Application of Linux Single Board Computers to Amateur Radio Willem A Schreüder AC0KQ [email protected] RMHAM University October 15, 2016 http://www.prinmath.com/ham/talks/ http://www.rmham.org/wordpress/course-syllabus Talk Outline Why Linux SBCs ● Installing and Configuring the OS ● BPQ Packet/RMS Gateway/APRS iGate ● AllStarLink Repeater ● Control and Monitoring ● SDR ● Questions and Pizza ● Don't freak out over the number of slides. Most of ● them take 10 seconds to cover. Single Board Computers Full Linux boxes (today's topic) ● – Raspberry Pi – Beaglebone Microcontrollers (not covered) ● – Arduino – PICAXE – BASIC Stamp Why Linux SBCs? Runs a full Linux OS ● Usable stand alone computer or server ● Built in connectivity ● – Ethernet networking – USB and serial – General purpose IO Low power (5V 1A) ● Expandable using daughter boards ● Inexpensive ($50 for a working system) ● SBC Pros and Cons Pros ● – Inexpensive – No moving parts – 5V power – Expandable Cons ● – SD cards corrupted by bad power – SD card is not a great hard disk Raspberry Pi Most Popular ● Best supported ● rPi3 most powerful ● Lots of USB ports ● Lots of daughterboards ● No analog inputs ● $35 plus SD card ● Raspberry Pi models Raspberry Pi ● – A/A+ 700 MHz CPU & 256MB SDRAM, 1xUSB – B 700 MHz CPU & 512MB SDRAM, 2xUSB, Ethernet – B+ 700 MHz CPU & 512MB SDRAM, 4xUSB, Ethernet – 2B 900 MHz Quad A7 & 1GB SDRAM, 4xUSB, Ethernet – 3B 1.2GHz Quad 64bit & 1GB SDRAM, 4xUSB, Ethernet Compute Module ● – 700MHz CPU & 512MB SDRAM Zero ● – 1GHz CPU & 512MB SDRAM Raspberry Pi 2B Beagle Bone Less well supported ● Onboard eMMC ● Power & Reset buttons ● More GPIO pins ● 8 analog inputs ● $50 street price ● Beaglebone Models White ● – Original 720 MHz A8 Black ● – Most Popular 1GHz A8 Green ● – Same CPU as Black – No barrel power, two Grove connectors Industrial ● – Black with extended temperature range