Random Wire Review 121
February 21, 2025: A short issue with: a new TechNote; SIP phone problem solved; resolving a VPN problem on guest wifi; and live audio feeds on Hamshack Hotline.
Contents
1. New TechNote published
TechNotes available
2. TP-Link AX1500 travel router for ham radio
3. 44 Net and the ARDC
4. SIP phone adventures
I couldn’t dial outbound calls!
Changing your phone screen background image
5. Live audio feeds on Hamshack Hotline
6. VPN not working? Check your DNS
7. KJ7T in writing mode
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1. New TechNote published
On February 19, 2025, I published TechNote 5: Everything you need to operate a Portable Digital Node on WIRES-X with the Yaesu FT5D handheld transceiver.
TechNotes available
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2. TP-Link AX1500 travel router for ham radio
I’m writing out of order. I had intended to write the how-to about WIRES-X on the Yaesu FT5D handheld transceiver last week, and describe my experience with the AX1500 travel router this week. However, my RADIO ID from Yaesu did not arrive before my trip to Salt Lake City, so I ended up reviewing the AX1500 travel router last week. Best laid plans and all that.
As noted above, I completed the how-to for WIRES-X on the FT5D earlier this week and published it as a TechNote a few days ago.
As an experiment, I also published it on Medium.com. Interestingly, Medium doesn’t seem to allow posting YouTube videos within the article. That seems a bit limiting, especially given how much great information is available via YouTube.
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3. 44 Net and the ARDC
The Ham Radio Workbench folks recently published a great podcast I found informative, enjoyable, and intriguing: HRWB 229 - All About 44 Net and the ARDC
Let me start with the ARDC: Amateur Radio Digital Communications. Their website (https://www.ardc.net/) is your doorway to 44 Net, also known as AMPRnet. There’s a ton of helpful information about 44 Net at https://wiki.ampr.org/wiki/Main_Page. (I confess that I love a good wiki!)
I had heard of 44 Net but never really thought about it. Then I saw a mention of 44 Net email and web hosting in Steve Stroh’s great newsletter, Zero Retries. I did sign up for an email address: kj7t@44net.email. It works great in my testing.
Subscribing to Zero Retries is Random Wire Recommended.
Steve followed up with a notice that 44 Net and the ARDC were featured in a new Ham Radio Workbench podcast. This was very timely because I had a two-hour drive ahead of me. I find George KJ6VU and company to be great company while I drive. I learn a lot and I enjoy the interplay among the HRWB team.
This was no different. I will be learning more about 44 Net in the near future.
If nothing else draws your interest, perhaps knowing that the ARDC granted substantial funding to build the Digital Library of Amateur Radio Communications into the Internet Archive. The tremendous knowledge captured in the DLARC is now forever available to anyone. I’m in awe of this work.
Digital Library of Amateur Radio and Communications is a free online library devoted to ham radio, shortwave listening, college radio, and early communications. DLARC is funded by a significant grant from Amateur Radio Digital Communications.
Visit https://archive.org/details/dlarc to see what they have captured (more than 140,000 items so far). The website is a little slow for me, but perhaps that’s because it is loaded with so much content I could spend the rest of my life immersed in it.
Keep up with ARDC news by subscribing to their newsletter at: https://www.ardc.net/about/newsletter/
Finally, I find some poetic symmetry in noting that Ham Radio Workbench podcast episodes are being archived by DLARC. Find their great back catalog of content at: https://archive.org/details/dlarc-podcasts?tab=collection&query=HRWB
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4. SIP phone adventures
I couldn’t dial outbound calls!
I discovered a problem with my new Polycom VVX 401 SIP phone: I couldn’t dial out. I confess that I was stumped for a couple of hours on this problem. I’m not a SIP phone expert by any means, so I stumbled around with internet searches and reading manuals, trying to find the answer.
The symptom was that I could dial seven digits in a dialing string but then the phone would stop accepting input from the keypad and I’d hear a busy signal. (I know if you are an experienced SIP phone user, you’re rolling your eyes and thinking “how could he not know immediately that his dial plan was wrong?”)
I was seeing this behavior with two different phone numbers (both provisioned through VOIP.ms), suggesting a phone problem, not a provider problem. Nevertheless, I reached out to VOIP.ms support to ask for help. I figured they had worked with the VVX 401 phone before and might have some clues that would help me land on the solution.
The first chat support session helped me rule out some obvious issues. We tried an “echo test” which involved dialing 4443 from my SIP phone. That worked fine (and I discovered that my latency on my voice lines through VOIP.ms is very low). This showed the phone was working with their service, but since we didn’t make much progress after this, I concluded the chat session so the support tech could help people with bigger problems and I could dwell a bit on what was going on.
After another hour of internet sleuthing, I wasn’t much closer to an answer. I had learned I could dial an outgoing phone number if it was saved in my history or in the call directory on the phone, but I couldn’t finish punching the same numbers in through the keypad. One person had suggested changing the timeout in the SIP dialing plan and I tried that to no effect. But something about that screen bothered me and I ended up coming back to it when I opened a second chat support session.
As I described the problem in some detail — including what I’d already tried — and as I kept clicking through phone configuration screens in my browser, I suddenly saw a pattern that matched what I was experiencing. It was in the dialing plan. When manually dialing, I could only reach the seventh digit in the phone number before the phone stopped accepting my input. This was a consistent, repeatable condition. What I saw in the dialing plan was seven x’s, representing the seven digits in the phone number. Essentially, the phone was configured to only allow a seven-digit phone number to be dialed manually.
I added three more x’s which worked unless I had to dial a 1 in front of the number for long distance. Changing the three to four x’s fixed the problem.
The dialing plan was:
*xx|[1-9]xxxxxxx|88xxxxxxxThe new dialing plan that works is:
*xx|[1-9]xxxxxxxxxxx|88xxxxxxxxxxxIf you happen to be a SIP phone wizard, I’d appreciate some feedback on this digitmap (aka dialing plan).
Changing your phone screen background image
While I was in the phone configuration screens, I added a custom background image. One of my favorite birds is the American kestrel (a biologist friend calls them “beautiful little killers”).
To do this on the Polycom VVX 401:
Find or create a 320x240 pixel image
Upload it to the /var/www/html/ folder on your Asterisk server
In the phone web interface, go to Preferences, Background Images
Select "Add a new background image"
Select the "Enter URL / file name stored in boot server" choice
Enter your local Asterisk server address and the file name
This is a small thing but it makes the phone feel a little more personal to me.
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5. Live audio feeds on Hamshack Hotline
I saved the best for last. (This is related to the SIP phone adventures piece above as Hamshack Hotline is a voice-over-IP phone service for amateur radio operators.)
You’ve probably heard of Hamshack Hotline. They’ve been around for quite a while. (Interestingly, there is no Wikipedia entry for Hamshack Hotline.)
HH has an online map of endpoints, an active Discord community, and a Facebook page that is not updated often. Robert Przbyzerski has a nice page about Hamshack Hotline at https://w2ymm.home.blog/hamshack-hotline/
With HH, you can dial another user’s extension directly. If they don’t answer, you can leave a message. There are feature codes (like DTMF codes on a radio) that let you mute your phone, hear an announcement of your extension, retrieve voice mails, and more. Find more on the HH Services page.
And HH has conference bridges. You can join an existing conference or start your own.
I just discovered live audio feeds are available over my HH extension. How did I not know about this? I can dial 94077 from my HH phone to connect to the Kansas City Wide digital network (one of my favorite destinations) and hear nice, clean audio. Learn more at https://www.kansascityroom-wide.com/hamshack-hotline/
For more live audio broadcasts, visit: https://apps.hamshackhotline.com/audio.php
What can you listen to?
WBZ AM 1030 Boston
Old Time Radio
BBC World service
A few NPR stations
Morse Code Practice and more
The SouthEast Link Bridge System is available over Hamshack Hotline: https://lmarc.net/club/on-the-air/hamshack-hotline/
Connect to the East Coast Reflector by dialing 94049.
A ton of bridges (and many of these are for ARES/RACES use) are listed at: https://apps.hamshackhotline.com/bridges.php
After I discovered audio feeds and bridges, I also recognized that we could use a resource that I think doesn’t yet exist: The Complete Guide to Hamshack Hotline.
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6. VPN not working? Check your DNS
Recently, I had to spend a couple of days on the Capitol Campus in Olympia, Washington. I was glad to see that the Capitol building had free guest wifi, and as I always do with a guest internet service, I cranked up a VPN client.
It didn’t work.
So, I closed that one and initiated a different VPN client. Nope, that didn’t work, either.
After I tried the third VPN client and found that like with the other clients, I could not complete a connection, I realized this was either a problem with the guest wifi service or with how I had configured my laptop. I tried a couple of easy-to-implement workarounds but nothing worked.
Challenge accepted.
I spent a couple of hours working this problem. My three VPN services are:
I also have MullvadVPN but after striking out with the first three I didn’t bother trying the fourth option.
I tried many scenarios. Finally, I disabled the NextDNS service on my laptop and reset the wifi interface DNS to Google’s open 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 servers. After a reboot, VPN began working again.
This was a bit unusual for me because I generally have my NextDNS service running all the time, and I use VPN in hotels without trouble. Something about the Capitol wifi did not like something about my NextDNS service at all. I did think about digging into this with the folks who handle information technology on the Capitol campus, but then realized my inquiries might not be considered in a positive light, so I dropped the idea. No need to poke the bear!
The takeaway? If you’re having trouble with VPN while traveling, try changing your DNS to a more usual DNS service.
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7. KJ7T in writing mode
This is me in writing mode: headphones on, feeling relaxed and a little disheveled, and thinking about amateur radio and technology.
I’m piping music through my nice Yamaha headphones (model HPH-MT5w) with some amplification from a small headphone amp, with the tunes being served from my older Synology DS220 (here’s a link to the DS223) through the MusicBee app on my Lenovo ThinkPad X1 laptop. What am I listening to? Some old Robert Palmer, Robert Cray, and Joe Bonamassa albums. Toward the end of this session, the music had become quieter and more reflective: Donald Fagen and Don McLean.
I like your choice of music! 73, Ed KA9EES