HF Packet with Direwolf

My experimentation with 300baud HF packet radio running on the EmComm Tools Community (ETC) platform.

Configure an AX.25 port

The AX.25 tools are installed as part of the EmComm Tools platform, so I just needed to add a small configuration bit for HF packet.

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# /etc/ax25/axports
radio YOURCALL 19200 236 1 HF (300 bps)

direwolf

Direwolf is also built/installed as part of the EmComm Tools, so once again I just had to provide a configuration that would work for 300baud HF communications.

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# Audio settings
ADEVICE plughw:1,0
CHANNEL 0

# User settings
MYCALL YOURCALL

#MODEM 300 1600:1800 7@30 /4
#You may also try the following to see if you get more decoded frames:
##The "D" Is focused toward HF decoding, but have mixed results and more CPU use.
MODEM 300 1600:1800 7@30 /4 D


#MODEM 300 2130:2230 D
SLOTTIME 12
PERSIST 63
#FIX_BITS 1 AX25

#This will Enable FX25, which is a more robust AX25 mode:
FX25TX 1

# I am running on EmComm Tools, so I use the same PTT as that
# Rig control settings.
# EmComm Tools uses Hamlib's rig control daemon for all radio interfaces.
PTT RIG 2 localhost:4532

# Enable ports to allow other applications use Dire Wolf as the packet engine
AGWPORT 8000
KISSPORT 8001

I'm not confident in the settings that I have for the MODEM et.al in this config, so more research is required in that area.

Start direwolf

Starting direwolf using the above defined configuration (-c), a log directory (-l), without color (-t 0) in the output (why is this not the default?) and, critically, enabling a pseudo terminal for the KISS protocol (-p).

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direwolf -c /opt/emcomm-tools/conf/template.d/packet/direwolf-hf300.conf -l /home/ham/.local/share/emcomm-tools -t 0 -p

Attach the direwolf kiss tnc to the AX.25 port

Once direwolf is running, we need to attach the pseudo terminal created by direwolf with the ax25port defined earlier; kissattach handles that and kissparams is necessary according to docs from The Modern Ham.

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sudo kissattach `readlink /tmp/kisstnc ` radio
sudo kissparms -c 1 -p radio

Ready to go

With everything running, you can use axcall to connect to the node of your choice:

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axcall radio KN4MKB-7

Optionally, if you want to use paracon, you can ignore the ax25 stuff above and just us the AGEPE port created by direwolf.

sources: Connect to a Packet Radio BBS Node with KISS or AGWPE TNC Windows/Linux - TheModernHam EmComm Tools Community (ETC) Configuring Direwolf for HF IP over AX25 using tncattach. - TheModernHam Fetching Title#nnxd direwolf paracon