N3BKV’s Ham Radio Hacks

  Recently a blog reader, Will WY7WL reached out about putting his Allstar node on to 44Net.  He was running into issues with connectivity to his node since it was behind CGNAT and wanted to see if he could adapt the 44net-cloud-wireguard-rpi script I had on Github for his application.  As I began testing it for him, I saw several things that needed to be customized to make the script work with the HamVoIP software, including making sure the software was at a current version, employing iptables for better compatibility and tweaking firewall settings to support Supermon.  So, I have created a special script to support this Allstar HamVoIP that handles everything soup to nuts and it is located at https://github.com/n3bkv/hamvoip-wireguard/blob/main/setup_hamvoip_wireguard.sh I also have an ASL3 version that Will help me test (since I do not run ASL on any of my own nodes).  That is available at - https://github.com/n3bkv/asl3-wireguard/blob/main/asl3-wg-setup.sh W...

  Have you ever wanted to search the FCC database outside the shack on a POTA or at Field Day? It's easy when you have cell coverage, but what if you are in the middle of nowhere? Or what if you want to see all the amateurs around you, search by last name or even who have a callsign like yours? K3NG's has come up with a powerful command line tool called HamDB that let's you have the entire FCC database available locally on your Raspberry Pi.  One thing I thought was missing was an easy to use UI, so I have put something together called HamDB GUI . With it you can search by call, name, zip code or callsign wildcard, right in your web browser. It's easy to get installed and up and running. All you need is a Raspberry Pi 3B or better and a 32GB SD card. If you are looking to power you Raspberry Pi in the field there are a number of <$10 converters like this one on Amazon that will allow you to run the Pi off 12 volts easily.  First you'll need to setup your Pi....

I've been running Node-RED on my home network for a while now, controlling various ham station functions and monitoring gear remotely. The problem? Accessing it from outside my network meant either opening it directly to the internet (yikes) or dealing with VPN clients on every device I wanted to use. VPNs work, sure, but they're a pain. You need to install clients, manage configurations, deal with connection drops and if you want to give access to other hams in your club? Good luck walking everyone through VPN setup on their computers. Plus, most free VPN solutions limit you to a handful of users. I wanted something better. A secure web portal that I could access from anywhere with just a browser. No client software, no complicated setup for users, but still locked down tight with proper authentication and encryption. That's when I decided to build out a proper web portal on 44Net using Traefik and Authelia. After getting it working, I packaged the whole thing into an auto...

  I've been using a WaveNode WN-2 power meter at our remote station for years now. It's a fantastic piece of gear - four independent RF channels, high SWR alarms, forward and reverse wattage monitoring and a Windows app that displays everything in real time. Check it out at: https://wavenodedevelop.com/controllers/wavenode-wn-2/ But here's the problem: the data lives in the WaveNode application and nowhere else. I wanted that data in my Node-RED dashboard. I wanted it in Grafana for historical trending. I wanted to trigger automations based on SWR readings or power levels. The WaveNode software wasn't designed to share its data with other applications. So I built a bridge. The result is WaveNode-to-MQTT, a small Windows utility that grabs all the WaveNode data and republishes it to MQTT topics. Once it's in MQTT, you can do anything with it - display it in dashboards, log it to databases, trigger alerts, whatever you need. Here is the project link: https://github.co...