For those of you who are consistent readers of my blog, you may remember that for some time now, I have had an issue with RFI. The problem it caused was that my contesting program N1MM+ would freeze while CW contesting on 15m and sometimes on 20m and 40m. As well, the Reverse Beacon Network website would get hung up while refreshing the world map and not stop trying to refresh the page. I would just see a spinning hourglass on the map. This only happened when I was on 15m, unlike the issues with N1MM+. I determined it was due to RFI, as when I dropped my power output to 60 watts, the issue was gone. Now, some might say just operate at 60 watts and FORGET ABOUT IT, as was said on The Sopranos, but as for me, I just can’t do that.
While taking part of my morning brew I noticed an issue with my blog. I have a list of the blogs that I follow and blogger calls it a blog list gadget. The little squares beside each of the blogs I follow is supposed to be a solid color and it is not. That is not a big deal but at the bottom of the blog list is a link that says "Show all". Now when I click on it the remainder of the followed blogs do not appear, nothing happens. I tried it both on my Windows and Mac pc with the same results. The max blogs you can show it 10 that you follow. When the Show all link is clicked the rest of the followed blogs should appear. I went to the gadget and played around with different settings and nothing was successful. I then went to AE5X blog who has the same setup for followers as mine. His too the squares were not a solid color and the link at the bottom of the blog list did not work either. Now I am not sure if it is just an issue here or if it is wide spread across all blogger blogs? If you have a blogger blog with this gadget give it a try, give the link on my blog a try at your end and if this is a wide spread issue does anyone have a fix.
Next up is my Python script for shutting down my contest station. That probably makes it sound like I’m running some massive, high-end operation—but in reality, I just really like things to work smoothly. I find it incredibly handy to simply double-click a Python shutdown icon on my desktop and have everything taken care of automatically. Some might call that lazy, overly dependent on a PC, or a bit geeky. I prefer the last option, and I’m fairly certain my dear wife would agree.
The reason I use a Python script for shutting the station down is the same reason I use one for startup: everything shuts down in the proper order. The shutdown process is essentially the reverse of the startup sequence, with a few hiccups that required some creative workarounds.
One issue was that certain applications—Win4Icom in particular—take noticeably longer to shut down than they do to start up, so I had to extend some of the timing in the script to allow for a clean exit. Another problem was that Win4Icom was not shutting down my Icom 7610 as it’s supposed to. As a result, the radio was staying powered on until the Wi-Fi plug turned off, cutting power to the supply and abruptly killing the radio. That obviously doesn’t allow for a proper shutdown sequence.
In the video, you’ll see that the Icom 7610 now shuts down cleanly at the very end of the shutdown process. I accomplished this by adding Python code that sends the appropriate Icom HEX command to power down the radio correctly.
I
have been working on some Python scripts to automate tasks that I would
rather not do manually. The video above shows my contest station
powering up from start to finish.
Why
do this, you ask? The part of the amateur radio hobby that really
interests me is CW contesting. Now that I am retired, I take part in
four weekly one-hour “mini” contests and, in an average month, I spend
two or three weekends CW contesting as well.
The
programs I use need to be started in a specific order. For example, I
must start my virtual port program (VSPE) first, and then start the
radio and contest programs in a certain sequence. If this order is not
followed, I get flooded with error messages.
Some
say I over complicate things, but I am somewhat of a perfectionist and
like everything set up just so. Python lets me achieve that with a
single mouse click. There has been some fine-tuning of the Python code
along the way. For example, my radio control program Win4Icom is
delivered as a complete new program with each update, rather than as an
add-on to the original, as the N1MM+ contesting program does. Because of
this, I wrote the script for Win4Icom so that it always checks for and
runs the highest revision number of the program; otherwise, it would
just continue to load the same old version.
I
also had to introduce delays between the startup of some programs.
After VSPE starts, I delay Win4Icom by five seconds, because VSPE is
still initializing in the background and Win4Icom would otherwise throw
errors. I also added a step to minimize VSPE to the taskbar once it
starts, so it does not sit on the screen. As Win4Icom starts, I added a
10-second delay while it powers up my Icom 7610 and sets up the COM port
configurations for N1MM+. I found N1MM+ needs to wait for those steps
to complete before it begins its own startup. Finally Reverse Beacon Network web page is setup to open with my call sign showing spots where it is heard.
Here's the sequence shown in the YouTube video:
WiFi smart plug powers on.
Astron power supply powers on seen in the lower left corner .
Raspberry Pi 4B boots (red power LED visible on desk), launching HamClock.
VSPE starts and minimizes to taskbar.
Win4Icom launches, powering on the Icom 7610.
Reverse Beacon Network loads/refreshes as HamClock continues to load.
N1MM+ Logger starts.
Next
up: Python shutdown scripting (with its own challenges). I'm also 3/4
through a script to generate ADIF file of contest contacts that exports and auto-upload to N3FJP, Club
Log, LoTW, CWops, and QRZ.com. Stay tuned!
