Hello Linux, goodbye windows, please don't come back.....

I did it.... it took me a while..... had doubts.... was scared...

But yesterday evening i made backups of everything , and loaded the Debian 7 cd into the dvd drive...
I took 2 minutes of silence while Debian quickly and effectively killed my windows partitions and took over my system....

And after apt-getting a load of tools .....

Not sorry yet, do not think i will be..... the system performs like a amd64 4000+ with 8gb of ram again...
Not like an old slugish pentium2.

CQRlog is what you see running... in a few weeks i will write a post concerning installing and using this awesome tool.

Linux in your shack....

The title, "Linux in your shack" could/shoud have some other title's then this for what this post is going to be about....

• New competition for HRD
• Linux now good enough for all kinda HAM's
• CQRLOG... omg !

Let's start with some background about me... I am a IT consultant, and i do this for most platforms available today, window, Mac and most UX flavours. I even remember some OS/390 and mainframe from the days. The reason I made the choice not to be a windows only consultant is.... well i just don't like to use windows.... I love it because it makes sure I have a nice income and plenty of work.

So do i use windows in the shack.... Yes i do.... Do i like it... no not at all....
Then you all probably wonder why i did not throw windows out and installed Linux.
 Well for 1 reason... I use Ham Radio Deluxe 5.... Which is in my opinion the best all in one free (wel version 5 is) solution for a ham. Or isn't it....

There already was a really nice alternative on the MAC, being MacLoggerDX
The people at "dog park software ltd" made a realy nice piece of software.
But it will cost you 95USD (which is not bad tbh as HRD6 is 99.95 )

But now for linux...
I tried to find a good replacement for HRD for a long while now and i did not find anything near to HRD. This does not mean i did not find any good software on linux, just not 1 program (or set of programs that communicate together)  that will do everything. Until a few days back....
I stumbled on CQRLOG ,  don't ask me how, but i did...

Now.... CQRLOG.... this piece of software has been developed by 2 Czech Hams...
Petr, OK2CQR and Martin, OK1RR, and they made what I think is the 1st real alternative for HDR for when you want to swap to linux.
Now for screen shots look at their website. The screen shots  show a part of what the program can do.
User screen shots are there as well and look awesome

Yes, CQRLOG has (almost) all!! Log, cluster, rig and rotor control, QRZ and HAMQTH, LotW/eQSL, and the list goes on and on .....

Now, the main thing with linux.... installing niece software can be a pain in the a$$.
Is this the case with CQRLOG.... uhmmm yes and no.
I installed it on Debian Weezy (7) and all went fairly smooth until i started to do rig control.
I forgot to add my non root user to the dailout group. and the debian installer does not do this for you!
Now i imagine this is the same for ubuntu, but i don't use that.
So after smacking myself over the head (which did not help my headache) I added myself to the dailout group , and tried the whole install again..... and it worked immediately!

Now the last remark i am gonna make..... on their website you will find this piece of text....
 Anyway, CQRLOG is here and is for you. Try it out and if you decide to stay with this logger, we will be pleased. Of course, it will be very heartwarming if CQRLOG will became the reason to leave Windows and migrate to Linux.

Petr and Martin, if it is the reason to migrate to linux, i don't know... But with your piece of software, 1 main reason for me to stay on windows, just disappeared....

p.s. no they did not pay me or gave met shares in their compagny ;)

73's
Alex
 

I'm addicted to.... Kenwood....

For those who never really took a look at what i run in the shack....

I LOVE KENWOOD!!!!

So this week the local ham club had an auction to help the club financial funding.
Amateurs could have the stuff they did not want anymore put up for auction. the i think 10% would go to the club.... Next time they should raise that to 25% :) serves a good cause.

so what comes on for auction ... a Kenwood tr-7200g
And i cant help myself... it's old, its kenwood, i gotta have it ! so i got it...
for sure the best EUR 12.50 i ever spent.

I borrowed this pic from the internet, due to me having no time to make my own pics yet....
But its AWESOME! , and it works... now how cool is this....

On the wishlist for this summer is still a R5000 (recv) and a th-79e (ht)

73's
Alex
PA1SBM

BITX20 - 22. VFO ups and downs ....

Hello all....

It has been a long while since i wrote on my blog... sometimes live just gives you no chance at all do do hobby related stuff.....
I always try to put my gf 1st , then work, then the rest....
Unfortunately sometimes my work takes so much time that even the gf gets put back to 2nd place... and i have to make up for this... People who are finding them self in this same problem will know that it takes twice as much time to make the gf happy again then what is should have taken to keep her happy.

So back to tech stuff....
First of all, i had some people message me and talk to me on local repeater to help me fix my problem.
And one person with a question.

lets start with the first one....

john robertsApril 13, 2013 at 12:06 AM

Have you set up the IF offset on the frequency counter. from john GW0TBT

John... I so hoped this was the problem... :) unfortunately , it was neatly set to 0...

Then i received this question...

Вячеслав ВдовенкоApril 23, 2013 at 12:11 PM

hello
Сan you show how connect is new VFO (variable-capacitance diode) to the transceiver?
thanks

Not really sure how to type your name on my us-gb qwerty keyboard so i hope you can forgive me :)
I have not found this out myself.... as i am not at this point yet. I talked to PA1ED, and he said that it its really easy to see in the schematics.


So how about my VFO then....
Well it's still the same.... i went to a fair and i bought the stuff i needed and put that in. Still no proper frequency. At least now all parts are brand new and i can't blame those 2 trim capacitors anymore.
So now i really have to get into measuring every damn thing. This takes some time, and the 15 to 30 minutes i find these last few months will not give me enough time to really get this done.

I have a week off in a few weeks , and i hope to find a few hours to solve this.

As soon as i get stuff done, whatever the outcome i'll post it here off course :)

till then
Alex
PA1SBM