Upgraded my Linux Mint laptop to 22.2 "Zara"

 I finally upgraded my Linux Mint laptop,  I keep reminding myself to do it, but never get around to it. It has been on 21.3 for quite some time, I doing the patches regularly, but stopping to upgrade is another thing. I upgraded in the recommended steps, 21.3 to 22.0, 22.0 to 22.1, then 22.1 to 22.2 "Zara", each step proceeded with its snapshot for safety. All went well, no side effects or issues detected. The Linux Mint 22.2 built on Ubuntu 24.4 LTS. It works great, nice and fast on my old ASUS N550JK laptop.
This is a great time to remind those about to throw away their old laptop or PC because of Windows 10 now being unsupported, (as of 14th October) that you can recycle those old PC's and laptops giving them another lease on  life by installing a flavour of Linux O/S replacing the old Windows 10.
You have nothing to lose,  Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint to name but a few for you to try. I use mine mainly for browsing, WSJTX and Arduino IDE.

tropo ducting along VK2 coastline and inland today 24th November, 2024

 William Hepburns's Tropo website showing  good tropo on the coast and out to sea, 
VKSpotter.com  showing lots of good activity, 2m WSPR   and I see the VK4's doing some 24GHz DX.

Release Candidate WSJT-X 2.7.0-rc1 is ready for download by beta testers

 Dear WSJT-X Users,

We are pleased to announce that Release Candidate WSJT-X 2.7.0-rc1 is
ready for download by beta testers.

WSJT-X 2.7.0 Release Candidate 1 introduces a new program called "QMAP",
a new Special Operating Activity known as "Q65 Pileup", and a number of
other program enhancements and bug fixes.  A full list of enhancements
can be found in the Release Notes:

https://wsjt.sourceforge.io/wsjtx-doc/Release_Notes_2.7.0-rc1.txt

Release Candidates are intended for Beta testers.  If you download and
use WSJT-X 2.7.0-rc1, please remember to provide feedback to us on its
new features -- and on anything that does not seem to work properly.

Direct links to installation packages for Windows, Linux, and macOS can
be found on the WSJT-X page https://wsjt.sourceforge.io/wsjtx.html
Scroll down to the heading "Candidate release:  WSJT-X 2.7.0-rc1".

For those who like to compile from source, a complete source-code
tarball is available at the WSJT-X page. Public access to the git
repository for the WSJT project is also available on the "Git" tab here:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/wsjt/  It may take a short time for the
code to be updated on SourceForge.


WSJT-X is licensed under the terms of Version 3 of the GNU General
Public License (GPL).  Development of this software is a cooperative
project to which many amateur radio operators have contributed.  If you
use our code, please have the courtesy to let us know about it.  If you
find bugs or make improvements to the code, please report them to us in
a timely fashion.

The authors and Copyright holders of WSJT-X request that derivative
works should not publish programs based on features in WSJT-X before
those features are made available in a General Availability (GA) release
of WSJT-X.  We will cease making public Release Candidate (RC)
pre-releases for testing and user early access purposes if this request
is ignored.

Feedback should be sent to this email list or one of the of the others
mentioned here in the User Guide:

https://wsjt.sourceforge.io/wsjtx-doc/wsjtx-main-2.7.0-rc1.html#SUPPORT

We hope you will enjoy using WSJT-X 2.7.0-rc1, and that you help us to
create a GA release of this version very soon.

   -- 73 from Joe, K1JT; Steve, K9AN; Nico, IV3NWV; Uwe, DG3YCB;
        Brian, N9ADG; and John, G4KLA

1296.500 MHz WSPR weak signal

 VK2BLS and VK2HC playing WSPR on 1296.500 MHz today

extract from VKspotter.com

WSPR on 40.680 MHz

 checking out the WSPR related pages on Facebook, I can see there is plenty of activity on 40.680 MHz, I thought just a couple people,  but last couple weeks, there is heaps, particularly on paths between North America and Europe, with a few path openings to ZL and VK. I really would like to setup a receiver and  antenna to see what I hear.

Interesting WSPR report 25th January, 2023

 I never realised there was a 40MHz  amateur band. Very interesting.

from vkspotter.com :

• 25 Jan22:2442 minutes ago

  WM2XCC in DM1340.680000 WSPR -23

  Spotter: ZL1RS in RF64VS @52° 10471.6 Km

Doing a Google on 40.680 Mhz WSPR, I find G3XBM talking about 40.680MHz- 8metre band.

Roger G3XBM's (Mainly) Amateur Radio Blog: 8m QRP FT8 (first) on 40.680 MHz TX and RX (g3xbm-qrp.blogspot.com)

23cm updates for 2nd August, 2022

I had 23cm transceiver scanning, I kept hearing a very weak female voice, looks to be a automated ident, kept trying to catch which frequency but eventually got it, so this good news, confirmed VK2RTZ is alive and still working. This is Peter VK2ZTV's baby.

 VK2RTZ in QF57SC                                  1273.100000 REP 51

Spotter: VK2KFJ in QF56OG @19° 97.5 Kmfrom Sugarloaf Range, near Newcastle, s0 weak, has a female voice for ident

I also in recent days seeing some weak signal digital activity,some guys doing JT65 on 1296.215 MHz between VK4'sand some WSPR on 1296.500 MHz between VK1 and VK3 stations
This is exciting, I need to get some more 23cm antennas up in the air.

WSJT-X 2.5.3 GA Release (Dec 2021)

 vale Bill Somerville, G4WJS  - Amateur Radio experimenter.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

WSJT-X 2.5.3 GA Release (Win64 only)

Dear WSJT-X Users:

As most of you know, we are mourning the recent death of our friend and
colleague Bill Somerville, G4WJS, who since 2013 has contributed so much
to the WSJT project.

One of Bill's many WSJT-related tasks was creating installation packages
for Win32, Win64, Linux (Debian, Fedora, Raspberry Pi, ...), and macOS
for each new program release.  At present we have a straightforward
system for building the Win64 package -- the best choice for the
majority of WSJT-X users -- but no systems in place for building Win32,
Linux, and macOS packages.

WSJT-X 2.5.3 includes a feature of special interest to users who will
enter the ARRL January VHF Contest (January 15-17, 2022). For benefit of
those users, we have decided to release WSJT-X version 2.5.3 for Win64
even though we have not yet made prebuilt packages for the other
operating systems.

Differences between WSJT-X 2.5.2 and 2.5.3 are minimal and described in
the Release Notes:
https://physics.princeton.edu//pulsar/k1jt/Release_Notes.txt

The new feature for the ARRL VHF contests is an enhanced macro facility
for Tx messages, aimed at making it easier to ask another station to QSY
to a new band.  The feature is described briefly here in the User Guide:
https://www.physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/K1JT/wsjtx-doc/wsjtx-main-2.5.3.html#TXMACROS

Additional information will likely appear on VHF-contest-related forums.

A link for the Win64 installation package for WSJT-X 2.5.3 is now
available on the WSJT-X web page:
https://physics.princeton.edu//pulsar/k1jt/wsjtx.html

Pre-built packages for Win32, Linux, and macOS will be added when we
have created new means for creating them.

 -- 73 from Joe, K1JT; Steve, K9AN; and Nico, IV3NWV

latest ramblings

what's been happening lately ?
WIA AGM was in Sydney this year, couple weeks ago,
GippsTech registration announced, you can register your attendance now.
http://vk3bez.org/gippstech.html
VKspotter  site now active, its the replacement to VKlogger.com which has been retired,
https://www.vkspotter.com/
Central Coast ARC VK2RAG  6metre repeater back on air,  it re-appeared again a couple days ago,
Illawarra ARC VK2RMP 6metre repeater still dead,
VK2RWI 6metre repeater still alive and well.
World Super Bikes from Spain this weekend, watched a couple races.
Fixed my internet at home, damned ADSL was so flakey, one minute it 6Mbps, then drops below 1Mbps,  the speedtest graphs looked like a saw-tooth pattern, it was internal cabling problem, bypassed it all, now I getting 10Mbps down consistently, the old 600ohm transmission line just wasn't behaving itself.

George Smart M1GEO's Blog

Often I looking for some info on a amateur radio project I interested in, I do some searching on the web, one site I usually end up on and finding some good info is George Smart's (M1GEO) blog. He trying all sorts of stuff with the hobby (and general electronics too) and find his posts well documented with what the particular subject is about and what he trying to achieve in it and what the results are. Always worth a look here. One such example was compiling up up WSJT for Linux, I found George's article most helpful and I was able to successfully compile WSJT on Linux myself following his instructions.

https://www.george-smart.co.uk/radio/

PLL boards, Signal Sources etc.

I also bought some cheap PLL Developer boards  to play around with. They suffer from jitter, but  good enough for experimenting with. Also picked up a 4GHz white RF noise source for testing microwave receivers, ie. 1.2GHz, 2.4GHz and 3.4GHz transverters.

http://www.qsl.net/vk2kfj/pll.html

VHF, UHF and SHF wide band LNA's

I bought a few of these cheap wide band LNA's that run off 12v or 5v, with varying Gain and Bandwidths,  at a few bucks each,  they good for playing and experimenting with in terms of weak signal receivers for VHF, UHF and SHF.   Good selection around on Ebay and AliExpress.

http://www.qsl.net/vk2kfj/lna.html

GPSDO - GPS Disciplined Oscillator

I picked up one of these  BG7TBL 10MHz GPSDO units a few months ago to replace a borrowed Rubidium based 10 MHz reference unit.  Again this BG7TBL unit is 10 MHz sine reference, with GPS receiver input to lock it to GPS satellite time signals, so that this box provides NMEA 4800Baud data, plus 10 MHz signal, plus 1PPS signal to drive other devices.  There is even a smaller, lightweight unit available now for portable operation.

http://www.qsl.net/vk2kfj/gpsdo.html

compiling WSPR and WSJT for Linux and Windows

I have been out of the loop for compiling my own  packages of WSPR and WSJT for a couple years now due to other family and work commitments.  Now I am getting settled again and getting back to it.

Having a recent look at the WSJT home page shows me that there have been some changes since the changeover to QT4 IDE suite, now there is a fully bundled SDK, called JTSDK 2.0 which includes  QT5 and other required tools and libraries, to make a standardised full development kit,  available  for both Windows and Linux platforms.

This is a major step forward in making it easy for Hams to be able to compile WSJT and WSPR against their own desired Linux O/S platform.  I had found it very time consuming  having to debug and compile over and over for each Linux O/S that I wanted to try this on and then do it all over again when I did an update to the particular Linux O/S, whether it be Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu or Centos O/S's.

Here is the link to the WSJT Development page which describes the JTSDK 1.0,

http://physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/K1JT/wsjtx-doc/dev-guide-main.html

which references the replacement by JTSDK 2.0 which is here on Sourceforge site

https://sourceforge.net/projects/jtsdk/

Congratulations to Joe Taylor and the  JT Development teams for the ongoing development  and providing this SDK.

Linux updates and WSJT

I updated my Linux boxes, Debian 7.3 to 7.4, Fedora 18 to 20, Ubuntu 13.10 to 14.04 LTS and Centos in 6.5 final. 

Cant go to Centos 7 as they only releasing a 64bit version, will get a 64bit box when the 32 bit server dies. 

Wondering what new adventures lay ahead trying to get WSJT and WSPR compiled and running on these latest Linux releases ...... mmmmmm

I did download the latest offering of WSJT from John Nagotch, to suit Ubuntu 14.05 "Trusty",
WSJT 9.7 r3639,  John kindly compiles different versions of WSJT and WSJTX for various releases of Ubuntu, which makes for a quick download and install for those not in a position to compile WSJT/WSJTX for Ubuntu,  you can obtain them from  this URL       https://launchpad.net/~jnogatch/+ppa-packages

 It installed fine, runs fine, but the audio interfaces that were compiled into this binary dont work with my Dell Inspiron 6000 notebook,  so its back to downloading from berlios repository and try again to compile it myself, although, I will try the qmake-qt4 as this seemed to be the new path for doing a make, using the development suite from     http://qt-project.org/  as mentioned in the WSJT Development forum discussions.

WSPR & WSJT on Linux

after messing around for several weeks trying to get WSJT and WSPR compiled on various flavours of Linux, I finally discovered that most discussion forums and blogs on the subject missed an important dependancy, being python-dev.

Moving on,  I have now succesfully compiled WSPR 4.0 r3051 (svn3571) on Ubuntu 12.04 x86, Ubuntu 13.04 x86, Debian 6.02 (Gnome) x86,  Debian 7.1 (Gnome) x86  and Debian 7.1 (KDE) x86.   I have been running the two Debian 7.1 instances with WSPR 4.0 back to back to prove they can decode each other correctly, so that is looking good.  I have now have my confidence back in WSPR/WSJT on Linux again.

for the WSJT, successfully compiled  some old and latest version of WSJT on Ubuntu 13.04 x86, Debian 7.1 (Gnome) x86 and Debian (KDE) x86.   I was not expecting different behaviour from the Gnome based and KDE instances, but it did confirm consistency in the  build procedure, which is satisfying to know.
I downloaded and compiled WSJT 9.3 r2589  and WSJT 9.5 r3281 (svn 3564) for the Ubuntu 13.04 x86   and WSJT 9.5 r3281 (svn3571) on the two Debian 7.1 x86 instances.  I had picked the older versions based on what I had seen other people using, as a known stable release, once I confirmed it worked, then went and tried the latest version. That's using the source from the svn.berlios.de site.

Will do some more testing on the other combinations, followed by some RF testing. Then I will document my experiences on my web page to encourage more hams to switch to a Linux based WSPR / WSJT station.

And I also hope to do some 64 bit Linux compiles on a 64 bit server sometime.

What would be really nice to do in the future is get a Rasperry Pi board, get WSPR running on that, take it and a 2m radio portable up a mountain top.

WSPR on 144 MHz

a dissertation from Andrew VK3BQ on  using WSPR on 144 MHz

http://www.vk3bq.com/2013/07/15/idiots-guide-to-144mhz-wspr/