[arm-allstar] Special Hardware and Radio Interface to Allstar

[Doug Crompton]

>From time to time users ask can this or that hardware work or be controlled
with Allstar. In the past there was quite a bit of very specific software
put into the Allstar code to control devices that had limited distribution
at the time and now in many cases is totally obsolete. In the future we
will be removing a lot of this obsolete code as we are moving towards NOT
have internal code control specific outboard devices. An example of this
would be the internal radio control code which is obsoleted by hamlib.
Today many avenues exist to do this externally either writing your own code
or using existing code.

Many radios can be controlled via the existing hamlib code, pre-installed
in the images, and scripts  using DTMF commands. There is a howto on the
web page describing how you can do that using an extension of the
phonepatch command passing multiple parameters to a script. Utilizing this
method you have a great deal of interface capability on a standard DTMF
radio with the outside world.

The GPIO command, also written up in a howto, is a good way to control I/O
to external devices. There is also a howto on using an Adafruit board via
USB to control external devices. I use this board controlling relays as a
demo when I give talks on Allstar.

Our concentration is on making basic Allstar better. It would be a waste of
resources to cater to every limited use hardware need. That being said we
welcome input on projects you have done using any of the above methods or
anything to make Allstar better. We could also host a download site for
proven and useful third party SW and/or link information on the hamvoip.org
web page.

Below are some direct links on these topics all of which are available on
the hamvoip.org web page

https://hamvoip.org/hamradio/USBtoGPIO/

https://www.hamvoip.org/GPIO_how-to.pdf

https://www.hamvoip.org/Allstar_extended_functions_using_autopatch.pdf

http://www.neodux.com/read/HOWTO:_Configure_Hamlib_for_Linux_Hams_-_Part_1


*73 Doug*

*WA3DSP*

*http://www.crompton.com/hamradio <http://www.crompton.com/hamradio>*