Putting multi-tone CTCSS on older rigs
It’s now quite easy to have CTCSS on older rigs with the introduction of the PBCT1LP board, the size of a postage stamp.
For full details and a demo of its use on an FT290 see the Operating ‘OA page.
GB3OA
YouTube video
Yesterday Dutch station Paul PE7B/P connected to Belgium repeater ON0LN on 70cms to gain access to GB3OA and call CQ in Southport. David G4TUP replied and they had a QSO.
What David didn’t know was that Paul was filming the contact and has now put it on YouTube for all to enjoy (?)
The Stream now out of Beta
The GB3OA stream feed is now fully functioning and so now out of beta phase. See The Stream page on this web site for details, and how to listen to it anywhere in the world.
David G4TUP.
Latest on the Shoutcast audio stream feed of GB3OA
The GB3OA repeater Shoutcast stream feeder equipment was moved from its temporary beta-testing home at the QTH of David G4TUP to its location by the GB3OA repeater last Saturday 18th January. If you’d been listening to GB3OA on-air and on the feed you would have noticed quite a bit of testing going on in the early afternoon.
Unfortunately, the envisaged position of the feed equipment was located next to trunking that held many cables with different types of data and voltages. When powered up it was found that the feed had a large amount of mains hum and data noise on the audio. Repositioning the equipment slightly within the available area reduced the interference, but still to an unacceptabel level.
It was therefore decided, in the interests of good audio quality, to return the equipment to David’s QTH and continue running it there. Fortunately, in about a months time, a new position will become available close to GB3OA which will be QRN-free.
For those that listen to the stream feed note that the player on shoutcast.com is only a very basic flash player, and suffers from not being able to handle any slight defect in the audio data stream. It’s therefore recommended that users go to The Stream page on the https://gb3oa.org.uk web site and use one of the players there…. Alternatively, those with iPads or iPhones can download the TuneIn app and use that.
David G4TUP.
Latest on the Shoutcast audio stream feed of GB3OA Read More »
GB3OA available via Internet streaming.
On test now is a stream feeder of the output of GB3OA to Shoutcast, which means that GB3OA can now be listened to worldwide by anyone!
On your smartphone browser, tablet or PC go to www.shoutcast.com and type GB3OA into the search bar. Then click the play icon at the bottom of the page and advance the volume control. If no QSO is in progress you’ll hear a chuffing sound, set the volume so that it can just be heard (note that iPads and iPhones need to use the TuneIn app as the Safari browser cannot play Shoutcast streams).
Listening to this feed you’ll hear all that GB3OA outputs, including IRLP and Echolink contacts. Note that there is a delay of up to one minute – this cannot be changed as Shoutcast has a 1MB buffer.
How has this all been created? The output of a Baofeng UV-3R HT is fed into a 50p-sized USB soundcard which is plugged into a Raspberry Pi. Two programs are used in the Pi – ALSAMIXER sets the outgoing audio level and DARKICE converts this audio into 32k bps MP3 audio and sends it to the Shoutcast server as data. With all this going on the load on the Pi CPU is only 13%.
Also, DARKICE has been compiled with the MP3 LAME encoder which processes the audio. Sometimes the audio via Shoutcast may sound better than direct through your own rig!
At present this is all on test, so expect short breaks in the feed…. and another feature to this is being worked on, watch out for this news soon!
For some, this link may work as a direct way of playing the stream provided the appropriate default programmes have been set up.
*Edit* Since this post, a separate page is now available giving further information on the stream and how to receive it. Click here to see it.
Best 73s, Philip G8XVV, David G4TUP and Mark G4EID.