink.

pactl load-module module-null-sink sink_name=virtual-cable

Step 5: Connect the Programs

Once this null sink is created open up Pulse Audio Volume Control, GQRX and QSSTV. In the recording tab, set the input for QSSTV to Monitor of Null Output.

Finally in the output devices tab, set GQRX to Null Output.

That should be about it.

Find out when the space station is passing overhead and then tune GQRX to 145.800… QSSTV will do the rest. Feel free to post any questions you may have.

NOTE: You can use this technique to pipe audio from any program to another.

Enjoy!

Installing Chirp in Ubuntu 20.04

If you have been using the PPA to get the Chirp dailies, you will quickly find out that this no longer works in Ubuntu 20.04 Focal.

Python 2 is getting phased out and whatever is running the GUI for Chirp has been phased out completely. This makes getting Chirp to run a little more difficult than before.

UPDATE: It looks like major progress has been made with the Python 3 upgrade and Chirp is available in Groovy (20.10)! This article will likely be outdated soon. 

As of this writing, there are a few options:

  1. Wait until the python 3 version of Chirp is finished (NOT!)
  2. Install via the Snap: This gives a warning against doing so
  3. Install via flatpak: WINNAR!

A Flatpak is a self contained package that includes all necessary libraries. Similar to a Snap, but this uses a package directly from the author. I like the flatpak option because I don’t need to manually install a bunch of deprecated libs or add some PPA that wasn’t even meant for Ubuntu.

Note from user: If you already have Chirp installed, you will need to remove it first. See comments section for details.

First thing you need to do is download the latest .flatpak file from here:

https://trac.chirp.danplanet.com/chirp_daily/LATEST/

Rest of the work is from the terminal.

First, install Flatpak:

$ sudo apt install flatpak

The other howtos seem to have missed this next step. You need to use flatpak to install the “freedesktop” platform. First update flatpak and your paths.

$ flatpak update -v

This will give you a warning about paths, something like:

Note that the directories

'/var/lib/flatpak/exports/share'
'/home/[username]/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share'

are not in the search path set by the XDG_DATA_DIRS environment variable, so applications installed by Flatpak may not appear on your desktop until the session is restarted.

Since we now have to log out anyway, now might be a good time to make sure you are in the dialout group.

Use  the groups command to list your active groups. If the group “dialout” does not appear, add yourself to the group (replace [username] with your username):

$ sudo usermod -aG dialout [username]

Now restart your session (or computer) and return to the terminal.

~$ flatpak update -v
Looking for updates…
Nothing to do.

Don’t worry about installation directory warnings if you haven’t installed anything yet. Those will be created later. Important is that we got rid of the path warning. Moving on….

Now you need to get the Freedesktop repository installed:

$ flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

and then install the Freedesktop Platform:

$ flatpak install flathub org.freedesktop.Platform//19.08

This might take a while its a big (~0.5Gb) download. Grab some coffee and make some QSO’s….. Maybe check out my club’s website: http://w6ek.org

Finally we can install Chirp!  (replace .flatpack filename with your downloaded version)

$ flatpak install Downloads/chirp-daily-20201014.flatpak

You’re done! You can run chirp from your applications menu or from the command like like this:

$ flatpak run com.danplanet.chirp

Remember, this is only a temporary solution until the Python 3 conversion of Chirp has been completely rolled out. However, in the interim if you want to easily update the flatpak, or automate it with a cron job, here is a script that works for me:


#!/bin/bash
#
#
# This script updats chirp flatpak to latest daily build
# Add this to root's crontab for automatic updates
# If run as standard user, you will get a popop asking for admin password
#
#
#Make download folder if doesn't exist
mkdir -p ~/Downloads/ChirpFP
#Move to Download folder
cd ~/Downloads/ChirpFP
#Remove previously downloaded flatpaks
rm *.flatpak
#Pull link from download page and download latest flatpak
wget `lynx -dump https://trac.chirp.danplanet.com/chirp_daily/LATEST/ | awk '/http/{print $2}' | grep flatpak`
#Install the file
flatpak install -y --noninteractive *.flatpak

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73 – KK6VHH