New project: Raspberry Pi as Transceiver/ Rig Control

With the solar minimum ahead things get boring more and more on 11 meter. So, what we gonna do with the time? Start a new project!

Did you miss an activation lately due to short openings caused by poor radio conditions? Well that’s history now.

A little budget and some reading to dig into Debian is enough to build your TRX remote control and to have QSOs with your home rig from wherever you are.

Prerequisites:

Hardware:

  • Raspberry Pi (I bought the latest version, which is a 3 B+)
  • A fast microSD card
  • A power supply
  • A case for the RasPi

The above is available as starter kit at Amazon as well.

  • A cable to connect the RasPi with the radio for CAT control (the type depends on your radio, for my FT-891 I needed a USB 2.0 A-B cable)
  • In case your TRX has no internal sound card:

For the initial setup of the RasPi you’ll need a display (the RasPi has a HDMI socket), a keyboard (either USB or Bluetooth with USB Bluetooth dongle) and an USB mouse, if your keyboard doesn’t have a touchpad.

If your budget allows, you might buy the original 7 inch touch display for the RasPi and the corresponding case. However for the initial setup you’ll need a keyboard and touchpad or mouse anyways.

The advantage of this small computer is, that it needs almost no power. You can have it on 24/7 365 days a year. I read in another blog, power costs would total at about 10 EUR/ year. This is something to keep in mind, as any other standard desktop requires much more power.

Connectivity:

  • You’ll need a fairly fast DSL connection and either good WLAN reception or a LAN connection in your shack. The RasPi has a LAN socket and build in WLAN.
  • Your DSL connection shall contain at lease one VoIP landline telephone number. My DSL package contains 3, of which I only needed 2 until now, one for the classic telephone the other for my virtual fax.
  • To make long lasting calls from abroad (most commonly from your mobile), your mobile phone contract shall include free calls to domestic phone numbers.
  • Depending on the way You want to control the RasPi (e.g. through a VNC viewer or through a web interface) you shall have at least a 3G, better 4G (LTE) connection with your mobile phone.

Software:

In my next posts I’ll provide links to tutorials on or explain how to setup Raspbian, install LinPhone, build FLRig from source, etc..

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