I’d like to dump Microsoft Windows

Nashua Area Radio Society Topics In All Forums Help and Suggestions Forum I’d like to dump Microsoft Windows

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  • #150075
    Aron InsingaAron Insinga
    Participant

      What is the current state of ham radio applications on MacOS or Linux?  Do people use N1MM+ and DXLab in a virtual machine or with wine?  Are there native applications on these systems that are nearly as good and support all the contests?  G4FON?  (I have the free disk of cw sound files.)

      Alternatively, what anti-virus software do people find works the best on Microsoft Windows?  (I think it is the mobilsearch [sic] virus that has cost me way too many days of my life, recently.  I don’t think Windows Defender — or whatever the operating system’s built-in thing is — found it and the built-in tools to roll back patches etc. don’t seem to work on my radio applications machine.)

      You can reach me by e-mail to my call sign [at] the ARRL’s .net domain member mail reflector if you’d rather.

      Thanks.

      #150077
      Aron InsingaAron Insinga
      Participant

        I know we had a tech night presentation about open-source ham software a while back (https://www.n1fd.org/forums/topic/reminder-next-club-meeting/#post-2448) but I’m asking a wider question here.

        #150091

        Hi Aron,

        I am in the same boat!  I run Debian 11 on a number of machines that do non-radio related stuff (such as an Apache web server for example), but for Ham Radio, I still run Windows 10.  There just isn’t the same quality software out there for Linux (at least not that I have found).  I use (and pay support for) Ham Radio Deluxe, which integrates to WSJT-X f0r logging, has Satellite Tracking, and works RTTY as well…  all using the same MySQL Database. It up/downloads directly to LoTW, and does a bunch of other things very well… but ONLY on Win 10. There’s nothing that I have found for Linux that even comes close.  I like the level of automation that Windoze software provides and don’t want to give it up.  I have a few Raspberry PI’s and have used them in the field… but I don’t need the same level of capability as I do at my home station.  For that level of need they work great!

        I toyed with the idea of writing my own…  but that was wayyyy too much work for me 🙂

        Seems that like you, I am stuck on Windows for the time being.

        73,

        Matt

        #150092
        Jeff Millar
        Participant

          N1MM does not run in Wine and the authors said they could not support Linux because their audience didn’t want it and they are busy.  I got it running under wine but something about the event loop running in the background caused persistent screen flicker and poor response to key strokes and mouse input.  That was 3 years ago or so.  It’s also when a friend introduced me to the lead for N1MM and we talked at Boxborough about lack of support for Linux.

          For my needs, Gridtracker, WSJTX, PSKReporter all work fine under Linux.

          CQRLog appears to be popular, but uses some database stuff that exceeds my attention span to setup.  But I’m running a bleeding edge Ubuntu that may not be supported well.

          Sometimes I spin up a Windows VM under Virtualbox, but ham apps tend to stress certain realtime or I/O features that give me problems.

          So, my WSJT stuff is fine, but I can’t log SSB or CW contacts, at the moment.

          jeff, wa1hco

           

           

          #150101
          Jeff Millar
          Participant

            I tried N1MM+ on Ubuntu with virt-manager (open source alternative to Virtualbox) and Windows 10 guest.  It appeared to work better than the last time (3 years ago).  It connected to the IC-7300 via serial USB.

            I’m not an expert at N1MM+ setup and didn’t try it extensively, but it did work without any glitches…so far.

            This was my first try at virt-manager instead of Virtualbox.  I like it.  The vm uses the same virtual disk image as Virtual box, so no need to reinstall.  I did install Ubuntu as a guest using the .iso file and it went fine.

            N1MM is able to launch and interface with WSJTX, but I could not get that to work correctly.

            jeff, wa1hco

            #150107
            Anonymous

              I do use Linux exclusively in my shack, no windows. For better or worse I never got myself accustomed to Windows Ham Radio software since I pretty much dropped out of the hobby from the mid-1980s to the mid-2010s when most of that stuff was written.

              As for logging:

              CQRLog appears to be popular, but uses some database stuff that exceeds my attention span to setup. But I’m running a bleeding edge Ubuntu that may not be supported well.

              I do use cqrlog. I have had no problems with it when I just install the version that comes with the installed linux (‘sudo apt install cqrlog’ to install it). I’ve done this across a few different Raspberry Pi installs, and for Intel CPUs, Ubuntu a few years ago and now recently with current Debian.

              If you do use the install command above, it will install the right database stuff as a dependency, including its startup scripts, and a quick reboot should confirm the startup scripts are working. I didn’t need to do any futzing.

              I failed when trying to build the current cqrlog from source on an older Linux. It needs an odd toolchain since it’s written in Pascal (!!!) and then you have to wrestle the DB connections yourself too. IMO it’s not worth the pain.

              It does have an interface to WSJT-X that I think is quite usable. Every 15 seconds it scans the decoded CQs and displays a few different configurable things, but the most useful stuff is if you have already worked that person’s DXCC country or not, in the current band and mode or not, with QSL or not, etc. Also, when you hit ‘Log QSO’ on WSJT-X you get a popup from cqrlog that has the important fields filled in.

              As above I have no basis for comparison, but I can imagine if you are used to things like N1MM+ you will have to dial back your expectations. Also, I don’t contest. It seems to have a dxcluster interface, but I haven’t tried that either, since I don’t know of a cluster to connect to.

              Their help pages are OK, their forums are OK, but of course it’s freeware and not a commercial product. They give you a good idea of what to expect, and from that you should be able to poke around with the settings to explore what the current software does.

              I will say I’ve moved the DB files from the PIs to the Intel boxes and they just worked. I think they document where to put them, then when you start the app it knows how to use them.

              My current HF digital setup is the Hermes-Lite-2 SDR transceiver at two watts of power, the ‘quisk’ SDR application, and as above, the stock wsjt-x and cqrlog from the repo. Another app I use is SparkSDR.  I think that gets downloaded from github.  It’s really nice for the HL2 radio, but not much else is supported.

              I also have a commercial transceiver or two, but don’t interface those to computers at this point in time, I just use them for SSB and CW.

              Regards,
              Dave (N1AI)

              #150113
              David Merchant
              Participant

                Hi Aron,

                I’ve used Windows and Mac OS interchangeably in my shack for some time now.  I’ve never tried Linux for logging, but have used it for hot spots, rotor control, etc.

                There are some great applications under Mac OS for ham radio.  For example, Dog Park Software offers Mac Logger DX and Mac Doppler, which are both excellent.  There is a website called machamradio.com that has an email distribution list that keeps you up to speed as new Mac software becomes available.

                73,

                Dave

                K1DLM

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