[Xastir] Xastir with DRAWS

[David Ranch]

You asked for comparisons and I gave you information for you to make 
your own conclusions as there is no perfect answer. DRAWS alone will NOT 
do what a TNC-Pi will do as you also need to run software (say Direwolf) 
to act as a complete TNC. If you can afford the DRAWS board and have 
time to configure all the software, then buy that as it will work.  If 
you don't have the time or prefer a lower budget, buy the TNC-Pi.

Now in this email, you are mentioning other modes that you might want to 
do which is entirely different.  The TNC-Pi will NOT support any of 
those other modes.  The DRAWS board can run those HF modes but with 
entirely DIFFERENT software (say Fldigi).  I cannot speak about if the 
DRAWS boards can support both DIrewolf+Xastir and Fldigi running at the 
same time but I believe it's technically possible as it's has a dual 
port soundcard on it.  The biggest problem will be the limited CPU power 
and RAM on the Raspberry PI running everything in parallel.

--David
KI6ZHD



On 12/08/2018 07:48 PM, Michael wrote:
> I fail to understand why it is so blasted hard to get an answer on 
> anything on ham radio related forums. Why do people feel necessary to 
> give information totally irrelevant to the question? Why can't people 
> simply accept my question as it is, not tell me what my question 
> should be?
>
> I am trying to make a decision on buying a DRAWS Hat for the 
> RaspberryPi. I want to run various digital modes/applications 
> including MT63/PSK31/etc. with fldigi and APRS with Xastir.
>
> My question seeks user experiences with these apps and DRAWS. Please 
> attempt to limit responses to that question.
>
> Thanks,
> Michael WA7SKG
>
>
> David Ranch wrote on 12/8/18 11:53:
>>
>> NW Digital's DRAWS HAT boards is just a dual-channel soundcard with 
>> some PTT circuitry and a GPS.  There isn't anything really magical 
>> there beyond  very nice integration on one PCB for people who don't 
>> want to cobble something together themselves. It also offers a good 
>> set of documentation and potentially offers more than just community 
>> support to get you going.
>>
>> Your question probably should be more like:
>>
>>     Is anyone using a souncard TNC like Direwolf, Tom Sailer's 
>> Soundmodem, etc. with Xastir vs TNC-Pi
>>
>>
>> I'm using Direwolf on an Rpi with a Syba USB sound device and it 
>> works very well.  It's TNC is generally able to dig out packet 
>> decodes that most PIC-based TNCs (like the TNC-X, TNC-Pi, etc) 
>> cannot.  The new TNC-Pi9k6 could be a different animal as it has a 
>> lot more CPU power but I haven't heard of any real decode comparisons 
>> yet.
>>
>> The older Direwolf documentation used to have a comprehensive 
>> comparison table against other TNCs in the "10.1 WA8LMF TNC Test CD" 
>> section but newer versions dropped it.  Here is an example of it from 
>> the Direwolf 1.3 docs.  Overall, Direwolf's decode performance has 
>> only gotten BETTER since then:
>>
>> https://github.com/wb2osz/direwolf/blob/a7391b49998d0b759a89d3329a5b88f4cdf92936/doc/User-Guide.pdf 
>>
>>
>>
>> --David
>> KI6ZHD
>>
>>
>>
>> On 12/08/2018 10:55 AM, Michael wrote:
>>> Is anybody using Xastir with DRAWS on a RasberryPi? What is your 
>>> experience? Good, bad, indifferent? Compared to other modems like 
>>> the TNC-Pi?
>>>
>>> tnx es 73,
>>>
>>> Michael WA7SKG
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