Square One!

Square One!

[Mike Markowski]

Hi all,

I hope to get ax.25 going on my laptop and build in soundmodem
support (in the hopes that my machine's ESS Allegro 1 is truly
SB compatible).  After building the latest 2.4 kernel w/ax.25
and soundmodem support, I couldn't find the ax25-utils that the
AX25-HOWTO mentions.  In my search I found and subscribed to
this list and saw a note go by saying the latest 2.5 is the
better choice.  But before I do that, I'd like to doublecheck
that the following is the way to do things rather than what the
AX25-HOWTO says:

	- Build latest 2.5 kernel with ax.25 & soundmodem support

	- Install hamlib (disregard the AX25-HOWTO's advice
	  about the ax25-* packages??)

	- Start compiling & installing the applications.

Sorry for the very basic nature of the questions.  Just want to
be sure I'm heading off the right direction is all.  Thanks very
much!

	Mike   AB3AP

Re: Square One!

[Bob Nielsen]

Mike,

Make sure you have the latest AX25-HOWTO (v 2.0, 19 September 2001) and
you should be in good shape.  You don't need ax25-utils, which was for
2.0 and earlier kernels--get libax25, ax25-tools and ax25-apps instead. 
The hamlib library is for rig and rotator control, not AX25.

I may be wrong, but I believe that AX25 is broken in recent 2.5
kernels.  2.4.19 and 2.4.20 work (for me, at least although some folks
appear to have problems).  2.2.x kernels should be fine also.

73,
Bob, N7XY

On Thu, Apr 10, 2003 at 01:04:05PM -0400, Mike Markowski wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I hope to get ax.25 going on my laptop and build in soundmodem
> support (in the hopes that my machine's ESS Allegro 1 is truly
> SB compatible).  After building the latest 2.4 kernel w/ax.25
> and soundmodem support, I couldn't find the ax25-utils that the
> AX25-HOWTO mentions.  In my search I found and subscribed to
> this list and saw a note go by saying the latest 2.5 is the
> better choice.  But before I do that, I'd like to doublecheck
> that the following is the way to do things rather than what the
> AX25-HOWTO says:
> 
> 	- Build latest 2.5 kernel with ax.25 & soundmodem support
> 
> 	- Install hamlib (disregard the AX25-HOWTO's advice
> 	  about the ax25-* packages??)
> 
> 	- Start compiling & installing the applications.
> 
> Sorry for the very basic nature of the questions.  Just want to
> be sure I'm heading off the right direction is all.  Thanks very
> much!
> 
> 	Mike   AB3AP
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-hams" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html

-- 
Bob Nielsen, N7XY                          n7xy@n7xy.net
Bainbridge Island, WA                      http://www.n7xy.net
IOTA NA-065, USI WA-028S 

Re: Square One!

[Tomi Manninen]

On Thu, 10 Apr 2003, Mike Markowski wrote:

> 	- Build latest 2.5 kernel with ax.25 & soundmodem support

I might be mistaken but I think kernel soundmodem was removed in 2.5. In 
any case it's not recommended anymore. You should try the usermode 
soundmodem instead. (http://www.baycom.org/~tom/ham/soundmodem/)
Of course you still need kernel AX.25.

-- 
Tomi Manninen           Internet:  oh2bns@sral.fi
OH2BNS                  AX.25:     oh2bns@oh2rbi.fin.eu
KP20ME04                Amprnet:   oh2bns@oh2rbi.ampr.org

Re: Square One!

[Aleksandar Ilic]

On Thursday 10 April 2003 21:09, Tomi Manninen wrote:
> You should try the usermode soundmodem instead 

Apropos my previous post: Tom's soundmodem also can't to compile because of 
libxml to libxml2 upgrade...
It seems I was too fast upgrading to Slack 9.  :( 

Regards,
Alek
-- 
  73 de YU1IS

Re: Square One!

[Arno Verhoeven]

On Fri, 11 Apr 2003, Aleksandar Ilic wrote:

> On Thursday 10 April 2003 21:09, Tomi Manninen wrote:
> > You should try the usermode soundmodem instead
>
> Apropos my previous post: Tom's soundmodem also can't to compile because of
> libxml to libxml2 upgrade...
> It seems I was too fast upgrading to Slack 9.  :(
>
> Regards,
> Alek

Did you try the pre-compiled soundmodem package that is included with
Slackware 9.0? (it's in /extra/ham/packet)


73, PE1ICQ  Arno Verhoeven
--------------------------------
AX.25  pe1icq@pi8zaa.#nbo.nld.eu
smtp   pe1icq@pi8zaa.ampr.org
inet   pe1icq@amsat.org

Re: Square One!

[Aleksandar Ilic]

On Friday 11 April 2003 07:40, Arno Verhoeven wrote:
> Did you try the pre-compiled soundmodem package that is included with
> Slackware 9.0? (it's in /extra/ham/packet)

Good idea - I'll try and report the results. Thanks.
-- 
  73 de YU1IS

Re: Square One!

[Aleksandar Ilic]

On Friday 11 April 2003 07:40, Arno Verhoeven wrote:
> Did you try the pre-compiled soundmodem package that is included with
> Slackware 9.0? (it's in /extra/ham/packet)

alek@bcat:~$ ldd `which soundmodemconfig` |grep found
        libxml.so.1 => not found

Also, I've found gmfsk package there:

alek@bcat:~$ ldd `which gmfsk` |grep found
        libgnomeui.so.32 => not found
        libart_lgpl.so.2 => not found
        libgdk_imlib.so.1 => not found
        libgnome.so.32 => not found
        libgnomesupport.so.0 => not found

No luck. Nothing isn't compiled on slack 9 itself. libgnomeui.so.32 is now 
replaced with libgnomeui-2.so.0, and so on... I tried to change "libxml" to 
"libxml2" in soundmodem's configure script, but there was different 
structures in tree.h.
OK, obviously we all need a little more patience.

Regards,
Alek
--
  73 de YU1IS

Re: Square One!

[Tomi Manninen]

On Fri, 11 Apr 2003, Aleksandar Ilic wrote:

> alek@bcat:~$ ldd `which gmfsk` |grep found
>         libgnomeui.so.32 => not found
>         libart_lgpl.so.2 => not found
>         libgdk_imlib.so.1 => not found
>         libgnome.so.32 => not found
>         libgnomesupport.so.0 => not found
> 
> No luck. Nothing isn't compiled on slack 9 itself. libgnomeui.so.32 is now 
> replaced with libgnomeui-2.so.0, and so on... I tried to change "libxml" to 
> "libxml2" in soundmodem's configure script, but there was different 
> structures in tree.h.

Are you sure slackware 9 doesn't have compatibility libs for earlier 
versions? I'd be surprised if it doesn't. After all GTK1 and GTK2 are API 
incompatible so a _lot_ of programs break there. My RH8 has both versions 
installed and everything runs pretty smoothly...

Anyway a new gmfsk is on it's way, I'm currently writing (updating)
README's and stuff like that... :)

-- 
Tomi Manninen           Internet:  oh2bns@sral.fi
OH2BNS                  AX.25:     oh2bns@oh2rbi.fin.eu
KP20ME04                Amprnet:   oh2bns@oh2rbi.ampr.org

Re: Square One!

[Arno Verhoeven]

Tomi Manninen wrote:
> Are you sure slackware 9 doesn't have compatibility libs for earlier 
> versions? I'd be surprised if it doesn't. After all GTK1 and GTK2 are API 
> incompatible so a _lot_ of programs break there. My RH8 has both versions 
> installed and everything runs pretty smoothly...

Slackware 9.0 does not have libxml included in the distribution anymore.
However, you can simply install libxml-1.8.17-i386-1.tgz which was included in 
Slackware 8.1. There are no conflicts. I just tried and soundmodemconfig runs 
just fine on Slackware 9.0 if the libxml package from Slackware 8.1 is installed.

Your missing libs to be able to runs gmfsk are in the Slackware 8.1 package 
gnome-libs-1.4.1.7-i386-1.tgz
This package is a bit bigger than the previous one so I didn't check if it 
overwrites critical files which are already in an Slackware 9.0 package. But you 
could try...

-- 
73, PE1ICQ  Arno Verhoeven
--------------------------------
AX.25  pe1icq@pi8zaa.#nbo.nld.eu
smtp   pe1icq@pi8zaa.ampr.org
inet   pe1icq@amsat.org

Re: Square One!

[Aleksandar Ilic]

On Saturday 12 April 2003 15:58, Arno Verhoeven wrote:
> However, you can simply install libxml-1.8.17-i386-1.tgz which was included
> in Slackware 8.1. There are no conflicts.

Yes indeed. Thanks a lot, Arno !

> Your missing libs to be able to runs gmfsk are in the Slackware 8.1 package
> gnome-libs-1.4.1.7-i386-1.tgz
> (...)
> But you could try...

I dare not to :) It seems there is some overwrites, and Tomi is already 
proclaimed gmfsk v. 0.5.

Big thanks to everybody who helped.

Alek
-- 
  73 de YU1IS  -=-  ICQ# 62419462

Re: Square One!

[Arno Verhoeven]

On Sun, 13 Apr 2003, Aleksandar Ilic wrote:
> > Your missing libs to be able to runs gmfsk are in the Slackware 8.1 package
> > gnome-libs-1.4.1.7-i386-1.tgz
> > (...)
> > But you could try...
>
> I dare not to :) It seems there is some overwrites, and Tomi is already
> proclaimed gmfsk v. 0.5.

I haven't done much about packaging for Slackware in a while and when I
started working on it again, I was just too late for them to be inlcuded
in Slackware 9.0. So every ham package in Slackware 9.0 is the very same
package as in 8.1.

However, some updated pre-compiled packages for Slackware 9.0 can be found
on http://sharon.esrac.ele.tue.nl/pub/slackware/slackware-9.0_ham_updates/

I will add Tomi's updated gmfsk package when he releases a new source
package.

73, PE1ICQ  Arno Verhoeven
--------------------------------
AX.25  pe1icq@pi8zaa.#nbo.nld.eu
smtp   pe1icq@pi8zaa.ampr.org
inet   pe1icq@amsat.org

Pc/rig interface for packet

[Mike Markowski]

Thanks, everyone, for your helpful responses of a couple weeks ago.
I've now got my rig talking to my laptop via hamlib - I love xlog's
use of hamlib!

I had other things occupying time for the last couple weeks but
now want to get back to getting a packet radio set-up up &
running.  The user mode soundmodem & kernel (2.4.20) w/mkiss
support is now compiled, though I haven't finished going through
the HOWTO to get everything else set up - that AX.25 HOWTO seems
to go on and on...  :-o  I haven't bothered finishing it yet
because I still have to make a cable, which brings me to my
question.

For the rig/pc cable do you have opinions of the two choices I'm
aware of:

   * Use a simple idea like
     http://www.baycom.org/~tom/pcf/ptt_circ/ptt.html

   * Buy the Rascal kit (US $20) at
     http://www.packetradio.com/psk31.html

Would electrically isolating the Tx/Rx/PTT signals like in the Rascal
kit make a significant difference?  I read that the isolation is
important if you want to use packet on HF.

	Thanks!
	Mike   AB3AP

Re: Pc/rig interface for packet

[Curt Mills, WE7U]

On Thu, 1 May 2003, Mike Markowski wrote:

> now want to get back to getting a packet radio set-up up &
> running.  The user mode soundmodem & kernel (2.4.20) w/mkiss
> support is now compiled, though I haven't finished going through
> the HOWTO to get everything else set up - that AX.25 HOWTO seems
> to go on and on...  :-o

If you're interested in APRS on Linux, the Xastir package supports
serial port KISS and the soundmodem program supports a KISS mode
where it looks like a serial KISS device.  Connect the two together
and you're up and running without having to set up AX.25 kernel
networking.  Just another option.

If you're interested in other kinds of packet, Xastir won't help you
there.

-- 
Curt Mills, WE7U                    hacker_NO_SPAM_@tc.fluke.com
Senior Methods Engineer/SysAdmin
"Lotto:    A tax on people who are bad at math!"
"Windows:  Microsoft's tax on computer illiterates!" -- WE7U
"The world DOES revolve around me:  I picked the coordinate system!"

Re: Pc/rig interface for packet

[Wilbert Knol]

> Would electrically isolating the Tx/Rx/PTT signals like in the Rascal
> kit make a significant difference?  I read that the isolation is
> important if you want to use packet on HF.

I won't go into details, but there are several reasons why HF digital modes
are so sensitive to RF feedback. Audio isolating transformers often help, 
particularly in the TX audio path, but there are other tricks to reduce RFI.

VHF/UHF FM packet is a lot more immune, and I've always managed without audio 
transformers. 

The down-side of audio isolating transformers is, that they can easily pick up 
stray magnetic fields from things like power supplies, from as far as half a 
meter or so away. And you won't even hear that through tinny little 
loadspeakers, but it will be bad enough to wreck your signal.

The RFI acid test is, to transmit idle flags or calibration tones continuously 
whilst you vary TX power. You listen to the transmitted audio on a second 
receiver nearby (on a dummy load). Use a pair of good quality HIFI 
headphones. If the audio starts sounding raw when you increase power, you 
have RFI.

If you kill the TX audio, you'll also hear stray 50 Hz pick-up.

FSK modes are much less susceptible than linear modes such as PSK.

Another thing to look out for: some people use handhelds for packet radio, 
that leave the internal condenser mike connected. Shack noise then causes 
packet corrupton. 

Anyway, all of this has little to do with Linux...

HTH

Wilbert, ZL2BSJ