DigiPi and the Universal Radio Controller – Part 1

I’m a big fan (and Patreon) of the KM6LYW Radio DigiPi Project digipi.org

DigiPi contains a comprehensive suite of digital utilities and applications for ham radio. Several of the utilities use the DireWolf AX.25 packet modem/TNC and APRS encoder/decoder.

To help users of DigiPi and the URC (and AIOC) I’ve worked though the configuration elements needed to adapt the DigiPi software for compatibility.

THIS SCRIPT IS FOR DIGIPI V1.8 OR LATER

Part 1: Packet and APRS utilities

For the utilities that use Packet/APRS I have developed a script to append the required configuration parameters for the Universal Radio Controller and the AIOC card.

I’ll add the script code in full further down, but for those desperate to get it and run it, then here’s the process:

  • Open the Shell command on the menu area at the bottom of the list
    Login with the pi/raspberry default credentials if this is not changed
  • When you get to the prompt: pi@digipi:~ $
  • Enter (cut & paste) these 4 lines, press enter after each
sudo mount -o remount,rw /
rm urc-aioc.sh
wget www.g1lro.uk/urc-aioc.sh 
chmod +x urc-aioc.sh

Then run this command at the prompt:

./urc-aioc.sh

The program will run and importantly give the information about the Serial Port identity that will be needed later:

You should see this output:

Config files updated for AIOC processor
Reboot DigiPi to write-protect the SD card
.
.
Serial port information for the applications:
/dev/ttyACM1
.
.
.

Note the ttyACM information, you’ll need this later in Part 2.

For now you should be able to use these DigiPi applications on the URC and AIOC.

We’ll cover the other applications in Part 2


The script.

The script that’s hosted on this site is pretty simple. It does 4 things:

  • Sets the filesystem for read and write (DigiPI has a write protected file system for increased robustness)
  • Resolves the device name for the serial port (ttyACM device)
  • Appends three lines to each DireWolf config file to use the URC/AIOC sound card and relevant PTT port
  • It reports the serial port device to the user for use in configuring other applications

Here is the script as-is without the comments:

sudo mount -o remount,rw /
port=$(ls /dev/ttyACM*)

echo -e "ADEVICE plughw:0,0\nPTT $port -RTS DTR\nARATE 48000" >> "direwolf.digipeater.conf"
echo -e "ADEVICE plughw:0,0\nPTT $port -RTS DTR\nARATE 48000" >> "direwolf.node.conf"
echo -e "ADEVICE plughw:0,0\nPTT $port -RTS DTR\nARATE 48000" >> "direwolf.tnc.conf"
echo -e "ADEVICE plughw:0,0\nPTT $port -RTS DTR\nARATE 48000" >> "direwolf.tnc300b.usb.conf"
echo -e "ADEVICE plughw:0,0\nPTT $port -RTS DTR\nARATE 48000" >> "direwolf.tnc.usb.conf"
echo -e "ADEVICE plughw:0,0\nPTT $port -RTS DTR\nARATE 48000" >> "direwolf.winlink.usb.conf"
echo -e "ADEVICE plughw:0,0\nPTT $port -RTS DTR\nARATE 48000" >> "direwolf.digipeater.usb.conf"
echo -e "ADEVICE plughw:0,0\nPTT $port -RTS DTR\nARATE 48000" >> "direwolf.node.usb.conf"
echo "Config files updated for AIOC processor"
echo "Reboot DigiPi to write-protect the SD card"
echo "."
echo "."
echo "Serial port information for the applications:"
echo "$port"
echo "."
echo "."
echo "."

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