Raspberry Pi Activities

While waiting for the IC-9100 to come back from repairs, I thought I might share a little of some recent Raspberry Pi (RPi) projects.

Project 1)  RPi Tor Router
http://makezine.com/projects/browse-anonymously-with-a-diy-raspberry-pi-vpntor-router/

Works great, appears as an alternate WiFi source with its own password.  When attached all internet traffic goes through the Tor system.  If one uses standard browser settings this doesn't add much security so it is not a "stand alone" security system.  None the less pretty cool.  This version is attached to my main router, and is not for coffee shops, etc.

Project 2)  WSJT-X on RPi

Connected to the radio it acts as a stand alone low power (5V, 2.1 Amp) computer running the Joe Taylor WSJT-X suite.  I'v run it for 4 weeks straight on a cell phone recharger which itself was charged with a solar charger, while controlling my Yaesu FT-450 in WSPR-2 mode in my attic with an AlexLoop antenna.  I've run both the Raspbian linux version and the Ubuntu-Mate version, and both work well on the RPi.  I plan to use this next camping/field day expedition.
WSJT-X:  http://physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/k1jt/wsjtx.html


Project 3)  TurtleCam!!
Turtles and ham radio go together like...... well, they just go together.  There are four tortoises who live in my ham shack/lab in the attic and keep me company.  There is something wise and peaceful about the life of a tortoise:  Eat for an hour, sleep for an hour, court and make love for an hour, repeat.
These activities are most enthusiastically engaged in when large hairy bipeds are not leaning over staring at them so I have a RPi cam sending continuous mp4 video through the wifi system and viewable on the VLC browser on any device, including my cell phone.  Now I can watch them without making them self conscious.  Turtle voyeur, I guess

Project 4)  Goosecam
Ok, so this is essentially the same as turtlecam, but for watching the small flock of geese we keep next to the house and conveniently below the attic window in the hamshack.  We have 4 growing goslings who are very entertaining in that until recently they were small enough to escape the main fencing and wander in the yards eating the sweet grass there while the adult geese go bananas trying to watch them on the other side of the fence.  Actually I was pretty worried, too, as we have couple of eagles nesting nearby in our timber who have already killed 3 chickens until I covered their run and coop with bird netting.  But the goslings have made it through until now they are as large as the eagles (they are the very large Embden geese, the largest meat breed) even though they are still peeping in their high pitched hatchling voices.  So, to help keep an eye on them and just because it was fun I mad a window goosecam.  None of these video streams are ported to the outside world so they are purely for at home entertainment.

Project 5+)  Other RPI projects not currently in operation:  Apache web server on an RPi,  VPN through RPi,   wifi accessable backup external HD through RPi with some old recycled hard drives,  WSPR transmitter at 200 milliwatts on an RPi, Kali Linux on RPi, etc

So, there it is.  There are a lot of microcircuit ham and non ham projects out there and fortunately one does not need a lot of linux or python programming skills.  I'm amazed how quickly I've been able to pick up the basics, considering I'm not a computer guy.  (I'm a physician with degrees in biology and english literature).  If I can do this stuff, anyone can.

One more set of projects:  Putting various flavors of Linux on anything that can't get away.  I had an old iMac G4 pre Intel machine that wasn't much use for anything, so I put Ubuntu on it.  Now it plays Pandora for me in the background  to provide mood music for the me and tortoises, as well as a few other Linux things.  It can run fldigi and WSJT-X but I don't use it for that.

Lots of fun, if only there were more hours in the day......
73
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