A package of scripts and and how-to guides for installing common ham radio applications on Ubuntu 20.04LTS

KM4ACK has a fantstic set of tools for building a Pi based ham shack. I have abandoned my original ham-pi project as a result and decided to fork that project into an Ubuntu laptop based build.

While there are a number of downloadable Raspberry Pi images that come pre-loaded with many of the commonly used Amature Radio applications, there is little to nothing to help guide someone through the steps in creating their own custom build. This projects hopes to take out some of the mystery and frustration in compiling open-source applications yourself and creating a custom Raspberry Pi build to meet your specific needs.

The automated scripts are intended to install any pre-requisite libraries, software, and configurations you will need on a new Raspian build. Instructions will be given on how to compile each major applications, like FLDigi or wsjt-x, individually. By using this method, you will be able to choose the applications you wish to include while saving resources by not including those you will not use. In addition, being able to compile and install each application individually means you will be able to install new versions as soon as they are released and not have to wait for an update of a particular Raspberry Pi image.

For each application I will include a basic guide on initial setup and use. These will by no means be an exhaustive nor authoritavive treatment on the subjects but just enough to get you working. I highly recommend reading the official documentation for each application to best understand them.

• Core Libraries
• Basic Utilities
• Initial Configurations

• Chrony
• GPSD

• FLDigi
• wsjt-x
• xastir
• cqrlog

The following procedures are required to install the scripts you will be running. Once installed, you can follow this README.md from your local device, if you like. This assumes you are starting with a clean Rasbian build.

Open Terminal and change preferences

From Terminal ( >_ ):

• Edit->Preferences

  • Terminal Font -> Select a font size
  • Palette -> Select "Tango" for best clarity

• Install any new Rasbian updates and reboot.

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
sudo reboot

• Install Git, used to download this repository

sudo apt install git

• Change to your home directory and download this repository

cd ~
git clone https://github.com/W4EDF/ham-pi.git

Run the initialization script to start the build and supply the root password (your pi account password)

cd ~/ham-pi
bash init_script.sh
sudo reboot

• Download the source tarball

cd ~/Downloads
wget --no-check-certificate https://sourceforge.net/projects/fldigi/files/fldigi/fldigi-4.1.03.tar.gz

• Extract the source tarball

tar zxvf fldigi-4.1.03.tar.gz

• Compile and install

cd ~/Downloads/fldigi-4.1.03
./configure
make
sudo make install

Your user settings will be stored in the ~/.fldigi directory

• Download the source tarball

cd ~/Downloads
wget --no-check-certificate https://physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/k1jt/wsjtx-2.0.1.tgz

• Extract the source tarball

tar zxvf wsjtx-2.0.1.tgz

• Compile and install

cd ~/Downloads/wsjtx-2.0.1
mkdir build; cd build
cmake ../.
cmake --build .
sudo cmake --build . --target install

• Clone Git repository

cd ~
git clone https://github.com/Xastir/Xastir.git

• Compile and install

cd Xastir
./bootstrap.sh
mkdir build && cd build
../configure CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/include/geotiff"
make
sudo make install
sudo chmod 4555 /usr/local/bin/xastir

• Clone Git repository

cd ~
git clone https://github.com/csete/gpredict.git

• Compile and install

cd gpredict
./autogen.sh
make
sudo make install

I do not currently have a reliable set of instructions to compile but the developers have a Raspbian image that works well.

Download the binary image

wget https://www.cqrlog.com/files/cqrlog_2.3.0/cqrlog_2.3.0-1_armhf.deb

Install

sudo dpkg -i cqrlog_2.3.0/cqrlog_2.3.0-1_armhf.deb

Add the following to /boot/config.txt

dtoverlay=pi3-disable-wifi
dtoverlay=pi3-disable-bt