Projects – M0AWS Amateur Radio

24 May 2026

The 5 things that have revolutionised my Radio Shack

The articles I write for the blog are mostly technical but, I thought it was about time that I wrote this article as it’s been buzzing around inside my head for some time now.

So, what are the 5 things that I have found revolutionary in my shack that have brought new, exciting ideas and projects to life making amateur radio more enjoyable.

1: A RaspberryPi Single Board Computer

Ever since the first RaspberryPi Single Board Computer (SBC) was released I’ve been a huge fan. This little credit card sized number cruncher has been the base for so many projects, it has to be the first on my list.

The RaspberryPi SBC has been through a few iterations since its initial conception and is now powerful enough to take on most tasks that any radio HAM is going to throw at it.

So, what have I done with them?

Well I’ve used them to run Node-Red services for my many web app dashboards that control things like my QO-100 Satellite Ground Station, UPS power monitoring, Internet speed graphs, server and virtual machine monitoring, AllStarLink nodes, hosting websites, building an SDR shortwave receiver, running HAM Clock / Open HAM Clock, developing my own software, hosting virtual machines and a whole host of other fun and interesting things. I’m even writing this article using my RaspberryPi 500+ computer that is my daily desktop PC.

There are an endless number of things you can do with a RaspberryPi to bring new life and functionality to your radio hobby.

Want to get into Amateur TV?
Want to decode digital modes real time?
Want to track aircraft in the sky real time on a virtual radar screen?
Want to search the shortwave bands for stations of interest?
Want to host your own blog and website?

All these things and a lot more are easily within reach with a RaspberryPi.

The RaspberryPi is only limited by your imagination, the more imaginative you are the more your number crunching little friend will do.

2: A 3D Printer

Every HAM should have a 3D printer. These manufacturing marvels bring a new level of quality, design and simplicity to your HAM radio projects. I’ve found it incredibly useful since venturing into the rabbit hole that is 3D printing. When I think back to the weeks and months of my life I’ve spent making cabinets and boxes out of sheet metal, aluminium or wood for the numerous projects I’ve built over the years, a 3D printer would had made my life so much easier. 3D printing has revolutionised the making of things for the Amateur Radio home brewer.

There’s a multitude of useful things on websites like Printables, Thingiverse , Makerworld and others where you can just download the files and print high quality designs for all those things you’ve wanted to do but, don’t have the time or inclination to craft by hand.

The real satisfaction with 3D printing comes from designing your own things and making them. My first project was to design and print a fan cooling system for my Xiegu XPA125B amplifier.

From the factory the amp is passively cooled and doesn’t take long for the heat-sink to become saturated resulting in a high operating temperature. I was never happy with this and so was determined to resolve the problem.

Getting to grips with TinkerCAD was a bit of a vertical learning curve but, after a few mistakes and design mishaps I soon had it under my belt and pressed on with designing the cooler unit.

Designing the Xiegu XPA125b cooling system using tinkerCAD.

It’s not until you start designing and manufacturing things that you suddenly realise how much effort goes into them but, I persevered and over the period of about a week or so I had a perfectly fitting, operational cooling system that kept the amp super cool regardless of how long I waffled on for on the HF bands.

Once you’ve got your first design made you suddenly find yourself wanting to improve it and add things. In my case this was adding a Hermes Lite 2 holder to the top of the amp cooler and then a top shelf to hold my cross needle SWR and power meter.

Since then I’ve progressed massively with my designs and have even designed and printed things for other HAMs and family members, it’s totally addictive!

I can highly recommend the Bambu Lab A1 Combo (As shown above). It’s a quality piece of equipment that has operated faultlessly since purchase. Right now it’s printing a case for my RaspberryPi 4, just one of the many projects I’ve used it for since becoming a happy owner.

Go on, release your inner creativity and treat yourself to a 3D printer, you won’t regret it and it’ll help you bring to life all of those radio projects you’ve dreamt of doing but, never got round to starting.

3: An AllStarLink Node

M0AW AllStarLink Node 61928 sitting on the equipment rack

Many people say that using VOIP over the internet isn’t real radio, I know because I used to be one of those people however, it has become an invaluable resource for keeping in touch with people all over the world.

Being part of an online HAM Radio Community it’s important that as a group we are able to talk to each other regardless of where we live, what bands we have access to and whether there is any propagation.

The AllStarLink (ASL) network gives global FM quality audio no matter where you are in the world. We use it daily for our breakfast net, general chatter throughout the day and even hold a weekly Matrix ASL Net on a Thursday evening.

Using our VHF/UHF handhelds (Real Radios!) and an easy to make AllStarLink Node we’re able to join in with the conversation regardless of propagation, licence type or distance, it really is great for bringing people together.

With devices like the SHARI and AIOC board now being readily available for minimal cost it really is very easy to get onto the AllStarLink network and talk to people even if you live in an antenna restricted location.

Why be alone when you can use the Matrix ASL node ( 642332 ) and join in the conversation.

4: Node-Red

M0AWS - Updated NodeRed QO-100 Dashboard with PTT button — M0AWS – Updated NodeRed QO-100 Dashboard with PTT button

Node-Red is a low-code programming tool for event-driven applications.

Node-RED’s goal is to enable anyone to build applications that collect, transform and visualise their data; building flows that can automate their world. Its low-code nature makes it accessible to users of any background, whether for home automation, industrial control systems or anything in between.

I’ve been using Node-Red for a number of years now and have developed a suite of web app’s that control and monitor just about every aspect of my Amateur Radio hobby and IT infrastructure.

Node-Red forms an integral part of my QO-100 Satellite Ground Station providing control of both the uplink and down link radios whilst synchronising the VFO’s, controlling filter selection and more, all from one simple to use interface using nothing more than a web browser.

It doesn’t stop there, my AllStarLink (ASL) nodes are also managed through a user friendly Node-Red Dashboard that removes all the need for technical know how and makes ASL node management as simple as clicking on a button to connect or disconnect to the many global networks.

Much of this functionality is achieved without writing a single line of code. If you can use a mouse, drag and drop objects on the screen you can develop Node-Red web app’s, it really is that easy.

It doesn’t end there, Node-Red is great for presenting data in easy to digest formats.

Whether it be HAM Radio Log data presented on an interactive world map or monitoring of your server, RaspberryPi, virtual machine or UPS using gauges and graphs, this can all be achieved easily with nothing more than a mouse. There’s no need to spend hours writing thousands of lines of code, just drag and drop a few nodes onto the screen and join them up. You’ll be amazed how easy it is.

I believe every Amateur Radio enthusiast should have Node-Red available in their radio shack. It’s easy to install on your RaspberryPi 4 or 5, Linux or Windows PC and Apple Mac with the same great functionality available on all platforms.

Once you’ve developed your first web app you’ll suddenly find a million more ideas will come into your head and before you know it, you’ll be where I am today with Node-Red at the centre of your radio hobby.

5: A Hermes Lite 2 HF SDR Transceiver

For years I used black box HF radios from the big 3 manufacturers along with the odd radio from the smaller enterprises like TenTec but, they all had their foibles and there was often nothing I could do about it.

My last acquisition from the big 3 was a Yaesu FTDX10, a competent hybrid SDR radio with a good receiver however, the menu system is terrible, the button layout not much better and the user experience not as good as it could be. Of course the software is closed source so there is nothing you can do about it. The radio did its job but, it wasn’t fun to use, it wasn’t what I really wanted and it didn’t put a smile on my face.

I looked at moving to software defined radios (SDR) but, with prices in the many thousands of pounds bracket and the software being closed source I came to the conclusion that they wouldn’t give me what I really wanted either.

So what was it that I was searching for?

Thinking long and hard about it I came to the conclusion that what I really wanted was a radio that gave me the same satisfaction that OpenSource software has given me for decades, namely an HF radio that I have complete control over, from the hardware through to the software and everything in between.

I wanted something that I could tailor to my exact needs. Something that was built using open hardware and open software, something where if I wasn’t happy with it I could change it, improve it and do the things I wanted with it.

At this point my search for the ideal radio headed in a completely different direction.

Xiegu XPA125b Cooler with Hermes Lite 2 cradle - front view — Xiegu XPA125b Cooler with Hermes Lite 2 cradle – front view

The Hermes Lite 2 SDR HF Transceiver (HL2) has been around for a number of years. I was first introduced to it by Michael, DK1MI and then Roger, G8VLR via the Matrix. Both Michael and Roger use the HL2 on a regular basis and have often waxed lyrical about how good it is.

Being designed by radio amateurs for radio amateurs it’s based on an open architecture from the ground up. Being an OpenSource junky this really appealed to me and as I looked deeper into it from both a hardware and software point of view I soon realised that it had the potential to be exactly what I was looking for.

It wasn’t long before I found myself on the Makerfabs website placing an order for the HL2 mainboard, filter board, I/O board and case. A couple of weeks later it arrived and I dived head first into the SDR rabbit hole.

2 years later and the HL2 has become my main HF radio in the shack. Partnered with a Xiegu XPA125B amplifier and PiHPSDR software running on my Kubuntu Linux PC it is everything I have been looking for in an HF radio.

I’ve made modifications to the software to suit my operating style and needs with the user interface being exactly how I want it, no unnecessary buttons or knobs, just the controls that I use on a daily basis cleanly placed in a logical, easy to use layout, the way I want it.

My understanding of software defined radio and how it works has improved a hundred fold. Having access to the software and being able to go through the code and understand the architecture has been an interesting journey and one that has enhanced my radio enjoyment considerably. I now have a smile on my face every time I go on air.

Do I miss the FTDX10?

No, not in the slightest!

So, those are the 5 things that I feel have revolutionised my radio amateur hobby and made it a more enjoyable experience. I’m sure over time I will add to this list as I venture down future rabbit holes in our wonderful radio hobby.

More soon …

2 May 20262 May 2026

Bring your old handheld to life with an AIOC

I’m sure there are many radio amateurs around the world today who have an old handheld radio sat on the shelf that works perfectly but, has been replaced by a new, shiny, all singing, all dancing model that gets used on a daily basis. I for one have fallen into this trap with the recent purchase of a very nice Wouxun KG-UV9K full duplex 2m and 70cm handheld.

On my shelf there is a cheap Retevis RT85 that gave sterling service for a number of years and even today is ready to continue that service, if only I had a need?

Well now I do!

Currently I have an AllStarLink node running on a RaspberryPi 3b connected to a SHARI device that operates on the 70cm band. This node works great and gives me the ability to chat with people all over the world from my trusty handheld. It does of course also give me access to the weekly Matrix AllStarLink Net that happens on our Matrix node ( 642332 ) every Thursday evening at 20:00 UK time, a great way of bringing the Matrix HAM Radio community together regardless of propagation.

For some time I’ve been wanting to bring another AllStarLink node online so that I can have a connection to HUBNET/FreeNet whilst keeping my current node connected to the Matrix node for our regular daily chats. Since my new Wouxun handheld is a full duplex unit it makes sense to bring a new node up on the 2m band as I can then monitor both at the same time easily. I do have a spare SHARI node however, it’s a UHF only unit and I don’t want another node on the 70cm band. This is where the old Retevis RT85 comes in to play.

The All In One Cable ( AIOC ) board is a very neat little CM108 compatible sound card and serial interface that is sold by Steve, KM9G of YouTube fame ( Temporarily Offline ) that plugs into any handheld radio that has the now pretty much standard Kenwood ‘K’ type mic connector.

The AIOC board really is tiny but, beautifully put together. The four large solder pads on the top and more on the underside are positioned such that the TRS plug solder lugs line up perfectly for soldering. Attempting to do this by hand would be impossible as it’s critical that the spacing between the two connectors matches that of the spacing of the sockets on the radio.

Searching online I found a very handy soldering jig on Github that enables you to hold both the TRS connectors and AIOC board in the perfect position for soldering.

Downloading the .STL file I quickly printed off a solder jig on my Bambu Lab A1 Combo 3D printer and fitted the components into place ready for soldering.

Fitting TRS connectors into the AIOC solder jig

Fitting AIOC board into the solder jig. — Fitting TRS connectors into the AIOC solder jig

Everything fitted rather snugly into the jig and I soon had the board and connectors soldered together. Test fitting to my Retevis RT85 I found the TRS plugs lined up perfectly and it slid into the sockets with ease.

I then thought about designing a case for the AIOC board so that the bare circuit was nicely protected but, quickly searched online and found that NA6D has already designed a case and made the .STL available publicly for download on Printable.com. I quickly grabbed a copy of the file and punted it off to my 3D printer to get to work on.

Once the print was complete I fitted the AIOC board and snapped it together ready for testing.

Fitting the AIOC into the 3D printed case.

AIOC case with 2 x TRS connectors in place. — Fitting the AIOC into the 3D printed case.

Now that the AIOC was production ready I moved on to getting the latest version of AllStarLink onto my RaspberryPi 4 that I had taken out of my RadioBerry based shortwave receiver that I am going to upgrade to a Hermes Lite 2 in a later project. The RaspberryPi 4 is perfect for AllStarLink 3, a 64bit app and operating system.

Using the RaspberryPi Imager I pulled the image down onto an SD card and slipped it into my Pi4. ( Instructions on how to do this are on the AllStarLink website here )

Booting the Pi4 for the first time I found that it went through a number of reboot and configuration cycles before it was ready for use.

Once ready I went through all the normal configuration of the Pi4 namely, static IP assignment, timezone config, security, port forwarding etc etc.

Having configured an AllStarLink node for myself and only just a few days ago for another HAM I was pretty familiar with the setup. Wanting to make sure there were no “gotcha’s” I also watched a couple of KM9G’s videos on Youtube to make sure I wasn’t missing anything.

Using the asl-menu command line app as user root I set about configuring Asterisk to work with the AIOC board. Much to my frustration I could not get Asterisk to recognise the AIOC board as an available sound device. I checked and double checked all the settings ensuring that I had selected “AIOC” in the available devices menu but found that Asterisk constantly errored saying it could not find the selected audio device. This went on for a whole day without success and so, I decided to put it to one side and come back to it later, a method I found that often worked.

A couple of days later I revisited the problem and had decided to take a different approach. Rather than continue going through the asl-menu app I decided to drop down to a lower level and go through the asterisk config files in the /etc/asterisk directory.

It wasn’t long before I found a file called res_usbradio.conf. Inside this file was the config for the AIOC board however, it was all commented out which meant it was disabled.

I’m guessing here but, I imagine this is what should get enabled when selecting AIOC in the available devices menu in the asl-menu command line app but, for some reason it doesn’t happen.

[general]
;usb_devices = 1209:7388    ;comma delimited list of usb
                            ;descriptors to allow.
                            ;format vvvv:pppp in hexadecimal
                            ;vvvv=vendor id, pppp=product id
                            ;
                            ;1209:7388 = AIOC (all in one cable)

Above is the disabled configuration which is easily edited to enable the AIOC device as shown below.

[general]
usb_devices = 1209:7388    ;comma delimited list of usb
                            ;descriptors to allow.
                            ;format vvvv:pppp in hexadecimal
                            ;vvvv=vendor id, pppp=product id
                            ;
                            1209:7388 = AIOC (all in one cable)

Once the updated file had been saved and I restarted Asterisk using systemctl the AIOC burst into life and Asterisk recognised it immediately. The Retevis RT85 switched between TX and RX and I was ready to check out the audio.

Setting the volume levels for both RX and TX via the command line tuning app I connected the node to my already existing node. Sure enough the two nodes connected without error and I was able to send and receive audio between them via the AllStarLink net.

Connecting the new node to the parrot I checked the audio levels to ensure it sounded ok and then connected it to the Matrix node where I had a brief chat with Ben, M8TKK.

All that is left to do now is to 3D print a case for the Pi4 so that it isn’t left naked and at risk of being shorted out on conductive surfaces and it’ll be ready for service.

I also plan to build another AllStarLink node using a 4m band handheld and another AIOC board and then will apply for MB7Ixx callsigns for the two new nodes. This will hopefully help to bring some life to the 2m/4m bands locally and introduce HAM’s both to the weekly Matrix Net and HUBNet/FreeStar via AllStarLink.

More soon …

17 January 2026

Node-Red ADIF to Log Map Flow

Following on from my previous article on using Node-Red to build interactive log maps I’ve now reworked the flow to make it more efficient with less Javascript.

The original flow had a function that handled the issue of FT4 contacts being recorded in two different ways depending on which app you use for your FT4/8 operations.

<mode:4>MFSK <submode:3>FT4
or
<mode:8>MFSK FT4

The code I wrote to handle this wasn’t particularly elegant and so I decided to remove the code entirely and just use a simple change node.

M0AWS New node to handle FT4 more efficiently

This is the great thing about Node-Red, there’s always more than one way to do something.

With this fix in place and the old code stripped out of the format generic payload function, the new flow is much tidier and easier to comprehend.

With testing complete and the two maps now live on my website the flow is finally ready for release into the wild.

If you fancy presenting your ADIF logs in a more visual, interactive format then just download the flow below and import it into your Node-Red flow editor.

M0AWS-ADI-Log-Map-v2 Download

Don’t forget that you will need to change the path to the log files in the file read nodes to suit your setup and change the location data in the My QTH trigger to match your callsign and location. Other than this the flow should just work.

More soon …

13 January 202613 January 2026

Using Node-Red to build interactive log maps

I’ve not been on the radio much over the last few weeks as I’ve had my head down other radio related rabbit holes.

One of the rabbit holes is a Node-Red project to make my online logs a little more interactive. For sometime now my logs have been displayed on my website as nicely formatted, searchable HTML pages however, they don’t really allow the viewer (myself included) to see the global coverage of all the contacts so, I decided to write a Node-Red flow that would do just that.

The flow itself isn’t too complicated and basically consists of reading in the individual ADIF formatted log files, processing the data and then sending the data in the correct format to the map node for display.

I’ve had to write a few functions to handle the processing of the ADIF formatted data but, these aren’t particularly complex and are fairly easy to understand even if like me, you’re not a Javascript programmer.

The flow is working perfectly however, I’m in the process of reworking the format generic payload function to reduce the amount of code and make it more efficient.

M0AWS SSB / CW / FreeDV Interactive Log World Map

The flow generates two maps, one for voice / CW /Satellite contacts and the other for WSJT-X FT4/8 contacts. Every pin on the map is colour coded by band with satellite contacts being denoted by a satellite icon.

Each pin / icon on the map is clickable and reveals the data of the QSO being displayed.

In the top right-hand corner of the map there is a drop down layer menu that allows the viewer to filter by band thus reducing the number of icons on the screen at any one time.

Seeing the data presented on a map really brings my logs alive. An example of this is that I had no idea I’d worked so many stations in India on the QO-100 Satellite.

The small icons in the pins show a microphone for SSB/FM/FreeDV contacts and a downwards pointing triangle in a box for CW contacts. Sadly I couldn’t find a Morse key icon in the collection available.

M0AWS filtered view of QO-100 Satellite contacts

I only use FT4/8 for testing new antenna designs however, it’s interesting to see the global coverage accomplished with this weak signal mode.

M0AWS WSJT-X FT4/8 Interactive Log World Map

Once I’ve finished rewriting the format generic payload function I will make the flow available for download here so that others can also create an interactive view of their radio logs.

If you want to have a look at the maps and try them out for yourself, they are available under the Logs menu above.

This Node-Red instance is running in a virtual machine (VM) on a 16GB RAM RaspberryPi 5 that is also running a number of other VMs at the same time so, it’s safe to say it’s not heavy on CPU and will run on the older Pi4 as well.

More soon …

14 December 202515 December 2025

FreeDV audio routing with PiHPSDR and Hermes Lite 2

I’ve recently been trying out the FreeDV RADEv1 digital voice mode on the HF bands with great success. The audio quality is astounding when compared to the normal analog SSB mode. Using only 20w I’ve been surprised how successful I’ve been talking to stations in the UK and Europe as can be seen in my FreeDV Log.

FreeDV has been around for quite a few years with development being funded by an ARDC grant and financial sponsorship from the Software Freedom Conservancy.

So what is FreeDV?

To quote the FreeDV website:

“FreeDV is a suite of digital voice modes for HF radio. Our flagship mode is the Radio Autoencoder (RADE). You can run RADE using a free GUI application for Windows, Linux and macOS that allows any SSB radio to be used for high quality digital voice.“

And the most important part:

“All software is open source, released under the (a) GNU Lesser Public License version 2.1 (GUI and legacy FreeDV modes) and two-clause BSD license (RADE).“

FreeDV running under KDE-Plasma on Kubuntu PC

Looking at the digital voice (DV) community in the HAM Radio world, it’s stuffed full with proprietary DV modes from small software houses and black box transceiver manufacturers with no real OpenSource alternatives, until now.

Installing FreeDV is pretty simple regardless of which operating system (O/S) you use. Being a Linux user I grabbed the AppImage from the website and set about reading up on how it works and how it is configured.

I decided to take the two sound card approach since I have 2 USB sound cards connected to my shack Kubuntu Linux PC.

Configuring the audio routing isn’t straight forward as both the receive and transmit audio to/from the radio needs to be routed via the FreeDV app. To make this even more complicated I am using my Hermes Lite 2 SDR transceiver and PiHPSDR software, a complete OpenSource/OpenHardware Amateur Radio Station.

M0AWS FreeDV and PiHPSDR Audio Routing Diagram

Trying to clearly describe the audio routing using words alone would be impossible and very confusing so, I put together the diagram above.

Using two USB sound cards I’ve configured the system such that USB Sound Card 1 (an old Griffin iMic USB sound device) handles just the audio from/to the headphones and microphone. All the audio at this point in the system is analogue.

The second USB sound card, a cheap Plug and Play (PNP) USB audio device from Amazon, handles all the digitised signals from/to FreeDV and PiHPSDR.

Taking this 2 sound card approach keeps confusion to a minimum and separates the analogue and digital components of the audio routing.

So, how does this translate to the FreeDV and PiHPSDR audio settings?

Transmit Audio Chain

FreeDV Transmit Audio Settings

Starting at the beginning of the transmit audio chain, let’s look at the transmit audio settings in FreeDV.

Looking at the FreeDV Transmit audio settings screenshot below we can see that the
Input From Microphone to Computer device is set to:

alsa_input.usb-Griffin_Technology_Inc_iMic_USB_audio_system-00.analog-stereo

This is the microphone connection on the iMic USB device (USB Sound Card 1) and is the analogue transmit audio input to FreeDV.

The Output From Computer to Radio device is set to:

alsa_output.usb-0c76_USB_PnP_Audio_Device-00.analog-stereo

This is the digitised audio output from FreeDV (via USB Sound Card 2) to PiHPSDR and is used as the transmit audio that is sent to the Hermes Lite 2 transceiver.

PiHPSDR Transmit Audio Setting

To complete the transmit audio path we next need to look at the PiHPSDR transmit audio setting.

As can be seen in the screenshot above, the Local Microphone device in PiHPSDR is set to the Monitor of USB PnP Audio Device Analogue Stereo.

This effectively routes the digitised output audio from FreeDV (Output From Computer to Radio device) to the Input audio of PiHPSDR.

The reason for using the Monitor audio feed is because FreeDV does not recognise the Mic Input in PiHPSDR as a valid output device for FreeDV to use, hence we just need to monitor the FreeDV output device and use it as our input audio device in PiHPSDR.

This completes the transmit audio chain.

Receive Audio Chain

PiHPSDR Receive Audio Setting

Starting at the beginning of the receive audio chain we first look at the PiHPSDR receive audio setting.

In the screenshot above we can see that the receive audio output from PiHPSDR is set to
USB PnP Audio Device Analogue Stereo (USB Sound Card2). This is the DX station’s digitised audio as received by the Hermes Lite 2.

FreeDV Receive Audio Settings

Next let’s look at the receive audio setting in FreeDV.

The Input To Computer from Radio device is set to the monitor of the
USB PnP Audio Output Device:

alsa_output_usb_0c76_USB_PnP_Audio_Device-00.analog-stereo.monitor

This effectively routes the digitised audio output from the PiHPSDR receiver to the digitised audio input of FreeDV.

Once again we have to use the monitor of the USB PnP Audio Output device as FreeDV does not recognise the PiHPSDR output as a valid input device.

Next, the Output From Computer To Speaker/Headphones device is set to:

alsa_output.usb-Griffin_Technology_Inc_iMic_USB_audio_system-00.analog-stereo

This is the analogue audio output on the iMic USB Sound card (Sound Card 1) that routes the analogue audio to the headphones and completes the receive audio chain.

Summary

The audio routing required by FreeDV can appear very daunting when first attempting to configure it on the Linux platform but, hopefully the diagram and screenshots above will help in understanding the complete end-to-end audio chain that is required to make this mode work.

PiHPSDR can of course be replaced by your black box radio CODEC entries that will appear in the device lists shown above if you have your radio connected via USB. The config is basically the same but, just uses a different device instead of USB sound card 2 shown in the diagram above.

I hope this article is useful to those wanting to try FreeDV on the Linux platform and I look forward to hearing you on RADEv1.

More soon …

16 July 202518 July 2025

Trialing DeskHPSDR

For sometime I’ve been using PiHPSDR software to drive my Hermes Lite 2 (HL2) SDR transceiver. It’s a great piece of OpenSource software for SDR transceivers and has the best documentation that I have ever seen from an OpenSource project.

I must admit, I’ve had to make a few changes to get the software how I like it but, that’s the great thing about OpenSource software, you get the source code and can do what you like to it.

Following in this thread I recently decided to give DeskHPSDR a try.
DeskHPSDR is a fork of the original PiHPSDR but, with some changes mainly aimed at larger display computers.

After compiling DeskHPSDR on my Kubuntu Linux PC in the radio shack, I found there were a few issues, mainly the colours were hard on the eyes and band/channel markers wrong/missing on a few of bands.

DeskHPSDR default colour scheme on Kubuntu 22.04LTS (KDE-Plasma)

I decided to dive in and take a look at the source code and try and sort out the colour issues as blue writing on dark buttons made them almost impossible to read under a KDE-Plasma desktop.

Delving through the appearance.c and css.c files I found that there were many changes required to get the end result I wanted. The biggest pain is that you have to recompile the source code after each change to see if the code change had worked, this results in many recompiles, a tedious task.

After spending many hours making changes I decided to email Heiko, DL1BZ who is the developer of DeskHPSDR. Over a number of emails we discussed getting the colour management code changed such that it was read in at start time from a separate css file rather than having to be compiled into the main program.

After a few emails back and forth, Heiko changed the code so that a separate CSS file could be read in at start up instead of the hard coded CSS in the C code files, this worked great and made it much easier to make colour changes without constant compilations of the code.

Next I needed to edit the bands.c file to change some of the band edge markers to show the UK band plan as, by default they are incorrect even though I have the region set to UK.

Editing the appearance.c file once more I was able to change the colour of the rather bright green panadapter signal display to a much more pleasing blue fading to red as the signal gets stronger.

One thing I really like about PiHPSDR was the channel markers on the 60m band. Anyone that uses the 60m band will know that the UK allocation is split into 11 different channels separated by spaces used by the primary user of the band. The channel markers make it just that bit easier to ensure you don’t stray out of the allocated channels however, this code had been removed from DeskHPSDR as Heiko didn’t consider it necessary.

Once again I pinged an email over to Heiko explaining how useful it is to UK HAMs and he very kindly put the code back into DeskHPSDR so that the 60m channels are once more clearly visible on the panadapter.

DeskHPSDR modified colour scheme on Kubuntu 22.04LTS (KDE-Plasma)

Feeling happy with the new colour configuration I decided to test it out on Linuxmint Cinnamon. Sadly the scheme that looked so nice under Kubuntu 22.04LTS didn’t look the same under Linuxmint and so I had to set about coming up with a version of the CSS file for this platform too.

After quite a few hours tinkering with CSS code I found it to be impossible to get the colour scheme on Linuxmint Cinnamon Edition identical to that I’d created under Kubuntu KDE-Plasma so, I settled for a look that was as close as possible.

DeskHPSDR on Linuxmint Cinnamon Edition with colour modifications.

Chatting with Steve, M0XVT we thought it would be a good idea to test it on his Kubuntu Linux and Linuxmint PCs. He is using a later version of Kubuntu than I am (24.04LTS) and so, it would be a good test to see if the colour scheme looked the same.

Sadly it turns out that for some bizarre reason the colours come out different in the later version of Kubuntu. This is a real nuisance as it means we’d need a separate colour scheme defining for each version of the O/S. Perhaps using CSS isn’t the best way to define a colour scheme in applications.

For some very strange reason the colours were also rendered differently on his Linuxmint PC even though he was using the same version of the O/S as I am.

DeskHPSDR running on Kubuntu 24.04LTS with colour scheme not rendering correctly

Another issue was found whilst testing on Steve’s computers which seems to be caused by the fact he uses an Anan 200D SDR.

Looking at the documentation on github in theory DeskHPSDR should support the Anan range of SDR transceivers however, we found that it’s impossible to select the sample rate as the drop down selection list is completely missing from the Radio menu with the radio defaulting to its lowest sample rate of 48k resulting in not being able to see the full spectrum of frequency ranges on the bands.

DeskHPSDR Sample Rate drop down missing when using an Anan SDR

The other thing to note is that the Remote Server functionality has also been removed from the code by Heiko as he feels it’s not necessary. This may be a deal breaker for some and so they may choose not to use DeskHPSDR and to continue using PiHPSDR instead.

I will at some point make the O/S specific CSS files and source code available for download for those that want to use DeskHPSDR with my colour scheme changes.

I’m not sure at the moment whether I will continue using DeskHPSDR or go back to PiHPSDR, time will tell.

More soon…

22 April 202523 April 2025

1946 Philips 170A-15 RadioBerry Receiver Project

Back in January 2025 I wrote an article about a little RadioBerry Project I’d started that was based around a very old Philips 170A-15 receiver from 1946.

The idea of the project was to build a nice shortwave receiver for the radio shack based around the RadioBerry HAT on a RaspberryPi 4 housed in a vintage receiver cabinet.

The project has taken longer than I imagined due to getting side-tracked by other projects that I already had ongoing.

1946 Philips 170A-15 Shortwave Receiver Internal View

With the original internals removed there’s plenty of room inside for the RadioBerry, RaspberryPi 4 and the small 15w audio amplifier. The audio is delivered via a pair of Celestion speakers that I had that were originally part of an old surround sound TV system.

Power distribution is achieved very simply using a multi-plug adapter that also has USB A connections in it. The whole thing is then powered via one 240v mains cable.

The screen fits over the original opening for the glass tuning display and is held in place by two mounting screws on the rear of the LCD panel.

I purchased some new speaker grill cloth from Amazon and remade the speaker grill front with cut outs for the speakers. It looks really tidy and matches the rest of the bakelite cabinet nicely.

1946 Philips 170A-15 Shortwave Receiver RadioBerry HAT on RaspberryPi 4

To finish the project off I need to purchase 3 rotary encoders so that I can have a VFO knob and two more knobs for other things (to be determined). The Volume control is already in place with the original knob fitted to it. It will be nice to complete the 4 knob line up.

1946 Philips 170A-15 Shortwave Receiver Rear Panel

I had to make a couple of fittings top and bottom to hold the original rear panel in place but, it worked out just fine and I only had to fit an SO239 antenna connector and ethernet RJ45 port so that it can be connected to my local LAN.

Receiving radio Caroline on 648Khz

The audio quality from the little RadioBerry and 15w amp is pretty good. With the speakers hidden nicely behind the refurbished speaker grill the project looks quite tidy!

It also makes a great receiver for the HAM bands with it’s coverage of 100Khz to 30Mhz.

The DL1YCF Enhanced fork of PiHPSDR works really well on the touchscreen and provides a modern control interface to the RadioBerry HAT.

Listening to the 20m HAM Band

I’ll drop a final article once I have purchased the 3 rotary encoders to fill the 3 remaining holes in the front of the cabinet.

More soon …

17 April 202517 April 2025

Updates to my install-pihpsdr.sh script

Over the last few weeks I’ve been working on my install-pihpsdr script to build a version of the DL1YCF PiHPSDR fork that will work with the Adalm Pluo, Pluto+ and LibreSDR transceivers.

Since I don’t own any of these devices, Steve M0XVT has loaned me his Adalm Pluto and LibreSDR devices to test with.

Initially neither of the devices would work with the PiHPSDR build that my script was creating. After some investigation I found this was due to the fact that the developer build script was only building the SOAPYSDR library, it wasn’t building the modules for each device type.

This was easily fixed by adding some extra code that would build the necessary SOAPYSDR modules so that the devices were discovered on the local LAN.

Since I had the devices to hand I took the opportunity to test the updated build script on a number of Linux Distro’s that I have to hand.

PiHPSDR running on Linuxmint 22.1 Cinnamon Edition using the LibreSDR transceiver

I tested the updated build script on Kubuntu 22.04LTS, Linuxmint 22.1 Cinnamon Edition and RaspberryPi 4/5 running the latest RaspberryPi OS 64bit version.

These all worked great with the transceivers and will now make a great platform for QO-100 stations that use either the Adalm Pluto, Pluto+ or LibreSDR devices.

Of course this build of PiHPSDR will also work with the Hermes Lite 2 and RadioBerry devices that I use most of the time in my own radio shack.

The updated PiHPSDR install script can be downloaded from my original blog article on the subject that is located here: https://m0aws .co.uk/?p=3686

The updated build script will most likely work on most Debian based Linux distro’s and build a working version of PiHPSDR. If you find a distro where you have problems please email me and let me know the details and I’ll happily look at the issue and try to resolve it.

Thanks to Steve for the loan of his precious SDR transceivers, I had a lot of fun with them!

More soon …

29 January 202529 January 2025

Breathing new life into a vintage receiver

Sometime back I purchased a RadioBerry HAT for my RaspberryPi 4 single board computer (SBC) to use as an experimental platform to test PiHPSDR software modifications and to test changes to the actual RadioBerry software. With these two projects completed I decided that the receiver on the RadioBerry was so good it would be a shame not to put it to good use.

For many decades I’ve been an avid Short Wave Listener (SWL) but, haven’t had a general coverage receiver for many years. The RadioBerry fills this gap in my radio lineup perfectly but, needs to be put into a suitable cabinet with speakers, display, control knobs and antenna connections.

Rather than just buy another bland square box I decided it would be nice to repurpose an old, vintage radio receiver from a bygone era and bring it into the 21st Century.

1950 Philips valve radio receiver — 1946 Philips valve radio receiver

After much searching on the popular auction sites online I eventually found the perfect old receiver for the project, a vintage Philips 170A-15 valve receiver from 1946.

This lovely old Art Deco looking receiver is made from Bakelite which was an early type of plastic made from phenol-formaldehyde resin, obtained from coal tar and methanol.

The full specification for the receiver can be found on the Radio Museum Website.

Sadly this is a non working example of this lovely old receiver and so I don’t feel so guilty stripping it out and replacing it’s internals with the RadioBerry.

1946 Philips receiver Serial Number plate

1946 Philips receiver Licence Plate — 1946 Philips receiver Serial Number plate

Having the original serial number and Licence plate on the radio is nice, it also makes it easy to search for information about the old receiver.

One nice thing I did discover during the disassembly of the receiver was the signature of the person that put the radio together during manufacture on the inside of the Bakelite cabinet.

Getting the internals out of the cabinet was fun, so many little screws holding the old valve electronics and tuning display in place.

1946 Philips Receiver - Internal View — 1946 Philips Receiver – Internal View

1946 Philips receiver - removing the original control knobs — 1946 Philips Receiver – Internal View

Once the electrical part of the radio was removed I gained access to the old speaker that was fitted to the front panel of the receiver. Unfortunately the speaker cone had a tear in it rendering it useless so I’ll need to get a new speaker(s) for the rebuild.

Once I got the speaker and fittings removed I set about cleaning the cabinet inside and out to remove the 79 years worth of dirt and grime that had collected within. The fascia of the receiver cabinet seems to have lost it’s shine and will need to be polished to get it back to it’s original beauty.

79 years worth of grime and dirt to be removed!

Washing the Bakelite receiver case — 79 years worth of grime and dirt to be removed!

It took 5 lots of fresh water and washing up liquid to get the cabinet clean. The first three lots of water looked like mud in no time at all such was the state of the cabinet.

With the cabinet now cleaned and put to one side to dry thoroughly I have started to search for the best type of polish to use to put the sheen back onto it.

Once I’ve got the cabinet looking good again I’ll start fitting the new internals. I also need to find a source for a new piece of material to cover the speaker hole at the front of the cabinet as the original material is looking somewhat tired.

The old Philips Emblem from 1946 on the receiver case

More soon …

14 December 202428 February 2025

Building a new Desktop Environment for the RaspberryPi 5

Regular readers of my blog will already know that I am a huge fan of the Linux operating system, it’s clearly evident in most of the content on this website.

I am also a very enthusiastic user of one of the first credit card sized computers that came to be, namely the RaspberryPi. I own all the iterations of this wonderful little computer from the very first version to the latest and greatest, RaspberryPi 5.

This little computer has done more for computing in education than Microsoft and Apple will ever achieve and it’s done it at an incredibly low price making it more accessible to schools, colleges and students than any other platform.

The RaspberryPi has what most consider to be the best support on the planet when it comes to single board computers (SBCs). From the dedicated team that build Raspberry Pi OS, to all the amazing projects and forums that are available, for free on the internet today.

The RaspberryPi computer really has revolutionised computing for the masses.

My RaspberryPi 5 that I am writing this article on — My RaspberryPi 5 that I am using to write this article.

Raspberry Pi OS really is very good. It’s based on the great Debian distro’ that many of us seasoned Linux users dearly love. It’s light weight, fast and meets the needs of everyone that is venturing into the exciting world of Linux and SBCs for the first time.

Overtime as we all become more experienced with Linux on the RaspberryPi we become more demanding and start to find the Raspberry Pi OS desktop environment lacking. Sure it can be enhanced by adding more and more to it however, it never quite reaches the point of satisfaction and we are always wishing for something more.

With the Pi-5, the latest iteration of this great credit card sized computer, users are now able to seriously think about building a more powerful desktop environment for their little berry flavoured computers.

On my desktop PCs dotted around the house I have used Kubuntu for decades. It’s a slick and powerful desktop environment that has met my needs for many years and I love it more than any other Linux desktop. Sadly Kubuntu isn’t easily available out the box for the RaspberryPi and so I decided that it was time to replicate it as closely as possible on my new, super powerful RaspberryPi 5.

When I ordered my RaspberryPi 5 from Pimoroni I added the NVMe base and 250GB M.2 SSD drive to the order. Up until now I’d always used SD cards however, they are slow and unreliable and so I decided that since the Pi-5 has PCIe it was time to take the step away from SD cards and start using SSD technology.

Getting the OS onto the SSD is a two stage affair. First you have to create a bootable SD card to boot the Pi-5 from and then use it via the RaspberryPi Imager to install the OS onto the SSD. It’s a bit long winded but, easy enough.

Since I’m a huge Kubuntu fan I decided my desktop of choice for my new Pi-5 was going to be KDE-Plasma. I had tried to install this desktop before on older model Pi’s however, it ran so slow that it was unusable. With the new Pi-5’s increased computing power and the speed of the SSD I was confident that this was now possible.

I started out installing the Lite version of Raspberry Pi OS on the SSD. This is a command line only version of Linux that doesn’t include any desktop environment, a nice clean slate to start from.

RaspberryPi Imager showing Pi OS Liite (64bit) — RaspberryPi Imager showing Pi OS Lite (64bit)

Once the Lite version of the OS was installed on the SSD I shutdown the Pi-5 and removed the SD card and then powered the Pi-5 back up again so that it booted from the SSD.

Upon booting I was presented with the simple Linux Login prompt. After entering my username and password as setup during OS install I landed at the Linux command prompt.

sudo su -

I used sudo to become root user as shown above and then set about building my new KDE based super computer. First I needed to update the operating system with all the latest patches and security fixes.

apt update && apt dist-upgrade

The update and upgrade process ran for a while but, it was soon complete.

reboot

I issued the reboot command and then logged back in again, I was now ready to start building the KDE desktop environment.

sudo su -
apt install kde-plasma-desktop gldriver-test

Becoming root again I type the command to install the KDE-Plasma desktop and the graphics-related config services. There’s a lot of packages to download and install so, I left it to do its thing.

A little while later all the packages were installed and ready to go. I now needed to tell the system to boot into the new graphical user interface instead of the command prompt using systemctl.

systemctl set-default graphical.target

Once this was done I needed to make a change to the display settings using the raspi-config program.

raspi-config

Selecting No.2 on the menu, Display Options and then D2 Screen Blanking, I disabled screen blanking so that I got the full 4K support for my KDE Desktop.

Once the system had been configured for a graphical user interface there was only one thing left to do and that was to shutdown the RaspberryPi.

shutdown -h now

The beautiful KDE-Plasma Desktop on RaspberryPi 5

Powering the Pi-5 back up again I was greeted by the standard KDE Plasma login screen and then, after logging in I was transported to the beautiful KDE desktop. I was now smiling like a Cheshire cat!

The KDE desktop is incredibly snappy on the Pi-5 with an SSD, app’s open instantly and run with minimum CPU exertion. It was now time to load the rest of the KDE application suite to complete the build. Popping open a terminal I hit the command line once more.

sudo su -
apt install kde-full vim yakuake vlc firefox rsyslog

This loads the full set of KDE applications adding just about everything you’ll ever need to the desktop environment. It’s about 1GB of packages and so depending on your internet speed it could take a while but, it’s well worth the wait.

Once complete you are ready to go with a fully functional, snappy, powerful desktop.

I’m extremely pleased with the performance of the Pi-5. KDE is super fast, snappy and responsive. With 8GB of RAM on tap the RaspberryPi has no problem with performance. The Pi-5 and KDE-Plasma really do make a great desktop computer at an incredible cheap price.

Looking for a new computer?

Add a cheap USB sound card and a pair of speakers and this little setup will meet the needs of 90% of the population with ease and go on to satisfy the more seasoned, demanding Linux user or programmer without breaking the bank.

More soon …