Archive for the ‘echolink’ Category
Handiham World for 25 April 2012
April 25th, 2012 | 
Author: Welcome to Handiham World.
You can do it!
Today, just as we did last week, we are going to begin with Troubleshooting 101 as part of our initiative to help new ham radio operators (and even some of us older ones) learn how to do some basic troubleshooting for ourselves. Yes, it can be tempting to ask someone else to do things for us. This can become a bad habit when it keeps us from learning new things, especially things that we could – with a bit of practice – learn to do for ourselves. Knowing these basic things can serve us well in the future when no help is available. This next simple exercise is one that we will be practicing at this summer’s Radio Camp. You can do it yourself once you learn a few basics.
Troubleshooting 101
I have set up my Echolink audio and it worked perfectly, but today when I tried using Echolink, the audio was really low or not working at all. What can be done?
Before we say anything more about this, I have to let you know that you are not alone. I like Echolink and use it nearly every day, but I still consider it to be a journey, so to speak. I have not quite arrived yet at the point where Echolink works perfectly each and every time. Audio problems are common and expected, so we have to learn how to troubleshoot them.
Your first test should be a visit to the Echolink Test Server. Find the test server by going to the Station menu (Arrow right from the File menu or use ALT-S) and when you hit “Station”, arrow down to “Connect to test server”. You should hear the familiar welcome message. After the welcome, get focus in the transmit box, toggle transmit with the space bar, and transmit a short test message. Toggle again and wait for your audio to be echoed back to you. If there is no audio, proceed to the “No Audio” troubleshooting. If there is low audio or too much audio so as to cause distortion, proceed to the “Audio Level” troubleshooting.
No Audio
If there is no audio at all, there are several things to check.
Volume: Is the volume turned up? Are your computer speakers powered up?
Microphone: Is the microphone plugged in? If there is an external microphone, whether USB or the 3.5 mm plug, it may have been unplugged by another user in the family, or you may have unplugged it and forgotten to plug it back in. Some microphones have their own mute buttons. Check to make sure the microphone is not muted. If you are using a microphone headset with 3.5 mm audio plugs, make sure that the headphone plug and the microphone plugs are not reversed. If you use a USB headset, plug it into the same USB port on your computer each time so that the machine does not search for USB drivers each time you plug it in.
Audio Mixer: The audio mixer in your operating system (usually Windows for Echolink users) might have the microphone either muted or the wrong audio input is selected. Windows users need to go to the Windows Mixer recording settings. Getting there is different depending on your version of Windows. We will not explore this, but it is something you should learn about your own computer and operating system. In the recording mixer settings, unmute the microphone and run the slider up if it is set at zero. Repeat the test server test and it should work fine. You can usually get to the mixer settings via the Echolink application itself. Go to the Tools menu, then arrow down to “Adjust sound device” and choose “Recording”. This is an easy way to find the recording mixer!
Multiple audio inputs: As we mentioned, the wrong input may be selected in your Windows mixer. Be sure the correct input for the microphone you want to use is selected as the default device. Again, how you do this may vary depending on your operating system. You should learn how to use your operating system’s mixer.
Echolink sound selection: The Echolink application has its own selection of audio input devices available from a pull down menu. You will find it on the audio tab in System Setup. The choices are “Input Device” and “Output Device”. If the microphone selection is to be checked, the one you want to pull down is the “Input Device”. If you have more than one input device, they should all be listed in the pull down. However, the first item listed is always “system default”. That is the one you should select, because if you followed the directions we just gave you, you have already set the preferred microphone to “default device”.
So why do we recommend using “default device” instead of one of the other selections? It is because selecting the recording device via the Echolink pull down does not always result in the correct device actually being used for audio input. This is a real mine field for users who have lots of audio devices. A computer could have a TV tuner, more than one microphone, a webcam with a built-in microphone, a line in device, and even a USB audio line to a transceiver. Don’t laugh – I have had all of these things, and sometimes Echolink reported one microphone being the input when instead the audio was coming from the HF rig connected via USB. It is safer to set your preferred microphone up as the default device in Windows, then always choose the default device as the Echolink input via the Setup menu.
Final test: If you have followed the directions and everything is set up as described, repeat the test server test. Adjust levels if necessary. If there is still no audio, you may have to look further. There could be a fault in your microphone, usually with the cable or plug, or with the computer hardware or sound card drivers.
Low Audio
Microphone selection and positioning: As we already discussed, you must be sure that you are using the correct device. One fellow I know was puzzled by a low transmit audio condition. When I talked with him on Echolink, his audio sounded like he was far away from the microphone, yet he was wearing a headset microphone combo. The diagnosis was that the sound was being picked up by his laptop’s built in microphone, which had been selected as the default audio input device. If you are simply too far away from the microphone it can have exactly the same effect. Position the microphone closer to your mouth, keeping it slightly to the side. If the mic element must be very close to your lips, as is the case with headset microphones, use a foam wind screen to prevent puffs from making loud noises as you speak.
Beware of other software that takes over mixer settings: Voice dictation software can change your mixer settings to some predetermined level that is ideal for speech input computing. You may have your Echolink levels just perfect, then you open Dragon NaturallySpeaking®, enjoy a session of typing with your voice, and think nothing of it. But the next time you want to use Echolink, the microphone audio may be very low. This happened to me all the time, because I liked using my USB headset for both voice dictation and Echolink. Dragon would reset the mixer every time, unchecking the microphone AGC boost and changing the slider level. It might be best to select different input devices for these two software applications so one does not fight it out with the other for mixer level settings.
Mixer settings continued: Most of us will not use anything but the built-in software mixer, but there may be some users who use external hardware mixers. These can be great for those who like to really be in control of their audio. If you have an external mixer, be sure the microphone is plugged in and selected as the input device. Check the sliders to adjust the level. If the device uses external power, be sure it is powered up!
Every computer system is different. It is difficult for someone else to help you with your system, especially on the phone. So I have some “homework” for you. I want you to learn how to use the audio mixer in your own computer, and learn it well enough to set input and output levels. Some computers (probably most these days) have some kind of keystroke combination or actual dedicated keys on the keyboard to raise and lower the volume or mute the audio. Some laptops have a volume control that operates by spinning a wheel or holding down a specific key. You need to learn these controls and learn them well, because they will be used for lots of other applications like taking voice notes, doing voice dictation, playing music, listening to audio books or Internet audio streams, and much more. Wouldn’t it be nice to learn the mixer settings so that you don’t have to ask for help on these things as well as with Echolink?
Sure, it would! And you can do it.
Email me at [email protected] with your questions & comments.
Patrick Tice, WA0TDA
Handiham Manager
Patrick Tice, WA0TDA
Handiham Manager
Show Notes #078
Introduction:
- Richard says life has been good, lately, except for Linux Mint, but we’ll get into that in a moment. Announcements and feedback are at the end of the show.
Topics:
- Linux Mint Sux!!! (At least, for Richard.)
- Richard’s never-ending quest for a Linux distro that works for him. In the past few days, he’s tried various Debian-based distributions:
- Linux Mint 12, with Gnome 3, MATE, and Cinnamon, but he didn’t like any of them. Too few configuration options for the desktop and gtkpod didn’t work, and that was a deal-breaker.
- Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE): one of the CPU cores wasn’t running; fixed that, installed software and updates, but gtkpod didn’t work there, either.
- Crunchbang Linux: too minimalist and too much configuration.
- XFCE on LMDE was close. Richard replaced the Thunar file manager with Nautilus.
- Xubuntu which is Ubuntu with XFCE. It looked good, was configurable, but lacked a few features.
- Kubuntu, which is Ubuntu with KDE. He tried installing it from the live CD, which took 25 minutes to complete. After the reboot, it generated all sorts of hard drive errors. While it’s possible that the hard drive did fail, but Richard blames Kubuntu for causing the problem.
- Richard’s never-ending quest for a Linux distro that works for him. In the past few days, he’s tried various Debian-based distributions:
- Russ discusses OpenMediaVault, an open network attached storage solution.
- It’s an alternative to FreeNAS.
- Debian-based with a simple install process, while FreeNAS is based on FreeBSD.
- Supports many features of FreeNAS, including CIFS/Samba, NFS, FTP, SSH, BitTorrent (via plugin), TFTP, and DAAP (via plugin).
- Russ tried it in a virtual machine, and it installed easily. Once installed, all configuration occurs through the web browser.
- While it’s perhaps not as mature as FreeNAS, it’s also a newer project, so it’s likely to improve. At the moment, Russ prefers FreeNAS, especially v0.7, but OpenMediaVault may very well catch up and surpass FreeNAS.
- Linux Contesting Software revisited. We covered a few in Episode 70, and here are a couple more.
- Bill, W9YA, one of the maintainers of YFKtest, contacted Richard to inform him that YFKtest has had a major facelift, as well as adding a few features and fixing some bugs. It’s available as v 0.0.10 from the subversion repository. Russ downloaded the compiled version. He picked a contest, filename for the log, entered his call sign, mode, and some other information, but he had trouble entering a contact.
- Minos Contest Logging Software is a contest logging suite for VHF and UHF Amateur Radio Contests. The current version is 1.5.4, and is available as a download or via the Subversion repository. It’s a Windows application, and there are directions on the Web site for running the application using WINE. If only they’d simply re-release with Linux-native code. Russ tried it and it does run quite well under WINE. It’s an open source project under the BSD license.
- Allstar Link Node Update: Russ now has an Allstar Link node number assigned, 28357. Allstar Link offers several packages: Limey Linux, ACID CentOS or Pickle Linux (for the BeagleBoard). Russ has been trying to get the ACiD version running on his LMDE machine so he can use it with his existing Asterisk installation. Meanwhile, Russ has his Echolink station working, node 54711.
Feedback:
- We received a voice comment from Ed, KB4VWA, who’s having trouble with some MFJ TNCs he recently bought at the Dalton, GA hamfest. Richard responds, though he’s had the least experience with MFJ TNCs. There are several possibilities: wrong on-air baud rate, bad connection, wrong dip switch settings, or poor or filtered audio into the TNC. Try using the jack on the back of the radio for the audio. Maybe the radio is not exactly on frequency?
Announcements:
- The OGG and MP3 feeds for the LHS Music and LHS Up All Night audio streams from the LHS web site have new links, so check your settings. The live streaming feed is mp3, so it works everywhere.
- The wAVEgUIDES podcast joins the Black Sparrow Media network! Visit blacksparrowmedia.net/join/ if you’d like to add your podcast to the Black Sparrow Media network.
- Episode renumbering: Ever since naming episodes 18a and 19a, it’s been bugging Russ, so they were renumbered to eliminate the letter suffixes.
- LHS hopes to attend the 2012 Dayton Hamvention in May. Please donate to the cause to help make that happen!
Contact Info:
- Contact Richard at [email protected], Russ at [email protected], or both at the same time at [email protected].
- Listen to the live stream every other Tuesday at 8:00pm Central time. Check the LHS web site for dates.
- Leave us a voice mail at 1-909-LHS-SHOW (1-909-547-7469), or record an introduction to the podcast.
- Sign up for the LHS mailing list.
- Sign up for the MAGNetcon mailing list.
- LHS merchandise is available at the Merch link on Web site. Check out the Badgerwear or buy one of the other LHS-branded items at PrintFection.com/lhs or Cafe Press. Thanks!
- Thanks to Dave from Gamma Leonis for the theme music.
Music:
- “Requiem For A Fish” by The Freak Fandango Orchestra from their album Tales Of A Dead Fish, courtesy of Jamendo.
- “Boats (Swept Away)” by I Am Not Left Handed, from their album Time To Leave, courtesy of Jamendo.
LHS Episode #078: Kubuntu is Bloodthirsty
In this episode of Linux in the Ham Shack, our intrepid hosts put aside idle banter, childish meandering and silly stories in favor of true content, both ham radio and Linux related. All right, that doesn’t happen even a little bit. Instead, Richard has a lot of fun telling you all the trouble he has with Linux Mint Debian Edition, all the while mentioning a bunch of other operating systems he’s tried recently including Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Crunchbang among others–letting you know what’s wrong with all of them.
Then there’s some discussion of svxlink, an Echolink client and server application for native Linux environments, Allstar Link, Open Media Vault, contest loggers and a whole bunch of other stuff besides. Ahh, perhaps there is some content here after all. Hope everyone enjoys this episode and can perhaps contribute a dollar or two towards the Hamvention fund. It’s coming up soon and we hope to see you all there.
73 de The LHS Guys
Show Notes #076
Introduction:
- Only 317 days until the end of the world as we know it!
Announcements:
- The Black Sparrow Media application for iPad, iPhone and iPod has been submitted to the iTunes store. It is just awaiting validation from Apple, which may take up to two weeks. We’ll let everyone know when it’s available.
- Special Event Station W0S (Whiskey Zero Sierra) will be operating from the Titanic Branson Museum from April 13-15, 2012, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Titanic disaster. Russ, K5TUX, will be operating the station at some point.
Feedback:
- Scott, AD7MI, asks for help linking APRS and his his Davis Vantage Pro2 weather station with Xastir. Our hosts suggest trying one or both of these:
- Meteo – Davis weather station platform software for Linux. You can subscribe to the Meteo mailing list by sending a subscription request to [email protected]. It has been several years since Meteo was updated, and is still not at version 1.0. You must download the .tar file from the web site as it does not appear in the distribution repositories.
- wview- Cross-platform weather station software. It does need an internet connection if you are going to contribute information to various weather sites, such as:
This program is under active development. Even if it requires a work-around to perform as you wish, it may be worth the trouble. If you’ve ever configured a Linksys router, the web interface of wview looks a lot like that. wview has a support site via Google Groups at http://groups.google.com/group/wview.
Let us know how you get on, Scott!
Russ signed up for the AllStarLink network; it’s very similar to joining EchoLink. AllStar uses the Asterisk VOIP system, and Jim, WB6NIL, is the author of the repeater link software. Russ had success using a Mac computer, but not with a Linux machine.
Richard sees the biggest problem with EchoLink is that it only allows one connection per IP address, so you can’t have both a server and client at home. The EchoLink site only sees your IP address assigned by your ISP, which limits you to one connect from home. In this respect, AllStarLink appears to better in that it seems to allow multiple connections.
AllStarLink is available in several combinations of Linux and Asterisk:
- ACID – based on CentOS
- Limey Linux – based on embedded Linux and bootable from a flash drive, and runs ONLY on several specific Mini-ITX motherboards.
- Pickle – a specialized embedded Linux distro designed to operate on a BeagleBoard-xM (and DMK Engineering LOX board).
Russ then provides an overview of setting up an AllStar Link client.
Richard defends the use of “mode” as appropriate as the definition allows it to mean “a method or means of doing something”. For example, CW vs DFCW (dual-frequency CW), where DFCW uses frequency shifts to distinguish dots and dashes, rather than two different lengths of the same frequency, and spaces. Both are CW.
Contact Info:
- Contact Richard at [email protected], Russ at [email protected], or both at the same time at [email protected].
- Listen to the live stream every other Tuesday at 8:00pm Central time. Check the LHS web site for dates.
- Leave us a voice mail at 1-909-LHS-SHOW (1-909-547-7469), or record an introduction to the podcast.
- Sign up for the LHS mailing list.
- Sign up for the MAGNetcon mailing list.
- LHS merchandise is available at the Merch link on Web site. Check out the Badgerwear or buy one of the other LHS-branded items at PrintFection.com/lhs or Cafe Press. Thanks!
- Thanks to Dave from Gamma Leonis for the theme music.
Music:
- To be added.
LHS Episode #076: BIG PAPA
After our quick renumbering, we come now to Episode #076. It didn’t start out as an all-feedback episode, but that’s how it wound up. The best part is, we had such good feedback from our listeners it made an entire show. As it also happens, most of our discussion revolves around digital mode communication for amateur radio using Linux. We touch on D-Star, Echolink, IRLP, Allstar Link and more. If you’re interested in using computers to connect to your radios and talk around the world using a multitude of digital technologies, including VoIP, this is the episode for you.
Please keep those donations coming in for our Hamvention Fund, if you’re able. We want to be a part of Hamvention and we hope you will be, too. Thank you for all you do.
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:
- Contact Richard at [email protected], Russ at [email protected], or both at the same time at [email protected].
- Listen to the live stream every other Tuesday at 8:00pm Central time. Check the LHS web site for dates.
- Leave us a voice mail at 1-909-LHS-SHOW (1-909-547-7469), or record an introduction to the podcast.
- Sign up for the LHS mailing list.
- Sign up for the MAGNetcon mailing list.
- LHS merchandise is available at the Merch link on Web site. Check out the Badgerwear or buy one of the other LHS-branded items at PrintFection.com/lhs or Cafe Press. Thanks!
- Thanks to Dave from Gamma Leonis for the theme music.
Music:
- “Out of Sight” by White Light Riot from the album “Atomism,” courtesy of Jamendo.
- “Saving Lucidity” by The Way I Am, courtesy of Jamendo.
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
