A super cheap Hotspot. Thrifty Old Digital Update Roundup. Modding Pi-Star to include M-17. DVMega Globetrotter opens up your digital possibilities. www.amateurlogic.tv
A good video for a partly comprehension of the digital world in hamradio. The cheap MMDVM modules are working, but they are not the best choice. In cause of the cheap and much to tolerant parts at the circuit, the BER is changing when the RaspberryPi raise up to the operating temperature. At next the offset which is to set, is much to high. So the connection between the transceiver and the mini-repeater fails. This all causes a kind of bad modulation in both directions to different times. The DigiPi project is really nice. But unfortunately there is no idea for to use a MMDVM module. Here for to get a stand-alone solution for digimodes like the NewPacketRadio modems. Just change the sdcard and be at Pi-Star or other digimodes. But maybe the future will bring it. Prunes in Madeira. You like it or you hate it. There is nothing between.
I've run MMDVM boards for years and once tweaked, I've had no thermal or other issues with my ZUMSPOTS. One operates in my shack with wide thermal excursions and the other in my backpack or vehicle with totally unstable thermal deployments.
The problem is, that the temperature with the Raspi got to be not more than 50 degree Celsius. When it raise more and more, maybe up to 80 degree Celsius, the Raspi maybe die or make wrong calculations. So that the board of the Raspi should be cooled down passive. And when the MMDVM module is connected to the Raspi, it can cause a kind of chain reaction. When you never had problems with that, than you are a lucky one. In my case I am able to observe the temperature at the same time with the shown BER at the dashboard. And it changes constant. But when the BitErrorRate is not over 2 or 3 percent, the modulation stays nearly well. Unfortunately many QSO partners will give a wrong rapport. When they understand everything and its loud enough, they give a good report. But that could be wrong, when you want to know it exactly.
I just made a Raspberry Pi 4 Hotspot using the MMDVM module. The standard RPI cases overheat quickly. I purchased an open side stackable 5 shelf unit. I installed the PI up top with no upper deck. The lower deck has a cooling fan on it. Open sides. I used two of the shelves. Left plenty of air and the RPI board is installed up off the shelf. The fan runs off two of the spare gnd and +3v GPIO pins. Pi-Star shows it running in the green.
Most newr RASPI are getting hot because they have a lot of CPU Power. So it must bee cooled with fans and so on. I use for a simple software like pistar an raspi 2 oder 3 . it works fully cool and it much enoth working power fir the application. a rasp 4 is too much for this simple and small programm. i drive a Multimode repeater with 2 x Motorola GM340 UHF and a Raspberry 3B, cooled passive with an aluminiu, case with cooling rips. so also a fan could not be damaged or di. because the repeater works in a place where i can reach very hard. perhaps 1 time the year. temperatur from rspi is 29 degrees centigrade. DF1AX
Yeah. Do I really want a "hack" in my shack? Semantics, I know. But would you advertise a "gently used automobile" or advertise a "worn out beater" if you wanted to sell the beater?
Its a definition of the word "to hack". What it is really? Normaly its not an independent project. Its more for use a thing in a different way, to get the same results maybe easier or faster. Or you use the thing with the hack for situations, which dont concern to the normal use with this. At next of course the classical hack is for to find different functions for example in a DVD player, where you can select the region codes by yourself. So the firmware of that device was hacked, too.
