I know it has been a while since my last post but Life Happened. The "big" ham radio project was working on my DMR hotspot's, yes plural. I have had one working fine at home for a few months now and I decided to get one working for my car when traveling. With 3 Raspberry Pi computers and 2 hotspot hats I thought it would be simple. Boy was I wrong! After several attempts to get the second hotspot working and failing I decided to order a new complete unit. And guess what I, I could not get that one working the way I wanted either. So I went back to basics. I knew the one worked fine so I took the SD card from that one and one by one tested every other combination. I discovered that one of the Hat boards was shorting out but not where I initially thought. I thought it was shorting on the case but after putting it in a very complicated plastic case I then saw that the hat was shorting on some pins on the main board. I fixed that problem and put the setup back in a regular case and that one worked again. I then set up the software with only a minor change between each hotspot but using the same network. So far I got 2 of the 3 hotspot's working but I am still having problems with the third one. My next step will be to try and set one of the hotspot's to a different WiFi network and get the third one working. I might even think about putting the third hotspot in the clear plastic case for display/demonstration purposes.

Next time I hope to add some pictures to my post but as I said in the beginning Life Happened so I did not have the time to figure that part out, My third great grandchild was born and I had to help babysit her big sister.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Back to the beginning

 To truly understand my logic about Go Boxes we need to go back to the beginning. In the late 1990's I took my test to become an Amateur Radio Operator. Prior to that I was involved in a very active CB group that did a lot of public service work. At the time I was licensed there were 6 classes of licenses and to get to Technician at the lowest level 2 tests were required, 3 if you wanted any HF voice privileges, so I took the tests and was granted the callsign of KC8LAO. I then bought 3 radios. A mobile, another mobile that I used as a base and a HT. No go box required at that point. I joined a local club and got involved with their public service, ARES, and worked a few events. I then started to upgrade my radios and as the number of radios grew so did the problems transporting my gear to events. Fast forward to today and even after giving my son and grandson radios after they passed their tests I have 6 HT's, a mobile in my car, and 2 mobile radios that are used as base radio...
Read more

Go Boxes

 On chat group I mentioned a Go Box project I am working on. My plan is to have "boxes" for a portable base setup, food, Hand held radios and my computer stuff. Others have backpacks, or large totes for their go kits, and that is actually fine. Whatever way you go is a personal choice. The logic behind my way is you do not always need everything for every deployment. If I was working a local event I would not need my food box or my tent. Depending on what I was doing I might not need a portable base either so I would not have to load them up. If I was however manning a booth at an event the base and computer could be a very big plus. In addition having things organized by purpose it make things much easier to find for me at least. In the near future I hope to add pictures and descriptions of my boxes so that you have an Idea about my choices. Just remember you do not need to do things exactly the same. Choose what works for you based on your equipment and needs.
Read more