Teefax

Teefax

Teefax is a teletext service created and run by enthusiasts. VBIT can act as an automated Teefax client. Just switch on and get teletext with the latest pages.

To get Teefax you need to install VBIT and point it to the Teefax pages. Then activate two tasks, one to auto start VBIT and the other to poll for new pages. This involves editing files that vbit has installed.

Show Teefax pages

The PAGESDIRECTORY variable in the go script should read PAGESDIRECTORY=$HOME/teletext. This is currently what the getteletext install script sets by default.

Auto start VBIT

Installing VBIT should have included ~/vbit.sh If you are using the default "pi" login you don't need to edit vbit.sh. Otherwise edit vbit.sh to change /home/pi to your actual home directory. Then type these lines to install the startup script.

cd ~
sudo cp vbit.sh /etc/init.d
sudo chmod 755 /etc/init.d/vbit.sh
sudo update-rc.d vbit.sh defaults

Poll for Teefax pages every two minutes

Edit the cron job: sudo crontab -e Add this line to the end. It updates the pages every 2 minutes: */2 * * * * /home/pi/updatePages.sh

How to change the header row

The header row for the teefax service can be changed by editing the vbit.conf file in the teletext directory. The default file has a few examples of old broadcast header rows which you can use by un-commenting a row, or you can create your own from scratch. See the Config page for details.