Code – M0AWS Amateur Radio

25 June 20261 July 2026

Node-Red Control Dashboard for AllStarLink 3

I’ve recently built a new AllStarLink (ASL) node for my MB7IBW gateway that I have recently brought up on air on the 2m band.

AllStarLink 3 has a lot of changes in it when compared to the previous version and this of course impacts my Node-Red Control Dashboard that I’ve been using to manage my first ASL node for well over a year now.

To build the node I used the RaspberryPi imager and added the AllStarlink 3 image as detailed on the allstarlink.org website.

Installing the system this way makes it pretty easy compared to previous installs but, it comes with some quirks which cause issues with Node-Red.

From the outset the plan has always been to have AllStartLink 3 and Node-Red running on the same Pi4 to keep it totally self contained. This was easy enough to achieve and works without issue.

Node-Red Control Dashboard for AllStarLink 3

Installing Node-Red onto a Pi4 is really easy and is fully documented on the Node-Red Website.

Once the AllStarLink 3 operating system was installed on my SD card, booted and operational I installed Node-Red. I soon realised that there were a few things I had to do before loading the Node-Red flow.

AllStarLink 3 no longer logs connect and disconnect messages in the connectlog like it did in AllStarLink 2. To get logging working again I had to create two new BASH scripts as detailed below and put them into /etc/asterisk/myscripts.

For the connect information I created the BASH script as detailed below.

#!/bin/bash

# /etc/asterisk/myscripts/connectlog.sh

echo $1 Connected $2  on $(date +"%T") - $(date +"%m-%d-%Y")  >> /var/log/asterisk/connectlog

For the disconnect information I created the 2nd script detailed below.

#!/bin/bash

# /etc/asterisk/myscripts/disconnectlog.sh

echo $1 Disconnected $2  on $(date +"%T") - $(date +"%m-%d-%Y")  >> /var/log/asterisk/connectlog

Once these scripts were created I had to change the ownership and privileges as detailed below.

cd /etc/asterisk/myscripts
chown asterisk:asterisk ./*
chmod 750 ./*

I also had to change ownership/privileges of /etc/asterisk/myscripts.

cd /etc/asterisk
chown asterisk:asterisk ./myscripts
chmod 755 ./myscripts

Once the two scripts were in place I had to alter the asterisk config so that it called the scripts as part of the connect/disconnect process.

I found the connpgm and discpgm entries in /etc/asterisk/rpt.conf and changed them as shown below.

connpgm = /etc/asterisk/myscripts/connectlog.sh

discpgm = /etc/asterisk/myscripts/disconnectlog.sh

Next I disabled the temporary filesystems that are used by default for the apache and asterisk logging as it’s useful to keep the apache logs for debugging and I needed the asterisk logs for the Node-Red dashboard.

Disabling the temporary file system is very easy to do, just edit the /etc/fstab and comment out the two lines as shown below.

# Comment out the next line for persistent Apache logs
#tmpfs  /var/log/apache2        tmpfs   defaults,noatime,nosuid,nodev,noexec,mode=0775,size=32M 0 0

# Comment out the next line for persistent Asterisk logs
#tmpfs  /var/log/asterisk       tmpfs   defaults,noatime,nosuid,nodev,noexec,mode=0775,size=32M,uid=102,gid=106 0 0 

# Note: These lines are wrapped, should be on 1 line in the /etc/fstab

Once the entries in the /etc/fstab were commented out I rebooted the Pi4 to get persistent filesystems.

The final thing that had to be done was to allow user repeater to use sudo without a password so that it could be used to perform reboot/shutdown/process restart as user root from within the dashboard.

# /etc/sudoers

# Allow repeater sudo without password
repeater ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

Once this was all done I imported the Node-Red flow, configured the SSH nodes with login credentials for the Pi4 (important to use the user repeater for SSH), clicked deploy and the dashboard was ready for use.

Node Red AllStarLink3 Control Dashboard Flow

I’ve been using the dashboard for a few weeks now and it’s running perfectly, without error.

If you want to build your own Node-Red Control Dashboard for your AllStarLink 3 node then, just download the flow using the button below and import it into your flow editor.

M0AWS ASL3 Control Dashboard Download

More soon …

30 May 20263 June 2026

Node-Red Dashboard for AllStarLink 3 Nodes

I’ve spent some time this afternoon modifying my Node-Red Dashboard for controlling AllStarLink nodes to work with the new AllStarLink version 3.

My original AllStarLink Control Dashboard was designed to work with AllStarLink 2 which I have running on an old RaspberryPi 3b on the 70cm band. The dashboard has worked reliably ever since deployment and is in use daily.

With the release of AllStarLink 3 and all the changes that it entails I’ve had to make a few changes to the dashboard flows in order to make it compatible with AllStarLink 3 nodes.

This entails not only flow changes but also the addition of two new bash scripts that are called by Asterisk to log connect and disconnect messages as they are not logged by default any more. (Seems a bit of a step backwards)

Node-Red AllStarLink Control Dashboard v3.0 for ASL3

The changes also entail disabling the temporary filesystems used by default in the new ASL3 build so that log files etc become persistent.

I’ll spend some time using the new dashboard to ensure it’s working correctly and then will release it into the wild for all those that are brave enough to move over to AllStarLink 3.

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 …

1 December 20252 December 2025

Virtual Machines on RaspberryPi 5

RaspberryPi computers are now moving into the realm of being powerful enough to replace the traditional desktop PC. My most recent purchase, a RaspberryPi 500+ is proof of this as it has been my daily desktop PC since it’s arrival.

One of the things I use heavily are virtual machines. They’re great for developing, prototyping and running new services. With the ability to snapshot, rollback and backup in an instant, virtualisation helps to reduce the development and test time for many of the programs and services that I’m playing with.

With RaspberryPi computers now supporting 16GB of RAM and M.2 SSD drives there is no reason for not taking advantage of virtualisation.

To this end I decided to test running some virtualised loads on my new 500+ with the plan to deploy to 16GB Pi5’s with SSD drives in place of more expensive Intel based computers.

On my Intel based machines I use QEMU, KVM and Virt-Manager to manage the multitude of virtual machines (VMs) I have running here. Since this is a solid, high performance platform for running VMs I decided to take the same route on the 500+

Installing the necessary packages is extremely simple, just one simple apt command:

sudo apt install qemu-kvm libvirt-daemon-system libvirt-clients virt-manager bridge-utils

Note: If you’re using Debian 13 (Trixie) then the apt command to use is:

sudo apt install qemu-system-arm libvirt-daemon-system libvirt-clients virt-manager bridge-utils

The qemu-kvm package doesn’t exist in Debian 13 and so you have to replace it with the qemu-system-arm package.

To be able to create and run VMs you need to add yourself to the libvirt and libvirt-qemu groups.

sudo usermod -a -G libvirt your_username
sudo usermod -a -G libvirt-qemu your_username

Of course you can do it the old-fashioned way by editing the /etc/group file and adding your username to each group.

You’ll need to create a bridged ethernet device for the VMs to use to access the ethernet interface on your RaspberryPi.

If like me you don’t use NetworkManager the easiest way to create a bridge is to define it in your /etc/network/interfaces file.

For this example I am using an IP Address of 192.168.0.100, gateway on 192.168.0.1 with a netmask of 255.255.255.0 and DNS nameserver on 192.168.0.5.

The normal entry in the interfaces file would look like this:

# Main ethernet
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.0.100
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.0.1
dns-nameservers 192.168.0.5
dns-domain lan.local
dns-search lan.local
#
#

To create a bridge this entry needs to change to:

# Main ethernet
# Setup Bridge called br1 on eth0
allow-hotplug eth0
iface eth0 inet manual
auto br1
iface br1 inet static
address 192.168.0.100
network 192.168.0.0
netmask 255.255.255.0
broadcast 192.168.0.255
gateway 192.168.0.1
dns-nameservers 192.168.0.5
bridge_ports eth0
bridge_stp off
#
#

Once this is done reboot your RaspberryPi and check you have access to your local LAN and of course the internet. You will now also inherit the two new groups that you added yourself to above.

Note: If you are using NetworkManager open the network settings app and create a bridge on eth0. You can also use the nmtui copmmandline app if you prefer.

At this point you’re ready to create your first virtual machine.

It’s important to have an arm64 version of Linux in ISO format that you can use to install into your VM. My preferred distro is Debian and so I downloaded the Debian 13 Arm64 netinst ISO from the debian.org website.

From the main menu start “Virtual machine Manager” or on the commandline type:

virt-manager

Click the Create new VM button and then navigate to where you saved your ISO file and select it as the installation media.

Virtual Machine Manager - Local install media — Virtual Machine Manager – Local install media

Virtual Machine Manager - Select ISO file — Virtual Machine Manager – Select ISO file

Once you’ve chosen your ISO you’ll need to configure the actual VM. Start by setting the amount of RAM and number of virtual CPUs you want the VM to have.

Virtual Machine Manager - Configure RAM and CPU — Virtual Machine Manager – Configure RAM and CPU

Next set the size of the virtual disk that the VM will use.

Virtual Machine Manager - Create virtual disk — Virtual Machine Manager – Create virtual disk

Finally, give the VM a name and set its network device to br0 as created above. Click finish and your VM will boot.

Virtual Machine Manager - Name VM and select bridge interface — Virtual Machine Manager – Name VM and select bridge interface

Now it’s just a case of going through the standard Debian install process to build your Debian VM.

Virtual Machine Manager - Boot ISO — Virtual Machine Manager – Boot ISO

Virtual machine Manager - Running standard Debian install — Virtual machine Manager – Running standard Debian install

Once the installation is complete and the VM has rebooted you will have a functional Debian computer ready to use for whatever you like, just like a physical PC but, in virtual form. You’ll find that the VM runs as fast as the actual physical machine thanks to the kernel based virtualisation.

Virtual Machine Manager - Running VM — Virtual Machine Manager – Running VM

For more information on Virtual Machine Manager take a look at the Ubuntu Server documentation.

More soon …

20 October 2025

Coding a new version of adi2html in Python3

I’ve spent some considerable time of late coding a new version of adi2html that I use to convert my ADIF log files into online web pages for all my HAM Radio logs.

The old version that I wrote quite some time ago was written using BASH shell which was quick and easy at the time but, as the logs grew in size it got slower and slower to process the ever increasing number of log entries.

Now I’m retired I have the time to revisit these things and write better, more modern versions of my various programs that run silently in the background.

Writing the new version of adi2html in Python3

It’s taken a little over a week to put this code together, test and debug it, I don’t like to rush these things!

I’ve finally put v1.2 into production today.

The 585 lines of code produce a very nice, modern looking web page and can be used to convert any ADIF file into HTML. The code is extremely quick, taking less than a second to process almost 2500 log entries, a huge improvement over the old version of adi2html.

All of my logs are available here on my blog under the Logs menu above, feel free to have a look at them.

I now need to rewrite the log search functionality so that it uses the same format of presentation for the results.

More soon …

5 March 2025

Signal on RaspberryPi without Snap!

Let me start this article by confessing that I hate Snap on Linux!

The whole idea that you’d need a container type environment to install an application on a Unix system is very far from where I want to be.

It annoys me that snaps are updated automatically too. I know you can disable this but, I shouldn’t have too. App’s should only get updated when I want to update them, not before.

What I really hate is the fact that the Snap back end system is proprietary and owned solely by Canonical, the Ubuntu people. This goes against my OpenSource ethos.

Sadly I had to install Snap to get the Signal messenger app installed on my RaspberryPi 5 desktop computer. App’s installed via Snap are extremely slow to start, run slow and are heavy on resources. Snap also mounts a whole bunch of dependency Snaps via loop devices to make the app work. Snaps make a real mess of your system.

The final straw that broke the camel’s back for me was when Snap did an automatic upgrade to Signal to a version that has a serious bug in it causing it to crash a minute or so after startup. I initially reverted to the previous version to get it working again but, sure enough Snap did another auto-update and broke it again.

This time I couldn’t revert back to the previous version as Canonical, in their infinite wisdom decided to remove the previous version of Signal from their Snap store!

At this point I removed the Signal Snap from my computer, along with all the “hanger on” snap packages that were clogging up the RaspberyyPi 5 and finally did a complete purge of snapd using dpkg to get rid of all the horrendous snap mount points on the file system.

After a reboot I then went hunting for the Signal messenger app source code. Looking through the code it’s not a 5min job to get it compiled on a RaspberryPi and so I followed a few of the forked versions to see if someone had already done all the hard work for me.

After disappearing down a few Rabbit Holes I eventually stumbled into the world of Pi Apps.

Pi Apps is a neat little app that provides access to the “most popular app store for RaspberryPi computers”. It’s 100% free, OpenSource and written in shell scripts. Perfect!

Installing the “Pi Apps” app is straight forward and only takes a few moments.

Pi-Apps - App store for RaspberryPi — Pi-Apps – App store for RaspberryPi

Opening Pi-Apps I found a multitude of OpenSource apps all ready to be installed at the click of a button. In no time at all I’d found Signal and had it installed without getting anywhere near the dreaded Snap.

The version of Signal available at the time of writing this article is v7.39.0 which is fine as this is a stable, bug free version that works reliably.

If you’re using a RaspberryPi computer I can highly recommend you install the Pi-Apps app to enhance your collection of great OpenSource programmes to make your little raspberry flavoured buddy even more useful.

More soon …

19 November 202429 November 2024

Another new radio!

Many years ago when I lived in France I had a Flex-3000 transceiver, one of the first fully SDR transceivers on the market. It was paired with a proprietary Windows XP application called PowerSDR (now Opensource and called Thetis) and connected via a firewire connection.

17 years later I am once again venturing into the world of SDR transceivers in the form of a Hermes Lite 2. (HL2)

The HL2 hardware is available via the Makerfabs website in kit form. I ordered the HL2 motherboard, the N2ADR Filter Board to ensure a clean signal from the transceiver and the enclosure. Total cost for all the parts and shipping was £288.00 including all taxes.

The kit took about 10 or so days to arrive and was very easy to put together making sure to fit the PA transistor heat sink the right way round so that it doesn’t short out the main board. (There are many videos about this on YouTube)

Once the hardware was put together I needed to install some software to control/drive the HL2. Being a heavy weight Linux user my software choice had to come from the Opensource world.

M0AWS Hermes Lite 2 SDR Trasnceiver and Xiegu XPA125B Amplifier

After much research and chatting with other HAMs on the Matrix who have the HL2 I found that most people use the closed source SDR Console software to control the transceiver. Since this software is for Windows it’s not something I can use as I don’t have any Windows PCs, they’re all Linux only.

To this end I started researching Linux SDR software for the HL2 and decided that PiHPSDR was the one I was going to try first.

PiHPSDR was originally written for the RaspberryPi 3/4/5 single board computers (SBCs) but, I wanted to have a go at compiling it on my Kubunu Linux desktop PC. I found it straight forward to follow the instructions in the pihpsdr-install.pdf file and in no time at all I had the software compiled and running.

PiHPSDT running on Kubuntu Linux 22.04LTS — PiHPSDR running on Kubuntu Linux 22.04LTS

PiHPSDR is infinitely configurable and thus it feels like it has an infinite number of menus and options. Since the HL2 has two separate receivers, it’s possible to listen to two bands at the same time. This is the one feature I really missed more than anything with my FTDX10 so, I’m glad to have dual receive capability back once more!

Going through all the settings I realised that the A and B VFOs have individual settings. Initially I setup the software using just VFO A but, when I switched over to VFO B none of my settings were there. I then had the realisation that the settings apply only to the active VFO. I quickly went through all the settings again for VFO B and all was well.

In no time at all I was on the air with just 5w as my Xiegu amp hadn’t arrived. Not being perturbed I tuned up on the 15m band and started searching for stations. Interestingly it was CQWW SSB weekend and the band was full of contest stations. Working my way along the spectrum I found I was able to work quite a few stations with ease using my vertical and inverted-L antennas.

Contacts of note were VE3KG at 3406 Miles, VE3JM at 3382 Miles, RW9DX at 2380 Miles, KC1XX at 3331 Miles and N1DE at 3600 Miles. I also worked a bunch of European stations and had a great time giving away points with my little QRP rig.

Contests are a good time to try out new radios as all the big stations with good ears are on the bands and make the effort to get us QRP guys in their logs.

I have been extremely impressed with the receivers in the HL2 radio. It handles both strong and weak stations exceptionally well. PiHPSDR really does have brick-wall filtering and I was able to work the weaker stations right next to large contest stations with ease. At no time did the front-end of the receiver get overloaded.

Below is a short video clip of a conversation on the 80m band. The band was quite noisy however, with a reduction of the AGC gain and the 2700Hz filter it’s possible to remove almost all the noise.

Hermes Lite 2 SSB reception on the 80m Band

On CW the radio is a real delight. With the filtering and AGC gain control I am able to use extremely narrow receive filters without any ringing whatsoever. I would say that on CW the HL2 is as good as my FTDX10 when it comes to receiving even the weakest of stations.

I’m sure on paper the FTDX10 receiver has better numbers however, to the ear there really is no discernible difference.

Below is a short video clip of D4DX on CW on the 80m band. The band was noisy but, with the 100Hz filter enabled and clever use of the AGC Gain I was able to remove almost all the noise completely, reducing fatigue on the ears and making reception very easy even though there was some fairly deep QSB at times.

Receiving D4DX on CW on the 80m band using 100Hz filter and reduced AGC gain

A few days later my Xiegu XPA125B amplifier arrived. Unfortunately the amp didn’t come with the normal PTT lead that comes from the factory and is detailed in the user manual. For some bizarre reason this is a chargeable option when you buy the amp from Martin Lynch and Sons even though it is included from the factory.

This meant I had to make a lead which was a problem as I didn’t have one of the mini DIN plugs required for the connection to the amplifier. Jumping onto Amazon I ordered a packet of two and sat back and waited for their arrival.

A couple of days later the DIN plugs arrived and I quickly made up the necessary phono/RCA to mini DIN lead and got the amp operational.

The Xiegu XPA125B isn’t cheap but, it’s a really nice bit of kit. The neat little LCD display keeps you informed of power O/P, I/P and O/P SWR, voltage, current draw, temperature and band selected.

With just 0.7w of input from the HL2 I’m able to get a full 100w O/P from the amp. On the lower bands I have to reduce the O/P from the Hermes Lite 2 even further so that I don’t over drive the amp.

Being an avid Short Wave Listener (SWL) I wanted to see how the HL2 performed when listening to the big AM broadcast stations. To my surprise it makes an excellent SWL receiver with better AM demodulation than many of the more expensive radios. Having the option to select receive filters up to 16Khz wide I found I was able to get the best audio possible from many of the broadcast stations including Radio Caroline on 648Khz. It’s quite an improvement over the 12Khz maximum on the FTDX10.

Listening to AM Broadcast stations

What makes this project even more exciting is that both the hardware and software are from the OpenHardware/OpenSource world. The complete circuit diagram, PCB layout and information is available for all to download, something you don’t often see these days!

PiHPSDR is one of the nicest SDR applications I’ve seen in the Linux world and even comes with a 200 page downloadable user manual. Something you don’t see in many Opensource projects. The source code for the application is downloadable and you are able to make your own changes to it without restriction.

Overall I am really pleased with the Hermes Lite 2 SDR transceiver.
It has two excellent receivers, is infinitely configurable via the PiHPSDR software and performs extremely well under all conditions. Since getting the radio I haven’t even switched on the FTDX10.

More soon …

18 October 202418 October 2024

AllStarLink Control Dashboard v1.2 update

I’ve been working on squashing some bugs in my Node-RED AllStarLink Control Dashboard with the help of Steve, M0XVT which has resulted in a new version of the flow now being available for download below.

If you’re reading this and aren’t too sure what it is all about then, have a look at my original article detailing the Node-RED AllStarLink Control Dashboard that I developed and wrote about back in September 2024 and hopefully it’ll all make sense.

This new version of the flow resolves an issue whereby the dashboard used an incorrect node number for the node it connects to resulting in it not working unless a piece of code was changed. The update was a simple change to add a couple of nodes that connect to the RaspberryPi and read the Asterisk/AllStarLink node number from the asterisk configuration files at startup.

Node-RED AllStarLink Control Dashboard v1.2 additional sub flow

I also fixed another bug whereby the buttons could show a false connect on a button when the user connects to another node via AllMon2/Supermon instead.

This flow no longer has the blue spare button as it now connects to a node in Melbourne Australia.

Node-RED AllStarLink Control Dashboard v1.2

You can download the new, v1.2 updated flow below and import it to your Node-RED flow editor using the standard import tool from the burger menu in the flow editor.

AllStarLink-Dashboard-v1-2 Download

Huge thank you to Steve, M0XVT for his patience and testing skills during the debugging and testing of the fixes to the flow.

More soon …