jks
About
- Username
- jks
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v1.704 update
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FT8 Scheduler?
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No connection with KMTronic please help [fixed in v1.706]
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v1.702 binary updates
You can try it. But you need to be prepared to
ssh
into the Kiwi and restore the binary file (or rebuild from source) if installing the binary manually happens to leave the Kiwi server bricked due to some incompatibility. This is essentially what I'm going to do next to start exploring what those issues are.So from the admin console tab you can do:
dog (make sure it says you're running Debian 11)
cd /usr/local/bin
cp kiwid kiwid.save
cdp
cp bin/kiwid_v1.702_D11.9_BBG_BBB.bin /usr/local/bin/kiwid
And then use the restart button on the control tab.
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Question about using EXT CLK instead of GPS
You can use your own ref clock. But it needs to be a frequency that's compatible with the Kiwi's ADC clock, e.g. 66.6xxx MHz. Not a 10 MHz house reference.
Lots of people program a 66.672 MHz output from a Bodnar GPSDO to feed the EXT CLK input. That gives a precise 12 kHz audio sample rate which some people require. Settings for external clock setup are on the admin page, config tab. Including the setting where you disable the Kiwi's GPS clock correction (which makes no sense to enable for almost all external clock situations).
With Kiwi-2 the self test output function is just an additional feature for that connector.
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IP Blocking
Try putting the new address on the front of the local list (not the end).
There is this issue that if you have overlapping IP space in the list then the list processing stops at the point of the overlap (e.g. the same IP address duplicated or overlapping subnets). There was a post some time ago that discussed this. The fix is a bit complicated and I don't have time right now.
Use the "ips" command in the admin console to see if your new address makes it into the ipset table.
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IP Blocking
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Business survival and the ethics of Open Source
The following is representative of the kind of business advice I've been getting lately. I'd be interested in your opinions (any direct mention of competitors in your replies will be removed -- no free advertising for them on this forum).
It is commercial madness for the XXX guys to keep getting free source code for all your ongoing software improvements. Dealing with this is critical for your survival.
As I have mentioned previously, I would like to see you get (new Kiwi feature) working real soon now and freeze the source code on GitHub. Plenty of others do this and the flack is minimal (jks: emphasis mine). In fact, the majority of existing Kiwi owners will support this move, particularly when they learn that your future depends on it.
This is a matter of urgency as every day they are selling more product that is riding on your code. They are quite a bit behind at the moment. For example, I can see that there is no (recent Kiwi feature).
Every sale they make could have been a Kiwisdr sale. They have sold XXX in the last two weeks that I can see on (web retailers). If you don’t deal with this you are just working for them.
You can slow their sales by announcing that the source code is frozen and the reason why, plus the fact that their radios talk to servers in China.
Stop being nice!
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Uncommanded 26 dB attenuation, SMA connector tightening
There is a software bug (v1.665 and earlier) that has been observed by a number of people now. The attenuator becomes set to about 26 dB of attenuation even though the slider on the user RF tab and admin page config tab all say zero. Worse, the problem persists across restarts.
I have reviewed the code and can't see an obvious issue. So the next release, v1.666, has a bunch of debugging added to log the problem so I can fix it. You can clear this problem by simply changing to attenuator to a non-zero value and then back to zero on the user RF tab slider (changing the admin slider won't fix the problem). If your Kiwi is public you might want to consider making the RF attenuator adjustable by "everyone" for this reason. Setting on the admin page, config tab. My apologies for this very annoying bug.
+++
About SMA connector torque: Many of you will know more about this than me. But I'll tell you what I know.
You have to be careful with SMA connectors. Because the fittings are brass they have to be torqued tight enough to make a good ground connection on the outer threads. But you don't want to use a wrench that supplies too much torque because that will deform the soft brass and then the connector will be ruined.
So if you think signal levels from your antenna are down try finger tightening the threads a little bit more. But don't use a tool unless you're extremely careful. You can use the self-test function of the signal generator extension with the SMA-to-SMA cable that was supplied with the Kiwi to verify the Kiwi's RF front end is working properly. Procedure described here: http://kiwisdr.com/quickstart/#id-self-test
Hewlett-Packard used to ship a special SMA/SMB connector torquing tool as part of the service kits for their test equipment just for this reason. But it was very expensive if purchased separately. Hundreds of dollars! Anyone remember that?
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Kiwi BBAI software installation instructions [updated 4-Mar-24]