RS-232 disappearing from PC's and so is PCI.... so now what to do when you run Linux as a HAM?

Hello all,

Well, it's no surprise that I am a big fan of Linux. On my blog I usually post about Linux stuff often enough.

Recently I bought a new PC. I used an "old" AMD 64 X2 4000+ with 8GB DDR2 800MHz memory, and I thought I would spoil myself with a new one.
As it was going to run Linux , it did not need be top of the line, so I bought myself an Intel Core i7 with 16GB 1600Mhz memory.
And when it arrived I started to add my SSD to it, and installed it next to my desk.....

Now, as you might know, I use a Kenwood TS-480satt, still love it, and that uses a RS-232 bus to communicate to my PC (and so do most transceivers, as USB has just come to the very latest models of all normal brands). And for as far as i know, most rotators use rs232 as well. My old PC had 3 of those RS-232 ports as I added an PCI card with 2 extra ports.

Now... my new PC had.... NONE!!!...... So I thought that I would just add the PCI card to the new PC. CRAP!!.... it has no PCI buses either! So this card became useless.....

So I started to look on the one site that solves 99% of my problems... www.ebay.com
And I found myself a new PCI-e card.....

Now you have these in 2 and 4 ports , or 1 parallel and 2 serial ports......

And they claim that these work under Linux..... NO THEY WILL NOT... (at least not out of the box, and not without tinkering a lot on your system) They are not worth to do so anyway....

These cards use a chip-set called CH382L and those might work fine with a simple driver for windows(not tested), but for Linux they are a major pain up the a$$ as this chip-set has not found its way to the Linux kernel (yet).

I tried 2 nights in a row to fix this... no luck what so ever.... google did not help a lot either, it just came up with a lot of results of either not working solutions, or people like me searching for a solution....

So, now how to solve this..... EASY ... buy the proper chip-set....
I ordered a very nice version , with a breakout cable for 4, yes 4 serial ports. (and you have them for 8 ports as well)

The chip-set it uses is: MCS9904
And I bought it with this eBay seller... eBay seller "only" 24 euro's
There is also a MOSCHIP 9901 chip-set, for a 2 port version, which I GUESS will work too.
I did not test one (yet). Example: eBay seller

Now this MSC9904 chip-set does work out of the box when using Linux Mint 17.2 (so my best guess would be that Ubuntu and Debian will work as well as they are builds from the same Linux tree)

When using those cheap a$$ USB-RS232 cables, it usually means that as soon as you start to make a QSO , the cable malfunctions. this PCI-e card does not have any problem with that.

An other HAM, who tested one of my cables, said that this usually has to do with the harmonics of the used frequency being too close to the internal oscillator or the max232 ic used in the converter.
I personally think this could be solved with proper shielding and such, as my way too expensive cable has no problem with this for as far as i know.

So as a conclusion, as long as you buy the MSC9904 chip-set, you're good to go!
I noticed that if it has this chip-set, they will write it on the eBay page. I guess the sellers found out that Linux users are looking for this ;)
Yes, it is not as cheap as the others, but this at least works.....

Hopefully this will help you out when you buy a new PC without PCI and RS232 (which is basically any new PC you can buy these days.)
If any one found another chip-set that works, please do tell us in the comments!!

73's
Alex
PA1SBM

CQRLOG 1.9.0 released

On the 4th of March, Petr OK2CQR, released a brand new version of CQRLOG.....

So, what's new, and what bugs were fixed.....
In the download section of www.cqrlog.com we read the following......

Version 1.9.0

• added support for setting the QTH Nickname in eQSL.cc download dialog (Florian, DF2ET)
• configuration can be stored into database or local computer only (Preferences -> Program -> Configure storage settings)
• second directory path to auto backup added
• Ignore changes caused by LoTW/eQSL upload or download option added
• CQ and ITU zones are taken from previous QSO if exists
• added new band map filter
• CALLSIGN, BAND, MODE, FREQ macros to dxcluster allert command added
• "Capitalise first letter in QTH field" option added
• Propagation window improved, now shows more information (Saku, OH1KH)

• after change of callsign, report, date or time, the QSO was still marked as uploaded to LotW/eQSL - fixed
• LoTW upload - when Export all QSO was selected, only 500 QSO were exported - fixed
• buttons caption in CW type window didn't use values from settings
• online log upload of edited QSO fixed
• uploading QSO to HamQTH fixed
• downloading data for web dx cluster fixed

The 2nd new feature, to store your settings in the database is for a single user, in my humble oppinion, the best thing ever.... now you just have to backup your database which contains everything....

I run Linuxmint 17.1, and I installed it in the usual way for me....
Download the new version, and in a shell i run sudo dpkg -i cqrlog_1.9.0-1_amd64.deb
This installed without any problems....
Also running CQRLOG was without any problems... all works as expected so far.....

Again a big thanks to Petr for making this program....

73's
Alex
PA1SBM

Why USB to RS-232 suck in windows, but don't in Linux

Hello all,

Well, as Hans, PD0AC, is quite busy lately, I did not get my usb2rs232 cable back from him yet
As i kind of expected him to use it for a while I already had ordered the cheapest ones I could find on eBay.....

And yesterday they arrived.... a bit late cause of the postal services between China and the Netherlands , but... ohh well, they arrived...

So just to be clear... this is the CHEAPEST one i could find on ebay.... including free shipping....
Then you may ask how cheap... well...1.81 USD including shipping...... yes that cheap...


So.... lets get started.... lets plug it in....

Lets check if we already have a ttyUSB port.....
open a command shell and become root with the command su
when root do: ls /dev/ttyUSB*  (this roughly means list all serial tty usb devices )

hooray!!! we have a serial device

NOTE: I did not, i repeat did NOT install any f*cked up driver at all!!!!

So, next we already know what device we need to use, but what if I would plug in all , and hook up 1..
Then it would look like this.....

Not much to go by to figure out what is what.....

Well, another command we can do is this...... cat /proc/tty/driver/usbserial

Now, i have 4 identical cables plugged in, but if you have several different you should be able to see different vendors and product numbers...
The first number is the number is the number you will see at /dev/ttyUSB?


In the first terminal screen shot you see "root dialout¨  , and that's the last part what is REALLY important, and i forgot to mention this in the previous post....
Root is the owner of the device.... this is usually root, so this is not weird and should never be your user! Dialout is the group who has rights to this device.

make sure you added yourself to this group....
With this command: addgroup <your user name> dialout
see screen shot below.

This makes sure you have rights to this device.


Now, what makes this better the how windows works....

• Works out of the box, no installing drivers that don work
  Every windows version has his own crappy driver version....
• No weird com numbers, linux does not use them, instead they use /device/devicename structure
  The com numbers seem to change a lot as well when you plug them into different usb ports.
  If you only have 1 usb cable, linux will always make this /dev/ttyUSB0

I have heard about people running into problems with these cables, I am not one of them, the cable works like a charm.

Now if you are one of those people who run into some problems, please let me know as I would love to look into this, and try to find a solution.

73's for now...

Alex

PA1SBM

Why RS-232 ports suck in Linux, and how to work with this.....

As people may know , i am quite a lot into every OS other then windows.....
If it is *ux based (UNIX, Linux, mac OSX, free/OpenBSD) i am happy....
I just love the rock solid performance which doesn't degrade like windows to 0 in a year....if you are lucky.......

There is 1 thing which can be a f***ing pain in the @$$ when you wanna be a ham who does rig cat control.... the com port configuration.....
Windows just shows you the com ports which are really in the system (virtual configurations excepted, but if you are doing that, this post is old news ;) ).
So if you see a COM1 its there and active.... USBtoRS232 cables usualy show up around com number 8 , but still, if its there its there.....

so how do we know what com ports we have in our Linux system......
Well, this is a bit tricky... as Linux is flexible as a paper towel, the com port can end up almost anywhere you (don't) want...

Ok lets see how many com ports (not USB stuff) Linux thinks we have.....
Open a terminal (make sure you are root by typing su ) and type this: ls /dev/ttyS*  (this roughly means list all serial tty devices )

Now, don get scared , we do not have 32 com ports in this system.....
Crap , so now we still know nothing.... Well yes we do we actually know what the device names are called and how they are written... (caps is important)

so, we continue...... next command.... cat /proc/tty/driver/serial

We see here that the com1 uart and com2 uart are hooked to ttyS4 and ttyS5.

My TS-480 is hooked up to com1 , which translates into /dev/ttyS4

As soon as I told this device name to cqrlog, it worked like a charm.....

Ok, now the USB2Serial cables..... 

This has to be written as soon as Hans (PD0AC hamgear.wordpress.com) is done with my cable :)

Soo... to be continued.....

New release CQRlog 1.7.3

Again, no I do not advertise stuff for them , I am a too small blog anyway....
But last week CQRLog released an update which is supposed to be the last big update be for the Debian freeze for the Ubuntu 14.01 LTS release.

So what's new..........
As 1.7.3 was a CAT fix, ill post both 1.7.2 and 1.7.3 release notes....

Version 1.7.3

• TRX control didn't work - fixed
• rotor control didn't work - fixed

Version 1.7.2

• after hitting ESC in any window opened from NewQSO, cursor will be returned to callsign edit field
• frequency in New QSO and QSO list wondow is formated to 0.0000
• added Help -> Keys and shortcut to menu in QSO window
• RBN integration into GrayLine showed CW speed instead of signal strench - fixed
• DXCC entity window didn't show when compiled in Debian Sid and Ubuntu 13.10 - fixed
• when CQRLOG was run for the first time, two mysqld proccesses opened the same database - fixed
• upload to ClubLog didn't work after enter QSO and delete - fixed (big thanks to Pawel, SQ5LTL)
• TRX control window's layout was broken with some font sizes - fixed

The things fixed show that this is getting to a complete and stable piece of software. These are only the things worth mentioning , and other small things are fixed as well.

If you like me prefer Linux in your shack , this is for sure the piece of software that is a must.

If you do not use Linux cause it's so hard to install bla bla bla.....

This is how you install it in Debian Stable.....

1. open a terminal screen.....
2. type: sudo apt-get install cqrlog
3. open a web browser
4. download latest cqrlog deb package from their website
5. type: sudo dpkg -i cqrlog<version-you-downloaded>.deb
6. done!

Now that gives you an installed and updated cqrlog on Debian Stable. Ubuntu should work the same.

If this will not work, just send me a mail with all the info on the terminal screen , and i will help you to solve it.

If you run in to problems inside the program... Petr, one of the 2 coders, spends a lot of time on FREE support on their forum.

He solves most problems, on most distro's and posts the solution's as well.

After 1.7.3 i have hardly seen any remark anymore about bugs...

Also the wishlist for new functions is always taken seriously.... this is a nice difference compared to other software ppl... 

73's

Alex

PA1SBM

CQRLOG 1.7.0 Released..... The update MANY hams were waiting for....

Hello all,

As the title states, Petr, OK2CQR and Martin, OK1RR, released the next big release of CQRLOG
It's version 1.7.0. So you might be wandering what the fuzz is all about.... I'll explain...
I maintained a virtual WinXP to run HamRadioDeluxe on.... Just for uploading to HRDlog.net
In this release, online QSO upload to HamQTH, ClubLog and HRDLog added.
LotW was allready a feature, but these other big ones were not supported until now.

Release notes:

Version 1.7.0

• online QSO upload to HamQTH, ClubLog and HRDLog added
• improved QSL managers import, should be faster a bit
• "Long Path" button to Rotor Control added (Darek, SP2MKI)
• COMMENT field is exported to eQSL server
• Always overwrite info from previous QSO with callbook data option added
• help updated
• country files updated
• membership files updated
• layout improved (mostly new QSO window)

• LoTW QSL RCVD was not imported when ADIF didn't include LOTW_QSLRDATE value - fixed
• CONTESTIA mode was saved as CONSTESTI (increased max length of mode to 10 characters) - fixed
• ReverseBeacon support in Gray line didn't work - fixed
• after click to OK button in Preferences, bandmap stopped deleting old spots - fixed
• bandmap was not updated when any spot was not added - fixed
• station was added to bandmap when offline mode was activated - fixed
• big square statistics didn't work in newer versions of distributions - fixed
• QSO JT65* mode were not confirmed by eQSL - fixed

So for me this now means i can fully switch to logging in CQRlog. Which i now will do as it was a pain in the ... well you know where.... to log in 2 programs.

I cannot state enough how awesome this program is... it's small, fast, and simple, but still FULL of options that will satisfy big gun dx stations, and the casual qso'er like me.

73's
Alex
PA1SBM