Amateur Radio SoftwareDistributed with(X)Ubuntu LTS

Serge Stroobandt, ON4AA

Copyright 2014–2016, licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA

This page is still under construction.

IntroductionAmateur radio (also called “ham radio”), is a technical hobby Many ham radiostations are highly integrated with computers. Radios are interfaced with com-puters to aid with contact logging, propagation prediction, station spotting,antenna steering, signal (de)modulation and filtering.

For many years, amateur radio software has been a bastion of Windows™ ap-plications developed by However, with the advent of the Rasperry Pi, amateurradio hobbyists are slowly but surely discovering GNU/Linux.

Most of the software for GNU/Linux is available through package reposito-ries. Such package repositories come by default with the GNU/Linux distrib-ution of your choice. Package management systems offer many benefits in theform of security (you know what you are getting from whom) and ease-of-use(packages are upgraded automatically). No longer does one need to wanderthe back corners of the internet to find new or updated software, exposing one-self to the risk of catching a computer virus.

A number of GNU/Linux distributions offer freely installable ham-relatedpackages under the “Amateur Radio” section of their main repository.The largest collection of ham radio packages is offered by OpenSuse and De-bian-derived distributions like Xubuntu LTS and Linux Mint, to name buta few. Arch may also have whole bunch of ham related software in [AUR].

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SynapticOne way to find and install ham radio packages on Debian-derived distrosis by using the Synaptic graphical package manager (see Figure 1). However,searching the vast Synaptic package database may become rapidly over-whelming at times. This is why for this article, another technique was em-ployed; namely, shamelessly exploiting aptitude command-line arguments.

Figure 1: The Synaptic graphical package manager partially showing the “Amateur Ra-dio” section of the Xubuntu LTS repository.

HamradioThe entire default ham radio package list of no less than 78 packages is printedbelow. Lazy as I am, the Markdown table was created from the command lineand included by reference into the surprisingly short Markdown source ofthis page. Below command prints a Markdown pipe table with the packagename and description of all packages belonging to the hamradio section of thenative architecture. If you want to find out more about how this works, hereare aptitude ’s package list customisation escape codes and search patterns.

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$ aptitude -F'%p' search '~r native ~s hamradio' \|xargs apt-cache show \|awk '/^Package/{name=$2} \

/^Description-en/{$1="";sub(FS,"");description=$0} \/^Homepage/{url=$2} \/^$/{if(url) {printf("|["name"]("url")|"description"|\n");

url=""} \else {printf("|"name"|"description"|\n")}}' \

|sed -e '/.*-common/d' -e '/.*-core/d' \-e '/.*-data/d' -e '/.*-dev/d' -e '/.*-doc.*/d' \-e '/^|lib.*/d' -e '/^|\[lib.*/d' \

> ../doc/hamradio.tmp

Ofcourse, my indolence is such that I counted the packages with |wc -l .

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Table 1: Amateur radio packages distributed with Xubuntu LTS

name package description

acfax Receive faxes using your radio and sound cardaldo Morse code training programantennavis antenna radiation pattern visualization softwareaprsdigi digipeater for APRSaprx APRS Digipeater and iGateax25-apps AX.25 ham radio applicationsax25-tools tools for AX.25 interface configurationax25-xtools tools for AX.25 interface configuration – X11-basedax25mail-utils hamradio packet utilities for fbbaxmail Mail user agent for ax.25 users, accessed via a node frontendbaycomepp Drivers for the HB9JNX packet radio epp modembaycomusb Drivers for the HB9JNX packet radio usb modemchirp Configuration tool for amateur radioschirp-daily Configuration tool for amateur radioscqrlog Advanced logging program for hamradio operatorscqrlog Advanced logging program for hamradio operatorscutesdr simple demodulation and spectrum display programcw Morse code tutor - command line user interfacecwcp Morse code tutor - text user interfacecwdaemon morse daemon for the parallel or serial portd-rats Communications tool for D-STAR amateur radiodirewolf Soundcard TNC for APRSebook2cw convert ebooks to Morse MP3s/OGGsebook2cwgui GUI for ebook2cwfbb Packet radio mailbox and utilitiesfccexam Study tool for USA FCC commercial radio license exams.flamp ham radio Amateur Multicast Protocol applicationflamp ham radio Amateur Multicast Protocol applicationfldigi digital modem program for hamradio operatorsfldigi digital modem program for hamradio operatorsflmsg amateur radio forms management editorflmsg amateur radio forms management editorflrig ham radio transceiver control programflrig ham radio transceiver control programflwrap amateur radio file encapsulation/compression utilityfreedv Software Defined Radio (SDR)gcb Utility to calculate long and short path to a location

glfer program for reception and transmission of QRSS/DFCWsignals

gnss-sdr Global navigation satellite systems software defined receiver

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name package description

gnuais AIS receiver which uses the discriminator output of VHFreceivers

gnuaisgui OpenStreetMap GUI for gnuaisgpredict Satellite tracking programgqrx-sdr Software defined radio receivergqrx-sdr Software defined radio receivergrig graphical user interface to the Ham Radio Control Librariesgsmc Smith Chart calculator for impedance matchinghamexam Study tool for USA FCC amateur radio (ham) exams.hamexam Study tool for USA FCC amateur radio (ham) exams.

hamfax Receive/send radio facsimile transmissions withSoundcard/PTC-II

icom Software control for ICOM radios with CI-V interfaceinspectrum tool for visualising captured radio signalsklog Multiplatform ham radio logging programlinpac terminal for packet radio with mail clientlinpsk program for operating PSK31/RTTY modes with X GUIlysdr Simple software-defined radiomhuxd Simple software-defined radiomorse training program about morse-code for aspiring radio hamsmorse-x morse “practicing” tool for Xmorse2ascii tool for decoding the morse codes from a PCM WAV filemultimon Linux Radio Transmission Decoder

nec2c Translation of the NEC2 FORTRAN source code to the Clanguage

owx utility to program Wouxun dual-band handheld radiosp10cfgd Remote configuration daemon for Gracilis Packetenpredict Satellite Tracking Program with Optional Voice Outputpredict-gsat Graphical Satellite Tracking Client Programpsk31lx PSK31 terminal application with text-based user interfacepyqso logging tool for amateur radio operatorsqrq high speed morse trainer, similar to DL4MM’s Rufzqsstv Qt-based slow-scan TV and faxqtel Graphical client for the EchoLink® protocolquisk Software Defined Radio (SDR)remotetrx Remote controller for radio transceiverssoapysdr-module-airspy Airspy device support for SoapySDR (default version)soapysdr-module-airspy Airspy device support for SoapySDR (default version)soapysdr-module-rtlsdr RTL-SDR device support for SoapySDR (default version)soapysdr-module-rtlsdr RTL-SDR device support for SoapySDR (default version)soapysdr0.5-2-module-airspy Airspy device support for SoapySDR

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name package description

soapysdr0.5-2-module-rtlsdr RTL-SDR device support for SoapySDR

soapysdr0.6-module-airspy Airspy device support for SoapySDR

soapysdr0.6-module-rtlsdr RTL-SDR device support for SoapySDR

soundmodem Sound Card Amateur Packet Radio Modemssplat analyze point-to-point terrestrial RF communication linkssvxlink-server Voice-over-IP server for ham radio operatorstk2 Tk GUI for the ICOM IC-R2 receivertk5 Experimental Software for the ICOM IC-R5 Receivertlf console based ham radio contest loggertrustedqsl QSL log signing for the Logbook of the World (LoTW)trustedqsl QSL log signing for the Logbook of the World (LoTW)tucnak VHF/UHF/SHF Hamradio contest logging programtwclock World clock for ham radio operatorstwpsk Soundcard-based X program for operating PSK31uronode Node front end for AX.25, NET/ROM, Rose and TCPwsjt weak-signal amateur radio communicationswsjtx weak-signal amateur radio communicationswsjtx weak-signal amateur radio communications

wwl Calculates distance and azimuth between two Maidenheadlocators

xastir X Amateur Station Tracking and Information Reportingxcwcp Morse code tutor - graphical user interfacexdemorse decode Morse signals to textxdx DX-cluster tcp/ip client for amateur radioxlog GTK+ Logging program for Hamradio Operatorsxnec2c calculate and display radio antenna propertiesxnecview NEC structure and gain pattern vieweryagiuda software to analyse performance of Yagi-Uda antennasz8530-utils2 Utilities for Z8530 based HDLC cards for AX.25

ElectronicsBut wait, there is more! … The vast array of electronics packages should notbe overlooked.

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$ ( aptitude -F'%p' search '~r native ~s electronics'aptitude -F'%p' search '~r native ~Rrecommends: science-electronics'aptitude -F'%p' search '~r native ~Rsuggests: science-electronics' ) \|xargs apt-cache show \|awk '/^Package/{name=$2} \

/^Description-en/{$1="";sub(FS,"");description=$0} \/^Homepage/{url=$2} \/^$/{if(url) {printf("|["name"]("url")|"description"|\n");

url=""} \else {printf("|"name"|"description"|\n")}}' \

|sed -e '/.*-common/d' -e '/.*-core/d' \-e '/.*-data/d' -e '/.*-dev/d' -e '/.*-doc.*/d' \-e '/^|lib.*/d' -e '/^|\[lib.*/d' \

|sort -u > ../doc/electronics.tmp

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Table 2: Electronics packages distributed with Xubuntu LTS

name package description

alliance VLSI CAD Toolsaltos Altus Metrum firmware and utilitiesarachne-pnr-chipdb Chip db files for arachne-pnrarachne-pnr Place and route tool for iCE40 family FGPAsarduino AVR development board IDE and built-in librariesarduino-mighty-1284p Platform files for Arduino to run on ATmega1284P

arduino-mk Program your Arduino from the command lineatlc Arbitrary Transmission Line Calculatoratlc-examples Examples for Arbitrary Transmission Line Calculatoravarice use GDB with Atmel AVR debuggersavra assembler for Atmel AVR microcontrollersavrdude software for programming Atmel AVR microcontrollersavrp Programmer for Atmel AVR microcontrollersberkeley-abc ABC - A System for Sequential Synthesis and Verificationbossa-cli Atmel SAM ARM microcontroller flash programming utilitybossa Atmel SAM ARM microcontroller flash programming GUIbottlerocket Utility to control X10 Firecracker devices for home automationcc1111 C Compiler for TI/Chipcon 8051-based RF SOCsconfluence language for synchronous reactive hardware system designcovered Verilog code coverage analysis toolcycfx2prog Cypress EZ-USB FX2 (LP) programmerdfu-util Device firmware update (DFU) USB programmerdigitemp read temperature sensors in a 1-Wire net

drawtiming tool for documenting hardware designs through timingdiagrams

easyspice A graphical frontend to the Spice simulatoreep24c read and write serial I2C eeprom deviceselectric electrical CAD systemesptool create and flash firmware files to ESP8266 or ESP32 chipsflashrom Identify, read, write, erase, and verify BIOS/ROM/flash chipsflexloader utility to configure SRAM based ALTERA devicesfped Footprint editorfpga-icestorm-chipdb Chip database files for fpga-icestormfpga-icestorm Tools to handle the bitstream format of Lattice iCE40 FPGAsfreehdl VHDL simulator for Linuxfritzing Easy-to-use electronic design softwarefritzing-parts Easy-to-use electronic design software (parts files)gcc-avr GNU C compiler (cross compiler for avr)geda-examples GPL EDA – Electronics design software (example designs)geda-gattrib GPL EDA – Electronics design software (attribute editor)

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name package description

geda-gnetlist GPL EDA – Electronics design software (netlister)geda-gschem GPL EDA – Electronics design software (schematic editor)geda-gsymcheck GPL EDA – Electronics design software (symbol checker)geda GPL EDA – Electronics design software (metapackage)geda-symbols GPL EDA – Electronics design software (symbols library)geda-utils GPL EDA – Electronics design software (utilities)

geda-xgsch2pcb GPL EDA – Electronics design software – gschem -> PCBworkflow GUI

gerbv Gerber file viewer for PCB designglogic graphical logic circuit simulatorgnucap GNU Circuit Analysis packagegnusim8085 Graphical Intel 8085 simulator, assembler and debuggergplcver Verilog simulatorgpsim Simulator for Microchip’s PIC microcontrollersgputils GNU PIC utilitiesgraywolf Placement for digital VLSI designgresistor resistor color code calculatorgspiceui Graphical user interface for gnucap and ngspicegtkwave VCD (Value Change Dump) file waveform viewergwave waveform viewer eg for spice simulatorsirsim switch-level simulatoriverilog Icarus verilog compilerkicad Electronic schematic and PCB design software

langford-utils Control programs for the Per Vices Noctar IQ demodulatorboard

linsmith tool to generate Smith Chartslpctools interface to NXP LPC Microcontrollers ISP serial interfacem16c-flash Flash programmer for Renesas M16C and R8C microcontrollersmagic VLSI layout toolmcu8051ide Graphical Integrated Development Environment for 8051mspdebug debugging tool for MSP430 microcontrollersnbc Compiler for LEGO Mindstorms NXT bricksngspice Spice circuit simulatornitpic simulator for the Microchip PIC16C84 microcontrollerola Open Lighting Architectureoregano tool for schematical capture of electronic circuitsowfs-fuse 1-Wire filesystemowfs Dallas 1-wire supportowftpd FTP daemon providing access to 1-Wire networksowhttpd HTTP daemon providing access to 1-Wire networksowserver Backend server for 1-Wire controlow-shell shell utilities to talk to an 1-Wire owserver

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name package description

ow-tools tools to monitor or inspect a ow-server linkpcb2gcode command-line tool for engraving PCBs using CNCspcb-gtk printed circuit board (pcb) design program - GTK+ interfacepcb printed circuit board (pcb) design program - meta-packagepcb-lesstif printed circuit board (pcb) design program - LessTif interfacepd-pduino interfacing with the Arduino from within Pure Data (Pd)pd-xbee interfacing with your XBee from within Pure Data (Pd)picprog Microchip PIC serial programmer softwarepulseview sigrok logic analyzer, oscilloscope, and MSO GUIpyvisa Transitional dummy package for python-pyvisaqelectrotech Electric schematic editorqflow Open-Source Digital Synthesis Flowqflow-tech-osu018 Technology files needed for qflow for osu018qflow-tech-osu035 Technology files needed for qflow for osu035qflow-tech-osu050 Technology files needed for qflow for osu050qrouter Multi-level, over-the-cell maze routerqsapecng symbolic analyzer and solver of linear analog circuitsrfdump tool to decode RFID tag datas51dude In-System Programmer for 8051 MCUs using usbtinyscantool OBD-II vehicle diagnostic scannersdcc Small Device C Compilersdcc-libraries Small Device C Compiler (libraries)sdcc-ucsim Micro-controller simulator for SDCCsigrok-cli command-line frontend for the sigrok softwaresigrok-firmware-fx2lafw Firmware for Cypress FX2(LP) based logic analyzers

sigrok Logic analyzer and protocol decoder software suite(metapackage)

simulavr Atmel AVR simulatorsimulpic simulator for Microchip PIC16F84 microcontrollerspectools Utilities for using the Wi-Spy USB spectrum analyzer hardwarespim MIPS R2000/R3000 emulatorstm32flash STM32 chip flashing utility using a serial bootloadert2n Simple command-line tool for Lego NXTtclspice NGspice library for Tcltexlive-latex-extra TeX Live: LaTeX additional packagestkgate Tcl/Tk based digital circuit editor and simulatoruisp Micro In-System Programmer for Atmel’s AVR MCUsusbrelay USB HID relay driververilator fast free Verilog simulatorverilog Icarus verilog compiler (transitional package)

vish Commandline interface for Virtual Instrument SoftwareArchitecture

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name package description

visolate tool for engraving PCBs using CNCsxcircuit Draw circuit schematics or almost anythingyosys Framework for Verilog RTL synthesis

EngineeringEvery home-brewed ham project involves some amount of engineering…

$ ( aptitude -F'%p' search '~r native ~Rrecommends: science-engineering'aptitude -F'%p' search '~r native ~Rsuggests: science-engineering' ) \|xargs apt-cache show \|awk '/^Package/{name=$2} \

/^Description-en/{$1="";sub(FS,"");description=$0} \/^Homepage/{url=$2} \/^$/{if(url) {printf("|["name"]("url")|"description"|\n");

url=""} \else {printf("|"name"|"description"|\n")}}' \

|sed -e '/.*-common/d' -e '/.*-core/d' \-e '/.*-data/d' -e '/.*-dev/d' -e '/.*-doc.*/d' \-e '/^|lib.*/d' -e '/^|\[lib.*/d' \

|sort -u > ../doc/engineering.tmp

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Table 3: Engineering packages distributed with Xubuntu LTS

name package description

ann-tools Approximate Nearest Neighbor Searching library (tools)cba Continuous Beam Analysiscgns-convert CFD General Notation System - Conversion toolscode-aster-gui Graphical user interface for Code_Aster - clientcode-aster Code_Aster finite element program - metapackage

code-saturne-bin General purpose Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software -binaries

code-saturne General purpose Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) softwarecode-saturne-include

General purpose Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software -includes

diet-agent DIET grid middleware - agentdime DXF Import, Manipulation, and Export programseficas Graphical editor for Code Aster command filesfreecad Extensible Open Source CAx program (alpha)gerris Fluid Flow Solvergetdp general environment for the treatment of discrete problemsgmsh Three-dimensional finite element mesh generatorhdfview Java HDF Object viewerlogcentral Logging service for distributed applicationslogcentral-tools Logging service for distributed applicationsmetis-edf Family of Multilevel Partitioning Algorithmsnetgen Automatic 3d tetrahedral mesh generatoroce-draw OpenCASCADE Community Edition CAE platform shared libraryopenturns-examples examples of OpenTURNS functionalities

python3-pyfftw Pythonic wrapper around FFTW - Python 3pythoncad Computer Aided Drafting (CAD) programpython-collada Python module for creating, editing and loading COLLADApython-fiat tabulation of finite element function spacespython-openturns Python front-end of OpenTURNS (aka TUI)python-pyfftw Pythonic wrapper around FFTW - Python 2python-silo Python interface to the SILO Scientific I/O libraryr-cran-rnetcdf GNU R package that provides an R interface to NetCDF datasetsr-cran-spc GNU R Statistical Process Controlsailcut Sail design and plotting softwaresfc SyFi Form Compilersyrthes Transient thermal simulations in complex solid geometriestetgen Quality Tetrahedral Mesh Generatorz88 Finite Element Analysis Program - runtime

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AstronomyAmateur radio is just a diverse hobby If you track satellites, or like to chasealien signals with SETI, you cannot do away with some of below packages.

$ ( aptitude -F'%p' search '~r native ~Rrecommends: science-astronomy'aptitude -F'%p' search '~r native ~Rsuggests: science-astronomy' ) \|xargs apt-cache show \|awk '/^Package/{name=$2} \

/^Description-en/{$1="";sub(FS,"");description=$0} \/^Homepage/{url=$2} \/^$/{if(url) {printf("|["name"]("url")|"description"|\n");

url=""} \else {printf("|"name"|"description"|\n")}}' \

|sed -e '/.*-common/d' -e '/.*-core/d' \-e '/.*-data/d' -e '/.*-dev/d' -e '/.*-doc.*/d' \-e '/^|lib.*/d' -e '/^|\[lib.*/d' \

|sort -u > ../doc/astronomy.tmp

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Table 4: Astronomy packages distributed with Xubuntu LTS

name package description

astronomical-almanac astronomical almanac - calculate planet and star positions

boinc-app-seti SETI@home application for the BOINC clientcpl-plugin-amber ESO data reduction pipeline for AMBERcpl-plugin-fors ESO data reduction pipeline for FORScpl-plugin-giraf ESO data reduction pipeline for GIRAFFE

eso-midas European Southern Observatory Munich Image Data AnalysisSystem

esorex Execution Tool for European Southern Observatory pipelinesfitsverify FITS File Format-Verification Toolftools-fv Tool for viewing and editing FITS format filesfuntools Minimal buy-in FITS utility packagegcx astronomical image processing and photometry gtk+ applicationgliese stellar data set from the Third Catalogue of Nearby Starsgpredict Satellite tracking programgyoto General relativistic ray-tracinglightspeed Shows how objects moving at relativistic speeds look likelynkeos.app GNUstep app for processing planetary astronomical imagesopenuniverse 3D Universe Simulatorpdl perl data language: Perl extensions for numericspgplot5 large subroutine library for plotting scientific datapredict Satellite Tracking Program with Optional Voice Outputpython3-astropy Core functionality for performing astrophysics with Python3python-astropy Core functionality for performing astrophysics with Python

python-cpl Control pipeline recipes from the European SouthernObservatory

python-healpy HEALPix representation of spherical data - Python interfacepython-pyfits Python module for reading, writing, and manipulating FITS filespython-pywcs Set of routines for handling the FITS WCS standardqfits-tools FITS manipulation toolssaods9 Image display tool for astronomysavi satellite constellation visualisationscilab-celestlab Library of space flight dynamics functions based on Scilab.sextractor Source extractor for astronomical imagesslang-cfitsio read and write FITS files from S-Lang

splash Visualisation tool for Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamicssimulation

stellarium real-time photo-realistic sky generatorsunclock fancy clock showing time and geographical datatcl-fitstcl Tcl interface to FITS fileswcslib-tools Command line tools utilizing wcslibwcstools Handle the WCS of a FITS image

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name package description

wxastrocapture Windows linuX Astronomy Capturexpa-tools Tools for seamless communication between Unix programsxplanet planetary body rendererxtide provides tide and current predictionsyale stellar data set from the Yale Bright Star Catalogyorick-cubeview 3D FITS data viewer specialized in spectro-imagingyorick-full full installation of the Yorick interpreter and add-onsyorick-mira optical interferometry image reconstruction within Yorickyorick-spydr FITS image display and simple analysisyorick-yao Yorick-based adaptive optics system simulator

Other scienceIn the section universe/science , there are more packages of interest to theamateur radio operator. The reason why these packages did not show up be-fore is in part due to poor package classification.

$ aptitude -F'%p' search '~r native ~s universe/science' \|xargs apt-cache show \|awk '/^Package/{name=$2} \

/^Description-en/{$1="";sub(FS,"");description=$0} \/^Homepage/{url=$2} \/^$/{if(url) {printf("|["name"]("url")|"description"|\n");

url=""} \else {printf("|"name"|"description"|\n")}}' \

|sed -e '/.*-common/d' -e '/.*-core/d' \-e '/.*-data/d' -e '/.*-dev/d' -e '/.*-doc.*/d' \-e '/^|lib.*/d' -e '/^|\[lib.*/d' \

> ../doc/science.tmp

$ cat ../doc/science.tmp \|grep -e astronomical-almanac -e aweather -e elmer -e fcd- -e wfrog \> ../doc/science.selection.tmp

Table 5: Other science packages of interest distributed with Xubuntu LTS

name package description

astronomical-almanac astronomical almanac - calculate planet and star positionsaweather Advanced Weather Monitoring Programelmer finite element multiphysics suite - binariesqthid-fcd-controller Funcube Dongle controllerwfrog Web-based customizable weather station software

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Even moreCheck out Hamsoft, for even more ham software which perhapsis not distributed with (X)Ubuntu. Also, —if your really needto— much Windows™-only software will run flawlessly onGNU/Linux by using tools such as PlayOnLinux. In another ar-

ticle, you can read about my experience running closed source ham radio soft-ware on GNU/Linux.

Telnet into a DX-ClusterHere is another little trick if you like to connect to a DX-cluster with telnet

in the command line. Preceed the telnet command with a rlwrap command.Doing so, will provide command history via the up ↑ and down ↓ arrows,which is quite handy.

rlwrap telnet nolcluster.on8ar.eu 7300

Obviously, (X)Ubuntu also has DX-cluster clients with a graphical user inter-face (GUI) and computer aided tuning (CAT) on offer. One such program isxdx and comes with the standard repository.

This work is licensed under a Creative CommonsAttribution‑NonCommercial‑ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Other licensing available on request.

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This work is published athttp://hamwaves.com/linux.ham.packages/en/.

Last update: Saturday, September 16, 2017.

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