开云体育

I like the idea of keeping the GTK TUI mode going as long as possible. I understand its limitations, but IMO I see too much lag when I try to use the GUI.

So, a question: How do I add the Escape function to the Macro-mode keyboard?

Here's the use case: I am in FT8 mode and I use F5 to send CQ. It automatically resends. If no one answers I need to stop. With the physical keyboard I can stop this with the Esc key. Without the physical keyboard there is no way to send Esc. At least I can't find it.

-- Regards, Dave, N1AI

On Sun, Jul 9, 2023 at 04:02 AM, HA3HZ wrote:

as far as I know, the /home/pi/sbitx/data folder contains the files that contain the setting data. The log file is also stored here.

This seems right. As far as I know there is no storage for calibration data on the radio board itself, therefore it makes sense that all such data is in the file system of the raspberry pi. As was suggested above, I have made a copy of the sdcard with the system in a working state so I have a copy of this information.

-- Regards, Dave, N1AI

I ran into this issue and I am thankful for the workaround.

I am trying to keep using the text-based UI (TUI) since I find the GUI one lags too much.

I am also seeing that the operating manual (link below) still describes the TUI not the GUI.

-- Regards, Dave, N1AI

The radio and its software continue to improve. Give it a few more months, maybe half a year or so and a lot of this will be taken care of. ?

there are still quite a few issues to be dealt with ;I think we all realize that. ? But lots of people are working on different parts. It does require a bit more understanding and knowledge accrual than commercial gear normally does

Gordon Kx4z?

I happen to be an amateur extra so I do know the fundamentals of electronics but it’s pretty damn hard when you’ve got both hardware and software issues and something you’ve never seen. I spent over 30 years riding business software and I doubt anybody else here can say that ?I’m very well-versed in troubleshooting as well ?the problem is is when somebody gives you half-baked incomplete directions or guidance you stumble. And I still don’t think that it’s up to the user community to provide a level of support should’ve come from the factory


I take great offense at your message but I choose not to have a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent

Another thought: why would external USB connections be important? Keyboard and mouse can be Bluetooth. Network (when needed) can be WiFi, and you can even use an external hotspot via WiFi when somewhere with mobile networks.

-- Regards, Dave, N1AI

I am a novice with regard to winlink.

My understanding is that the standard 'winlink' program suite is for Windows only, so not applicable to sbitx.

My other understanding is that the 'pat' winlink program is popular on Linux.

I looked at it once and I would say getting this to work on sbitx's Raspberry Pi is not simple.

My go-to source for this is watching the relevant videos on the KM4ACK channel on YouTube.

-- Regards, Dave, N1AI

Since today is the first time I opened up my sbitx box, all kinds of possibilities popped into my head.

For instance I have a Pi 5 on order and I just got the shipping notice. You can buy GPIO extenders and suitable standoffs to mount it and its fan upside-down with some room for airflow. So IMO there probably is a way to fit a Pi 5 into the box mechanically, and with the fan running and perhaps more aggressive CPU throttling and/or fan speeds it probably would be okay in terms of heat. The end plate would need to be modified or replaced because the external USB and Ethernet would now be in a different place. Same could be said for the hatch on the top of the case, it would be in the wrong place. May or may not be an issue depending on what you want to connect to the radio.

As for power, in the worst case the Pi 5 wants 25 watts so 5 amps at 5 volts. It also needs a compatible USB-C implementation that will convince it that it is getting that 5A. If not it falls back to 15 watt / 3A mode to be backwards compatible with older Pis. In the fall back mode it still works, but it does not supply much power to the external USB devices. You can run things like keyboards and mice, but not SSDs/NVMe/etc, they draw too much power. However you can still use them with a powered hub if that use case is important to you.

So, if all of the above is correct, a Pi 5 could work inside the sbitx case. It is said to deliver 2x or more improvement on performance.

Feel free to poke holes into this theory!

-- Regards, Dave, N1AI

The problem with the device in your picture is: a) It's much bigger than the standard Pi footprint b) Its GPIO pins need to be on the right hand edge to fit into the sbitx box (see attachment) c) It needs that external USB3 bridge connector and that won't work mechanically without modifying the case

If you could find a SSD daughter card that fits within the standard Pi footprint and mounts below the Pi I think it would work. Also you might need to modify the case if you need to run the signal from the standard USB connectors to the daughter card.

I found a picture of an opened sbitx by googling, it is at and attached it to this post.

The Pi mounts upside-down to the 40 bin connector in the upper right hand corner. You can see the standoffs it gets screwed into. I took mine apart for the first time just to check and in my opinion there is plenty of room for a SSD daughter card. There is a decent sized gap between the Pi and the bottom of the display above it. By eyeballing I'd say the gap is at least as much as the height of the Pi itself.

I'm not understanding the concerns about the amount of RF the Pi is subject to. The Pi is already inside the enclosure with the electronics that generate high power HF radio energy, as is its SD Card media, and I'm not seeing how adding a SSD would change things significantly. I also don't think adding a SSD is changing the power or heat budget enough to be a concern.

Eventually I am going to try to find a solution to having NVMe storage with sbitx. I think I will end up just using an external USB3 NVMe adapter while I have the sbitx at home. I believe the Pi bootloader has settings so that you can favor booting USB and fall back to the SDCARD when a USB device is not present. Therefore I could do software development with the fast NVMe storage attached and when I build an image I like I can just copy it to the SDCARD so it is present when I want to take the sbitx away from my home station.

My approach to mounting such a NVMe would be something that might make people here gag, but it'd be industrial strength velcro. It's definitely strong enough to hold a USB3 NVMe adapter. It's also very important to not allow the connection to wiggle mechanically. Linux more or less expects the disk IO to work without failures. It gets very unhappy with anything but rare disk IO errors. I learned this the hard way.

-- Regards, Dave, N1AI

Ultimately I ended up using the pi username (which the installer strongly recommended not to do so, but I suppose it is a nonissue considering the use case). I also had to make the appropriate changes to the build file for 64 bit ft8 and compile wiringpi separately, along with a few other minor differences in dependencies that I unfortunately did not document properly, as well as transfer some configs from the original SD card.

Anyway, I have Bookworm 64 bit up and running, touchscreen working fine purely through the DSI ribbon and 5v power. Sbitx appears to have compiled successfully, but I haven't managed to get anything working yet. I guess I also need to install and configure a few other things. I'll mess around with the original SD card on a regular monitor and try to compare what is different.

The install.txt in the github seems to end abruptly, is there some information that I am missing in order to fully set everything up?

Synopsis of the issue: my assembled sbitx v2 What for all of about an hour. Then it started to blow fuses. Soon as they flip the power switch fuse would ?blow. Contacted sales support, Thomas, and ?was sent a new motherboard. Carefully installing it when I turned it on at least I didn’t blow fuses but there was nothing ?after the various minor testing I determined it was the raspberry PI ?which obviously was damaged due to the original motherboard being defective. Thomas sent me an email containing some links and eventually telling me that I probably needed to buy a new RPI unit ?which I begrudgingly did. Install that PI with a SD card has formatted from Thomas nothing happens ?so back to square one reformat the card strictly to have raspberry pi OS on it up into the ?raspberry pi desktop. Nothing I have done has it been able to put the SBITX software on ?the latest venture was the file that direct me to do installed with Belena etcher (with rpi os). That results in a screen full of errors

I have repeatedly asked Thomas simply to send me an SD card with the necessary files on it ?that was not included with the new motherboard that was sent ?
Thomas now is not even bothering to answer emails. Users here as well as on Facebook have really not helped nor should it be their responsibility in something brand new like this ? I purchased what I thought was an assembled ready to go unit not some backwoods project.?

I would like for you to do one of two things either send me the SD card that will work or take the unit back and give me my money back. I do not wish to have instructions on how to make the SD card card When I should’ve had a fully functional one to begin with ?my investment so far is the $529 to SF signals and an additional $90 for an RPI V4 ?

yes I am completely frustrated and disgusted with his whole “adventure”. Going through messages I found quite a few people having the same types of issue with the lack of support. Had I known what I know now there is no way I would’ve bought this. When you pay good money for something you expect it to work and you do not anticipate having to go to a user community for problem resolution.?