Posts Tagged ‘mumble’

Remoting K8GU…kinda

We welcomed our second child, a daughter, into the family last week.  Since she is our second, the time in the hospital was more about making sure she was healthy than us learning all the ropes.  So, I had some undisturbed time to read on the Internet with a sleeping baby on my chest…and wish I could remote control my station.

Having been party to the discussion surrounding remoting a local contest station (K4VV), I had seen enough traffic about different VOIP options to start with Mumble for the audio stream.  I set up a Mumble server on my Linux server at the house, and then setup the Mumble client on my hamshack computer.  I ran a 1/8-inch TRS cable from the rear-apron line-out port of the K3 into the line input of one of my sound cards on the computer.  I put a free Mumble client on my iPhone and viola!  It worked out of the box.

I have been using Pignology’s HamLog on my phone for quick logging of one-off QSOs and goofing off with its vast array of tools.  HamLog also has the ability to remote control a rig using Pignology’s hardware.  Since, I’m really not in a good position to drop $300 on a box I’ll use a couple of times per year, I reasoned that there might be an alternative.  Enter the socat utility:

root@tula:~# socat /dev/ttyUSB1,raw,echo=0 tcp-listen:7373,fork

Freakin magic.  I used HamLog to connect to a “Remote PigTail” and it mostly works.  The frequency display does not seem to work and HamLog loses the connection if the phone falls asleep.  But, it is functional.  Another interesting wrinkle is that when my shack PC screensaver comes on, it mutes the audio stream piped into Mumble.  But, those are all minor irritations at this point considering the trivial amount of effort that went into getting a remote control going…

Show Notes #108

Episode #108 Audio (Listen now!):
Introduction:
The show starts off well with Pete being in 17.7C (63F) weather, and the guys talk about Russ’ beverage for the evening.
Announcements:
  • Linux in the Ham Shack is having a contest! We will be giving away a Beaglebone Black. (http://www.digikey.com/product-highlights/us/en/texas-instruments-beagleboard/685#beagleboneNext) If you are currently a subscriber at the monthly or yearly levels, you are already entered and need not do a thing. If you are not a subscriber, you have 2 choices: #1 is you become a subscriber at the monthly or yearly rate or, #2 is you can call the LHS voice line (1-909-547-7469) and complete this thought: “I deserve a Beaglebone Black because…” Your answers can be as serious or ludicrous as you like. Please include a call sign, if you have one, and an e-mail address or phone number in your voice mail so we can let you know if you’ve won and find out where to ship your snazzy new Beaglebone Black. All entries must be received by 10:00pm Central Time on June 16th. The drawing will be done during the live recording of episode #109 on June 18th. Good luck!
  • The annual WX4NHC On-the-Air Station Test from the National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami took place this past Saturday, June 1, 1300-2100 UTC (9AM-5PM EDT). “The purpose of this annual station test was to test all of our  radio equipment, computers and antennas using as many modes and frequencies as possible in preparation for this year’s hurricane season.”
  • Arch Linux 2013.06.01 is now available for download on mirrors worldwide, and it is powered by the latest stable Linux kernel, version 3.9.4. This monthly updated ISO image also contains all the updated packages from the last release. The ISO is for new installations only. Existing users can just run sudo pacman -Syu
    • Source: Linux Today: Jun 03, 2013, 15:00
Topics:
  • Mumble 1.2.4, the successor of 1.2.3 has been released on June 1st 2013. It comes with a new audio codec called the Opus codec. “The  Opus codec is designed to handle a wide range of interactive audio  applications, including Voice over IP, videoconferencing, in-game chat, and even remote live music performances. It can scale from low bit-rate narrowband speech to very high quality stereo music.”
    • Source: Linux Today: Jun 03, 2013, 15:00
Mini-topics:

Feedback:

  •  Voicemail from Lord Drachenblut re: Episode #101
New members and social media folk:
  • LHS Members:
    • None
  • Twitter Followers:
  • Facebook followers/likes:
    • None

Contact Info:

Music:

  • “Shot Down” by Josh Woodward, courtesy of Jamendo.
  • “Breath Away” by Meat the Machine from the album Songs from the Gutter, courtesy of Jamendo.

LHS Episode #108: Mumble in the Jungle

thailand-jungleHello and welcome to the first episode to be released on schedule in quite some time! It looks like our contest to award a Beaglebone Black to some lucky listener is going well. Make sure to get your entries in before 10:00pm Central on June 16th, either by becoming a member or completing the thought "I deserve a Beaglebone Black because..." on our voice line at 1-909-LHS-SHOW (547-7469). The drawing will be held during our live recording of Episode #109 on June 18th.

In this installment, your hosts travel the world of Linux and Ham Radio, discussing the latest release of ArchLinux, hurricane and disaster preparedness, the free-software Mumble project, computers in education and more. We even have voice feed back from Lord D, addressing a philosophical topic discussed in Episode #101. Sit down with a drink and get comfortable. This episode will make you think--we hope.

73 de The LHS Guys

LHS Show Notes #068

Introduction:

  • Who has a drawl?

Announcements:

  • Richard has been reading about Ubuntu 11.10, “Oneiric Ocelot”, due to be released on October 13th. Our hosts hope to have some sort of review in the near future. Richard is also considering trying KDE. (The version of Ubuntu with KDE as default is Kubuntu.)
  • Look for another episode of Richard’s Radio Adventures in the near future. It’s recorded mobile, and Richard wonders how to reduce the road noise with Audacity. Russ offers some advice on training the noise removal plug-in for Audacity.
  • Richard did not make it to the Belton hamfest this year, but maybe next spring. He’s looking forward to attending the Texoma Hamarama, October 21 – 22, 2011 at the Ardmore Convention Center, 2401 North Rockford Road, Ardmore, OK.
  • Richard is recruiting hams for the Kaufman County (TX) ARES group. Please visit the KCARES website for more information.
  • Richard re-tells the infamous badger story. Speaking of badgers, you can find the Kiss My Badger tee-shirt, and a lot of other good stuff, at the LHS store.

Feedback:

  • Danny inquires about an easy-to-use distribution for a senior and computer novice, perhaps Linux Mint. Our hosts suggest Linux Mint and PCLinuxOS. Note that the Mint live CD does not include the codecs, but the DVD does. If you install from the CD, you can install the codecs later.
  • Danny also asks if there is a way to ask the Mumble developers to support screen-reading software. Since Mumble isn’t a GTK-based application, it’s probably not well supported under Orca. You may wish to raise your concerns on the Mumble forum, or on IRC at irc.freenode.net, #mumble, or click the Live Chat Now button on the www.mumble.com website.
  • Burt, K1OIK, left a comment regarding Episode 61 entitled “South of the Border”: “I’d like to go south of your borders!” We’re a little worried about you, Burt.
  • Michael, KD8GIJ, asks for instructions on removing a dual-boot installation of Linux Mint if he decides he doesn’t like it. You can, of course, just wipe the whole drive and reinstall Windows. You may be able to boot the Windows install media and let it “repair” your installation. However, you don’t really need to remove grub; just make Windows the default and remove Linux from the grub menu. If that’s not acceptable, you’ll likely have to wipe and reinstall Windows to return it to the pre-Linux state.Other suggestions include:
    • install Mint as a virtual machine with Virtual Box.
    • use the Windows Ubuntu Installer (wubi) which will also allow you to uninstall Linux after testing.
    • install Linux to a flash drive and boot and run from that to try it out
    • make an image of the Windows drive before installing Linux, perhaps with PartImage or Clonezilla, and you’ll have an easy means of returning to the pre-Linux-install state.
  • John “The Nice Guy” Spriggs, G7VRI, asks about a live Linux distribution reviewed in Episode 62 that contained software to run EchoLink. (I think he’s referring to Andy’s Ham Radio Linux CD). svxlink is the Linux-native EchoLink client, but it is CLI-driven. The Windows client does run well under Wine. You may want to look at qtel, another Echolink client. It’s an older application. In fact, svxlink is based on Qtel.
  • John also wonders if the music played on the show is Creative Commons licensed. While most of the music is Creative Commons or podsafe, the music in Episode 62 is not CC or podsafe, but Russ did have permission from the artists to play them.
  • John pointed out that the description tags in the podcast audio files were empty. Thanks, John, and rest assured that Russ will be adding descriptions as time permits.
  • By the way John, please contact Richard at the email address below as you may be able to help him with some music for another project.

Contact Info:

Music:

LHS Episode #068: Hell Sheep

And finally the podcast is caught up. All the back episodes have been edited and released and now Russ is taking a break, breathing a little easier and hiding from the hell sheep. In this episode, the hosts talk about the new release of Ubuntu (formal review coming later), the KDE desktop, doing noise cancellation with Audacity and much more. They address feedback from listeners and encourage everyone to support the show by calling in some voice comments, making a donation, becoming a member or purchasing show-related merchandise. Sorry for the advertisement, but sometimes it just has to be done. Thank you for being a listener. Peace, love, ham radio and Linux. Good times.

73 de The LHS Guys


Subscribe FREE to AmateurRadio.com's
Amateur Radio Newsletter

 
We never share your e-mail address.


Do you like to write?
Interesting project to share?
Helpful tips and ideas for other hams?

Submit an article and we will review it for publication on AmateurRadio.com!

Have a ham radio product or service?
Consider advertising on our site.

Are you a reporter covering ham radio?
Find ham radio experts for your story.

How to Set Up a Ham Radio Blog
Get started in less than 15 minutes!


  • Matt W1MST, Managing Editor




Sign up for our free
Amateur Radio Newsletter

Enter your e-mail address: