Year: 2021

Spent an hour figuring this out tonight, maybe this will save you some time.

I have an RCA universal remote model RCRN03BR and an Insignia 55″ TV model NS-55df710na19

The remote seemed to have lost its code memory and wouldn’t work again so needed to be reprogrammed.

I tried all the auto code searches but kept getting almost but not quite there. I ended up trying all the Insignia 5 digit codes and found one that seemed to work okay.

12049

(hold down the TV button while typing in the 5 digit code) the remote should work as expected.

This month our radio club decided to all try out Winlink for VHF. Here are some of the things I learnd while trying it out this month.

I did a big closet clear out during the pandemic and gave away / sold a bunch of my older ham hear including my physical TNC, a Kantronics KPC-3. I have a couple signalinks and have had some luck in the past with direwolf so I decided to sell my old physical TNC and associated radio.

We have a new VHF Winlink node in San Francisco, in addition to the nodes in Marin and Oakland. I was hoping I’d have decent luck being able to hit it with my 5 watts from my ft-817.

I decided to build a Winlink station using my Yaesu FT-817, a Signalink and Linux. To get access to Winlink I tried out both Winlink Express under Wine and Pat under Linux (which requires AX25 support)

My existing laptop had GalliumsOS which has been very nice for a few years, but I found that I couldn’t get AX25 support running there (there was some notes of some kernels with it built in, but I couldn’t track them down easily)

I tried a couple other distros and found that Fedora Workstation ships with AX25 kernel support (though you need to explicitly load it)

Here’s what I learned:

• High power radio is best, my ft-817 5w QRP for QRP or HF just doesn’t cut it. I couldn’t make contact with any of the VHF nodes though I could get into APRS digipeaters and a local Packet BBS
• Choose Windows over Linux. While I managed to get the software side installed on Linux, the Linux AX25 framework and tools feel fragile. Good to understand and “work” but don’t really seem useable in an emergency or for “sometimes” use. Seems like it would be fine for a dedicated 24/7 connection.
• Real TNC vs Signalink? Kind of a toss up. I never had any problems with my physical TNC under linux but the sound card interfaces are a bit fragile and cause port issues on start/stop of the interface or direwole. Nothing that isn’t unsurmountable but a level of complexity that’s annoying for “once and a while” usage. I know I could probably do more configuration to force reuse of ports, but couldn’t find an easy recipe….
• I wish I kept my KPC-3, it “just works” and its one less thing to configure under Linux.
• ‘axcall’ vs classic terminal program: axcall works but doesn’t seem as useful and stable as the classic serial terminals I’ve used. 
• A VHF/UHF win link node would be a great addition to the East side of Twin Peaks. I can’t seem hit or hear any of the East Bay, Marin or Sunset nodes. 
• I would likely dedicate a machine to Winlink only if I set this up permanently instead of trying to have it support aprs, classic packet and HF digital modes

For AX25 under Fedora Linux I found the following useful:

I installed the latest Fedora Workstation on my latop
I needed to load the ax25 kernel module using the instructions at http://xastir.org/index.php/HowTo:AX25_Fedora (the part near modprobe -a ax25)
I watched the two parts of this walkthrough of the install of the various parts of pat / direwolf  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZJJLfVz23k
I followed along here for the VHF parts (ignoring ARDOP etc…) https://rockfloat.com/ham/pat_linux.html
In the ax25.service file I used the following since I have a Signalink instead of a physical serial port. Direwolf creates the /tmp/kisstnc device

ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/ax25-up /tmp/kisstnc wl2k 1200

instead of

ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/ax25-up /dev/ttyUSB0 wl2k 1200

Hope this helps you.

I’ll likely try this again with my Kenwood TM-D710 and ty it with high power and see how it goes.

The new year often gives us a chance to look forward and backward on your hobby and decide what to do more or less of in the upcoming year.

With the pandemic, I’ve been staying close to home, though surprisingly with less free time than I expected.

In the last year I had a chance to get my shack-in-a-box/gokit to a pretty good place. I’m able to listen to HF or VHF/UHF anytime I want and have made more QSOs in the last year than ever before. That said, the bands have be pretty dead and my ability to talk on HF has been limited to SSB with the Pacific North West and some FT8 and JS8call.

On VHF/UHF I’m continued with my weekly simplex net (9+ years running) and some other local use (listening to 146.52 calling frequency, some other simplex and club nets) I wish there was a better database of nets to make it easier to find and join them!

I spent a few months setting up a SatNogs satellite receive station for the NOAA and other satellites. I had a comprise antenna (a 137 MHz v-dipole IN THE HOUSE) but still had a really good time getting some decent decodes of the NOAA weather satellite images. I’d love to rebuild a v2.0 of this antenna and receive station and get the antenna outside. I had to take this setup down due to needing the space for another project.

I’ve done a little elmering / mentoring of new hams through the SFFD NERT program which is always rewarding.

I’ve continued with some limited APRS and old school packet BBS use.

In the last year I’ve had a nice time building out a set of AREDN nodes and hooked them into the SF network.

I’ve only had a limited chance to do any traveling or camping but when I’ve done I’ve either taken my VHF/UHF HTs with me, or in a couple times taken my ft-817 and end fed. I’ve had no luck with QRP SSB when camping unfortunately. I spend 99% of my travel time talking on FRS with the family!

I often bring my WLD KD-C1 16 channel radio with my when I’m out and about. It’s programmed with 446 simplex and then “best’ 15 other repeaters for the Bay Area.

My 2021 plans

I plan on keeping my AREDN network up, and possibly adding some services to it like a Raspberry Pi and may one some emergency power for at least one of the nodes.

I’m temped to move the location of my shack to the back of the apartment to get me better antenna location and get me further from the access point which has been resetting too much when I transmit!

I’d like to have a more permanent HF and VHF SDR set up. I’ve been careful to not have my SDR set up when I transmit on the HF and VHF station but it would be nice to have a panoadapter view of HF and VHF

My HF digital set up lives in a backpack, I’d like to have a permenent setup with fewer cables. It’s a rat nest right now (3 USB cables to get on HF and VHF!)

I’ve seen people have good luck putting a Raspberry PI in that rack and then VNCing into the rpi. This will definitely cut down on cables, though at the cost of network complexity and possibly impacting my power budget and complexity. If I end up moving the rack I’ll definitely embed a rpi for remote access!

The other thing I’ve done is get rid of a lot of radio projects I just was never going to get around to. I passed along my external HF tuners (I regret getting rid of both though!) and I got rid of all my 2Ghz HSMM gear. I had thoughts about setting up a 2GHz access point to my AREDN portable node, but I just have too many things on my plate.

Things I probably won’t be doing this year

I really wish I practiced my CW more, especially with the bands being so bad. I’ve always wanted to be able to being a super small QRP CW rig and antenna while camping. I just haven’t heard enough to get in good practice, though a local club has started doing 2m CW…..

I probably won’t finish my Pixie 2 QRP rig until I get some consistency good HF conditions, it’s too hard to know if its working right now and I want to get it perfect before I mount it in an altoids case, etc…

I had a couple radio software projects I was kicking around but they have taken a back seat for now. I hope to get one done and in the App Store before the end of the year though!