[Xastir] soundmodem in linux without ax.25 kernel?

[Curt, WE7U]

On Thu, 17 Mar 2005, Curt, WE7U wrote:

> On Thu, 17 Mar 2005, Jason Winningham wrote:
>
> > Is there useful documentation somewhere? The soundmodem docs are pretty
> > much useless.
>
> I noticed that myself.
>
> There are two ways to configure soundmodem, using the AX.25 stuff,
> or using KISS TNC.  I chose the latter most recently (simpler).
> Described here:
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> Use "soundmodemconfig".  Create a device and set it up for KISS,
> using "/dev/soundmodem0" as the device name.
>
> Once you have that configured, re-run soundmodemconfig, using the
> debug features in order to show a scope pattern of the incoming
> signals.  Use a mixer device to adjust it appropriately so that you
> get good decodes.  At this stage I was also getting decoded text on
> the xterm I started it from.
>
> Once you have that working, kill soundmodemconfig, become root, and
> start up the soundmodem device:  On SuSE I just type
> "/etc/rc.d/soundmodem start" because they have an rc script already
> written and ready to go.
>
> You can then start Xastir and create a Serial KISS TNC interface
> which uses "/dev/soundmodem0".  At that point you're off to the
> races.
>
> As I recall I cannot run soundmodem config and get a scope trace
> while the soundmodem daemon is running, so I have to stop it first.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

> If you want to configure it to be an AX.25 kernel interface, there
> are more steps involved, but not all that many (assuming your kernel
> has been compiled with AX.25 support already).  /etc/ax25/axports is
> the main file to tinker with.  You need to add a line there for each
> interface.
>
> I created scripts to bring up KISS ports (I used them with a KISS
> TNC, not with soundmodem):
>
>
> ax25.up:
> --------
>     /usr/sbin/kissattach /dev/ttyS1 aprs 44.24.???.???
>
>     #                      port txd    slottime  persistence
>     /usr/sbin/kissparms -p aprs -t 320 -s 200    -r 10
>
>     /sbin/route add -net 44.0.0.0 netmask 255.0.0.0 dev ax0
>
>
> ax25.down:
> ----------
>     killall kissattach
>
>
> listen:
> -------
>     listen -c -a
>
>
> In this case my port name in axports was "aprs".  You can name it
> anything you want.  I've had one named "147.40" in the past.  I
> believe I have to be root to run any of those scripts, including
> "listen".

I'm not sure I was real clear here, there are two ways of
configuring soundmodem:

    1) As an AX.25 kernel networking port, and

    2) As a KISS TNC serial port.

The top part of this message (up to the 2nd long dashed line) talks
about method #2.

The bottom part after that dashed line contains some scripts that I
used for method #1, except that I was using an external hardware
KISS TNC (AEA PK-88 in this case) instead of a soundmodem AX.25
interface.  You'd need similar commands for either though I believe.
You'd still need to tweak your /etc/ax25/axports file, perhaps load
some modules before starting an interface, and perhaps make a new
kernel that had AX.25 support if yours doesn't.

Maybe we should add some of this to our docs and tweak it over time.
They might eventually become a useful short-cut method to getting
some interfaces going for new users.  I've been disapointed with the
other docs that are out there.

--
Curt, WE7U.   APRS Client Comparisons: http://www.eskimo.com/~archer
"Lotto:    A tax on people who are bad at math." -- unknown
"Windows:  Microsoft's tax on computer illiterates." -- WE7U
"The world DOES revolve around me:  I picked the coordinate system!"