Typing this blog entry on the 1st of July, 2020. The first half of this year has been strange indeed, due primarily to something we referred to originally as a new Coronavirus coming out of China and now popularly called “Covid-19”. About all I have to say on it at this point is to ask when did “Chicken Little” get to be in charge of our health organizations? More people will die again in 2020 from tobacco related causes than Covid-19 by their own admission – so why the over-reaction? I sure hope the second half of this year goes better.
You would think all of the “stay at home” orders, etc., would mean more time to pursue the hobby – not so, life has been very full of “other” this year. Just the same, last week I pulled together all of the RPi4 related project “stuff” and moved it out to the dining table in our travel trailer parked here on our property, just in time to take advantage of a newly “stable” ability to make a couple of tweaks, then copy the latest Raspberry Pi OS release over to a USB drive and boot from there. In my case it was a USB 3.0 SSD. Must say I enjoyed a very satisfying increase in boot up speed, and seeing Ravpower Tool mounted on my desktop after removing the Micro SD card. I had already taken care of the basics, (identifying US as Country, English, US keyboard and Wifi country, etc.). Then enabled SSD, VNC, and Serial communication before doing the copy SD card via the Desktop’s main menu. Happy, happy, happy.
I then ran the latest version of Jason’s (KM4ACK) Build-a-Pi v. 3.0 script and realized a huge benefit in the installation speed. It took far less than half as long as previous installs to a Micro SD card. About the time that was finished, I noted my USB GPS receiver was not flashing, indicating it wasn’t working… Thought for a moment, then blamed it on the metal “shell” of the travel trailer interfering with reception of signals from GPS satellites and delved further into first establishing rig control over our old Yaesu FT-817 via FLRIG, (which was successful), then moving onto proper configuration/setup of all of the other Ham related packages I had selected for install. I have a different USB GPS unit I have used in the past on other projects – it has a nice long cord which I could put in the window and get connected – but no joy. Hmmmm…. You absolutely NEED GPS and proper timing for digital modes like FT8 and JS8CALL – (I have yet to install an RTC clock chip in this new RPi4b 8gb unit). I was able to receive a constant flow of data on virtually all digital modes due to the huge flow of Field Day traffic – but continued to try to figure out what was going on with GPS.
While out there, discovered the old microphone for the 817 had given up the ghost. These were designed back in 2000 and before, then sold in 2001 – “you just can’t get the good out of anything anymore!” 😉 The replacement is now on the way as a mail order, along with a few more items, from the San Diego Ham Radio Outlet.
Then in his YouTube video entitled ARRL Field Day 2020 After Action Report, Jason mentioned that his GPS had stopped when booted up on a USB drive, then started again when he switched back to booting from his Micro SD card. AHA! He also mentioned he had been able to recreate that problem mulitple times. While I loved the increased speed of the SSD, will revert back to an full install on an SD card until the cause of that problem is identified and overcome.
OBTW, our bootable SSD is really intended for use on the Pi dedicated to our Ham Shack and possibly in our travel trailer – the pi intended for dedicated portable/EMCOMM use will now be on Micro SD cards only, (with a “mirror image” backup card carried along in an envelope). For EMCOMM purposes, one needs simplicity and foremost RELIABILITY. The Micro SD cards will provide what I need it for.
Although my efforts were unsuccessful for Field Day, I must say my old “Tekkie Itch” sure got scratched out there in that trailer. However, I must apologize for the “Blue fog” consisting of an old Master Chief’s very extended Navy vocabulary that occasionally came rolling out of there. 😉 Life is good, even if it might have sounded a little rough out there this past weekend.
73, dave/W6TUX