October 3, 2025: Lots of short stack content, the Hamspot 5 is featured, additional DVMEGA Cast observations, ASL3 won't work with MX Linux, and I talk about the glaciated landscape I live in.
"Google’s AI response to my query was: The “PWR” button on the DVMEGA Cast should only be used as a last resort, as it is a hard power-off. This is equivalent to unplugging the power and could cause file system corruption.
This is wrong.
The soft screen button "PWR" is nothing more than a way of turning off the screen. You can confirm this by touching "PWR" and turning off the screen.. Then go to the DVMegaCast in your web browser and navigate around the various pages. The screen remains off, yet the DVMC is obviously still alive and kicking. You can use all the software functions other than those that require you to touch the screen.
I still love all your stuff and totally share your position: All radio is fun and I like to play with it all.
By golly, you're right. I'll add a correction to the post. The screen wouldn't come back for me with the encoder, so I rebooted (through the WPSD software). At boot up, the screen remained dark. A few presses of the encoder woke it up.
Oh boy. “(Looks like I need to learn a little more about the philosophical differences between the systemd camp and the init camp!)” You really, really, don’t - unless you want to give up the will to live. I lived through those wars for a while at the start and have now pretty well managed to clean my memory. Just stick to a distro that uses systemd. To do otherwise is just a world of pain in 2025 IMO.
I did make sure that Zorin OS (that I installed on the MacBook Air) is running system, not sysvinit. For me, it's a matter of comfort and habit: I'm used to the system commands.
I’ve been thinking about your use of a power bank with the DVMC. You say “The INIU power bank is not a pass-through bank, or at least it doesn’t handle connections without momentarily switching the ports off.” Doesn’t this also mean that if mains power fails, or you unplug the mains to move the DVMC, you still risk a corrupted SD Card?
Please excuse the disarray at EtherHam.com. I was intending this to be a second layer to the Random Wire but spare time disappeared when my spouse had her medical incident. It's still on the list to pursue, as time permits.
Tom - Learned a new word - terrane. Thought you might have meant terrain, but looked it up and leaned the meaning. Cool - Thanks!
I was slightly sad to read of the Hamspot 5 using WSPD. I’m going to guess that, using a RPi 5, it won’t be compatible with WSPD-M17, so I’ll be passing on it as I really want to use M17 (more).
CHIP FOR THE WIN! I assumed (yes, I know what that means) that the guidance provided in the M17 wiki regarding system compatibility ("Raspberry Pi 3, 4, Zero 2 W, and compatible boards") was accurate. Missing in that list is the RPi 5. Chip, when I saw your comment, I immediately grabbed a spare microSD card and burned the WPSD M17 Community Fork edition (aka the WPSD-M17 Branch) to it and booted up the Hamspot 5...AND IT WORKS! My oh my. What a surprise, and a very pleasant one at that. I've tested on YSF and it works well. I'll try M17 later this afternoon (I dropped everything I was doing to see if the M17 Branch would run on the Hamspot 5). Wow. Wowee wow wow wow. Thank you, Chip!
My comment isn't meant to detract from the overall (apparently good) capabilities and good price / performance of the Hamspot 5. The MMDVM / WSPD software is out of the (hardware) developer's hands. I understood that M17 support would soon diverge from the mainstream of MMDVM development. I'm sure that the Hamspot 5 will meet the needs of many who aren't "experimental" enough to care about M17.
Understood. I'm in the process of ordering the CC1200 Hat board from PCBWay...but the min order is 5 so if I complete this process, I'll end up with extra boards :-)
Tom- You wrote:
"Google’s AI response to my query was: The “PWR” button on the DVMEGA Cast should only be used as a last resort, as it is a hard power-off. This is equivalent to unplugging the power and could cause file system corruption.
This is wrong.
The soft screen button "PWR" is nothing more than a way of turning off the screen. You can confirm this by touching "PWR" and turning off the screen.. Then go to the DVMegaCast in your web browser and navigate around the various pages. The screen remains off, yet the DVMC is obviously still alive and kicking. You can use all the software functions other than those that require you to touch the screen.
I still love all your stuff and totally share your position: All radio is fun and I like to play with it all.
73 de K3FZT / Steve
I will try that when I get back to the QTH!
By golly, you're right. I'll add a correction to the post. The screen wouldn't come back for me with the encoder, so I rebooted (through the WPSD software). At boot up, the screen remained dark. A few presses of the encoder woke it up.
Oh boy. “(Looks like I need to learn a little more about the philosophical differences between the systemd camp and the init camp!)” You really, really, don’t - unless you want to give up the will to live. I lived through those wars for a while at the start and have now pretty well managed to clean my memory. Just stick to a distro that uses systemd. To do otherwise is just a world of pain in 2025 IMO.
I did make sure that Zorin OS (that I installed on the MacBook Air) is running system, not sysvinit. For me, it's a matter of comfort and habit: I'm used to the system commands.
I’ve been thinking about your use of a power bank with the DVMC. You say “The INIU power bank is not a pass-through bank, or at least it doesn’t handle connections without momentarily switching the ports off.” Doesn’t this also mean that if mains power fails, or you unplug the mains to move the DVMC, you still risk a corrupted SD Card?
Haa, I should have read further on before commenting. FWIW, I use a RAVPOWER PD powerbank to power stuff. This definitely is a UPS-like device.
I'll have to try a RAVPOWER powerbank with power delivery. Thank you!
Would you be willing to share your RSS feed list? I bet you've got some good feeds that I've missed!
P.S.: I think you can actually subscribe to that long, aggregated feed with this URL: https://etherham.com/wprss
Haven't found a way to export the list (yet). Here is the raw, aggregated feed: https://etherham.com/feeds/
Please excuse the disarray at EtherHam.com. I was intending this to be a second layer to the Random Wire but spare time disappeared when my spouse had her medical incident. It's still on the list to pursue, as time permits.
Tom - Learned a new word - terrane. Thought you might have meant terrain, but looked it up and leaned the meaning. Cool - Thanks!
I was slightly sad to read of the Hamspot 5 using WSPD. I’m going to guess that, using a RPi 5, it won’t be compatible with WSPD-M17, so I’ll be passing on it as I really want to use M17 (more).
Thanks for a great read, as always.
In my excitement about this great hotspot, I spaced that the WPSD-M17 branch isn't compiled for the RPi 5. Oops.
Yes it is. I wrote/write WPSD, and the M17 fork (wish they’d change the name, to avoid user confusion) does run swimmingly on an RPi 5.
CHIP FOR THE WIN! I assumed (yes, I know what that means) that the guidance provided in the M17 wiki regarding system compatibility ("Raspberry Pi 3, 4, Zero 2 W, and compatible boards") was accurate. Missing in that list is the RPi 5. Chip, when I saw your comment, I immediately grabbed a spare microSD card and burned the WPSD M17 Community Fork edition (aka the WPSD-M17 Branch) to it and booted up the Hamspot 5...AND IT WORKS! My oh my. What a surprise, and a very pleasant one at that. I've tested on YSF and it works well. I'll try M17 later this afternoon (I dropped everything I was doing to see if the M17 Branch would run on the Hamspot 5). Wow. Wowee wow wow wow. Thank you, Chip!
My comment isn't meant to detract from the overall (apparently good) capabilities and good price / performance of the Hamspot 5. The MMDVM / WSPD software is out of the (hardware) developer's hands. I understood that M17 support would soon diverge from the mainstream of MMDVM development. I'm sure that the Hamspot 5 will meet the needs of many who aren't "experimental" enough to care about M17.
Understood. I'm in the process of ordering the CC1200 Hat board from PCBWay...but the min order is 5 so if I complete this process, I'll end up with extra boards :-)
See the additional information below from Chip, and my response.