Six Meters Amazing

Posted on June 14, 2020 by Bob Beatty

I’m not really a 6m person, in fact I don’t have a decent antenna, but I have to admit things are hopping.  I’m seeing Spain, Canary Islands to the East, and California to the West. Decoding 24-30 stations each 15 second interval.

 

Posted in 6-Meters, FT8 | Leave a comment

Updating AMBE Server Firmware

Posted on June 10, 2020 by robert

The latest version of the AMBE 3000 Server is located here:  http://ambeboard.zumradio.com/firmware/

That zip file contains the “zumambev1.3.bin” firmware as well as the program used to upload to the ESP32 chip on the board.

  • Open Device Manger and observe what COM port shows up when the AMBE Server is plugged into the a USB port
  • Copy the zumambev1.3.bin firmware and the esptool.exe programming tool to your user space (C:\Users\????? <==Whatever it is)
  • Open a CMD window
  • Type esptool.exe –chip esp32 –port COM3 –baud 921000 write_flash 0 zumambev1.3.bin    (whatever the COM port should be, 3 in my case)
  • Wait for it to finish, about 30 seconds in my case

This is the output you will see in the command window:

C:\Users\Bob>esptool.exe –chip esp32 –port COM3 –baud 921000 write_flash 0 zumambev1.3.bin
esptool.py v2.1
Connecting….
Chip is ESP32D0WDQ6 (revision (unknown 0xa))
Uploading stub…
Running stub…
Stub running…
Changing baud rate to 921000
Changed.
Configuring flash size…
Auto-detected Flash size: 4MB
Compressed 4194304 bytes to 1176415…
Wrote 4194304 bytes (1176415 compressed) at 0x00000000 in 18.3 seconds (effective 1833.9 kbit/s)…
Hash of data verified.

Leaving…
Hard resetting…

Posted in AMBE3000 | Leave a comment

Buster running on MacBook

Posted on June 9, 2020 by robert

One of the programs that can use the AMBE Server is “Buster” which is a Mac OS program.  It appears to support only DSTAR, but it is working well on my Mac.  I did have to shut the program down after configuring it to use my AMBE3000 server, but after that it seems to be working.

You use the + button to add reflectors in, the – button to remove them.  Highlight a reflector and use the paperclip icon to connect. And disconnect using the last icon (somewhat touchy to use because that happens to be the corner that enlarges or shrinks the window.

Posted in AMBE3000, Buster, D-Star | 2 Comments

Zum AMBE3000 Server

Posted on June 9, 2020 by Bob Beatty

As I was configuring my BlueDV to work with my ancient DV 3000K USB AMBE3000 device, I notice some comments about using an “AMBE Server” which caused me to do some digging.  The early devices like my DV 3000K were tied to one computer (whichever one had the USB port.  Traditional hotspots, like the Zum ZUMSPOT, required you to have at least one digital radio (and likely more if you want to have maximum flexability).  On the other hand, the Zum AMBE Server is an Internet of Things device — the AMBE3000 chip is presented as a port connection on your local internet, with the chip itself residing in a box that connects either via WiFi or Ethernet.  That means the CODEC is not tied to a particular machine — BINGO

I ordered mine from HRO, who had them in stock in California along with a small case.  It arrived in about 10 days and sat in my garage for another week waiting for the COVID bugs to die off.  I finally brought it inside and tried it out today.

The board is about 2″ square and fits nicely into a optional case

Things did not go so well when powering up, but only due to my own error (I had mistyped a character for my WiFi password).

Because of my error, I didn’t find the device.  Even when I fixed the password error, I had no way of knowing the IP address it had grabbed via DHCP.  It was time to break out a small I2C OLED display and hook it up.  Good news was that worked!  (Bad news is the case isn’t designed for it), but at least now I know the MAC address of the WiFi device and will soon find the MAC address of the Ethernet port.  (It identifies itself as “expressif” on WiFi along with several other devices in my home).

Bottom line is I would highly recommend planning on at least temporarily attaching a OLED display

Yep, and the HRO stock has out of date firmware (latest version is 1.3).

Posted in D-Star, DMR, FUSION | 4 Comments

BlueDV Running with DV 3K Dongle

Posted on May 25, 2020 by robert

Taking full advantage of a reduced workload these past few days, I found myself thinking of DMR again after stumbling across the Zumspot AMBE Server.  That seemed like an excellent non-radio means of bringing up DMR, DSTAR or Fusion on any Windows box here at the house.  So I placed an order and hopefully will be able to play around with it in a week or so.

Meanwhile, it seems like PA7LIM’s BlueDV is the software that many people are using with the AMBE Server or various USB Dongles, so I downloaded a copy in hopes of getting it to work with my old DV3K Dongle, something I had only used for DSTAR using DVTool.  Since that used a AMBE3000R chip, I felt there was a small chance it might work with BlueDV, which would make it usable on DMR, Fusion, and DSTAR as well.

I was pleasantly surprised to find out it worked quite well, and within about 30 minutes of trying a few options, BlueDV was up and running.

Chatting with Walter K5WH via the DMR 98006 AMSAT Talk Group

The setup was pretty simple.  I guessed that the slower baud rate was used for the old device (located on COM6 on my PC), and assumed all the DMR ID settings would be mine (3144032).  (Just a FYI, it appears the SETUP menu can’t be selected if any of the SERIAL, DMR, DSTAR, or FUSION switches are Active along the left side of the screen.)

The only non-obvious thing to me was a need to setup the AMBE tab (along the top), as it was completely blank when I started things going.  However, when I pulled down the choices I saw my mic and speaker selections which made perfect sense.

Finally I guessed that I needed to use the other AMBE tab to the right to select a talk group, and I set that to AMSAT 98006 (BrandMeister).

My last two stumbling blocks were forgetting that nothing would happen on DMR until I pressed “PTT” to get the Talk Group set.  Now where is that PTT button????  That took a tad bit of exploring and I found a YouTube video from TechMinds that revealed the magic solution — use the bottom right “AMBE3000” slider by clicking on it to turn TX on, and clicking again to turn TX off!

The “PTT” in AMBE3000 mode is the slider in the lower right corner. Click for PTT

I look forward to trying this with the AMBE Server — that will make this a solution I can run from pretty much everywhere.

Posted in D-Star, Digital Mode, DMR, FUSION | Leave a comment

AMSAT Sexagesimal Award

Posted on May 24, 2020 by Bob Beatty

AMSAT has a Sexagesimal Award for satellite operators who have confirmed contacts with 60 different Canadian call areas, US States, or DX Countries.

I figured I would check on my progress.  Turns out I’ve worked VE1, VE2, VE3, VE9, VO2 qand VY2 in Canada, plus 37 states, and 9 DXCC Countries, for a total of 52.  Gonna take a bit of work to get those final eight!

Maybe that explains why only 187 awards have been issued in 45 years (congratulations to KS1G who just got his a few days ago)!

Posted in AMSAT, Awards, Satellite | Leave a comment

DXCC 275 Reached with 160-meter Guyana QSO

Posted on May 24, 2020 by Bob Beatty

A pleasant surprise awaited me today, a LotW confirmation from 8R1/AG6UT in Guyana.  This was confirming a QSO from last November on the 160-meter band, so it was a double bonus, leaving me with 12 more countries to complete my ninth DXCC (I already have 9 band WAS).  Thanks Heye!

Posted in 160-Meters, DX | Leave a comment

Success with RS-44

Posted on May 23, 2020 by robert

I had a chance to get my Satellite rig on the air and added in information for HuskySat-1 and RS-44.  Never heard HuskySat, but during a pass around 23:45Z, I worked KS1G on CW, and N3CAL, W4ZXT + W5CBF on SSB.  Heard a bunch of European stations as well.

This satellite seems to have amazingly fast and deep fades, so the antenna must be occluded frequently (I’m using CP antennas).  I would often hear only part of a callsign before it would swing from S9 to in the noise.  That made for a challenge.

Funny coincidence; this is the first satellite that my Uplink didn’t have to be calibrated.  The default Uplink and Downlink values that I put into Doppler.sqf were spot on for my IC-9700.

(ED: 3 of the 4 have already confirmed in LotW – Thanks!)

Posted in RS-44, Satellite | Leave a comment

FLEX6600M Springs back to life

Posted on May 4, 2020 by robert

Late last year, I purchased a FlexRadio 6600M along with its companion “Maestro” remote head.  I had the radio installed in my basement shack (I call it the Wombat Room, but everyone else calls it the furnace room), and I kept the Maestro in the 3rd floor bedroom.  My morning routine included doing at least 45 minutes of PT upstairs, and usually chatting with some friends up and down the East Coast on 20 meters.  Things worked well for about five months.

After powering the radio off about ten days ago to do some cable management (clean up the rats nest of coax and other assorted cables — what fool decided to call this “wireless”?), when I powered it back on a few days later, it did not start up properly.  It complained about having no Ethernet connection.  I tried all the user manual things (warm reset, cold reset, swapping cables, etc.) with no luck.  I reached out to Flex Service and Tim Ellison, W4TME, quickly responded.  He suggested that a microSD card, used to boot the internal mini PC had become corrupted.

I got an email from Tim today telling me that the card had been delivered and asking if I had tried things out.  That caught my attention – Tim was more aware of what was going on outside my house than I was.  Sure enough a package was in the mailbox with the SD card.  Within 30 minutes I had the cover off, and the new card installed.  As Tim suggested, it was the cure.  My FLEX6600M has been restored to operation!

It’s a bit scary to think that a dead SD card took me down for a week, and I’ve decided to run the radio off of a UPS just so nothing funny happens with the power supply (not that I had noticed anything strange with the house power in the past few weeks).  But the story has a happy ending, and Flex Service was great.  Thanks Tim!

 

Posted in FlexRadio, Gear | Leave a comment

Leo Bodnar mini GPS Reference Clock

Posted on April 7, 2020 by Bob Beatty

I finally powered up my Leo Bodnar mini-GPS Reference Clock yesterday.  It took only a few seconds to achieve lock and within 15 minutes it was stabilize to within 1 milliHertz.  I’m told by the factory that within a few hours it will be close to the limit of the GPS reference, or about 1 microHertz.  (I’m too lazy to verify that, I’m happy with 1 milliHertz, which I did verify).

It is very easy to use, plug it into a USB power supply and it starts on its own.  The fairly unique thing about this oscillator is that it can be set to almost any desired output frequency.  The default is 10 MHz.  It could be set to 49.152 MHz, which happens to be the master oscillator frequency of several Icom rigs.  Mine is destined to go into my IC-9700 after the warranty expires.  Once setup by a Windows application, no PC connection is required, just a USB supply.

It does require an external GPS antenna and the GPS signal needs to be there 24×7, but if lock goes away, the until will remain on frequency with the internal oscillator slowly drifting.  No glitching occurs during GPS/no-GPS transitions.

After monitoring mine for the past 24 hours, I haven’t seen it unlock yet.

 

Posted in FMT, Gear, IC-9700 | 8 Comments