Minimalistic program for remotely controlling PTT of a (Ham-)radio transceiver and streaming audio over a private IP-Network.
This is yet another remote PTT software.
This one works without mumble or any other server but requires connection between the remote computer (at radio) and the operators computer via a private network.
This software is intended for usage on a local area network, so there is no authentication or encryption.
This program only controls PTT and passes audio between the radio and the remote computer.
Audio streaming is done by trx.
As there are almost no Ham radios for VHF/UHF FM available that also have a CAT port the radio is controlled by flashing settings onto it via CHIRP.
The goal was to keep both ends as simple as possible.
- trx by Mark Hills (http://www.pogo.org.uk/~mark/trx/).
- RPi.GPIO by Ben Croston (https://pypi.org/project/RPi.GPIO/)
- pynput by Moses Palmér (https://pypi.org/project/pynput/)
- dtmf (see dtmf.py) by Noah Spurrier (http://www.noah.org/wiki/tones) (CC BY 4.0)
- Pulseaudio (installed on the raspberrypi)
On both the operators PC and the raspberry run:
git clone http://www.pogo.org.uk/~mark/trx.git
cd trx
make
mkdir ~/bin/
cp rx tx ~/bin
# check if your $PATH includes ~/bin
# if not, add "~/bin" to your $PATH
pip3 install pynput
pip3 install RPi.GPIO pyaudio numpy
When trying to set up the software on a raspberry-pi (light image) the follwing additional packages have to be installed:
apt install libportaudio2
Now you should be able to run radio.py on the raspbery and computer.py on the operators PC.
Runs on a raspberry pi (zero) and handles PTT as well as audio streaming through trx (rx and tx).
A GPIO pin is used to control the PTT key, audio in/out is done via a standard USB soundcard.
PTT commands are received via TCP (radio.py runs a server).
Due to speed limitations on a Gen 1 Raspberry pi Zero, only one processe for rx and tx can run at the same time (see audio_handler.py).
Runs on the operators PC.
Audio streaming is done again with trx.
PTT is done through monitoring the keyboard for a specific key (in this calse it's the 'ALT'-key).
PTT commands are sent via TCP to the server in radio.py.
Usage:
exit: will exit the program
T: continuous transmit
R: switch to receive (disables standby)
S: standby (disable all audio streaming on remote),
can only be disabled with 'R'
SR: standby but keep receiving
D<Nums> Send DTMF Numbers. <Nums> is a string of numbers
example: 'D12345' would send "12345"
All DTMF-Numbers/Charactes are available
help: print help
- Error-handling in radio.py
- Command-Line Arguments for Host/Port in raido.py and computer.py
- Locking mechanism in radio.py
- Find another soultion that doesn't use pulseadio because some users might not want to use that on a raspberrypi
- better exception handling
- Radio Power on / off
- Interlock to prevent radio access while other applications e.g. direwolf are in control
- find reason for latency / reason why audio is not audible for the first few seconds when switching to receive -> probably due to trx buffering/startup (Popen)
- Move argument handling to separate file class (as it is the same for both radio/computer)