gorigctl

README

gorigctl

This application is used to control a (ham) radio locally or remotely. Gorigctl comes with both, a local and a remote command line interface and (cli base) GUI. gorigctl is written in Go and using hamlib via the goHamlib bindings.

gorigctl can be considered as a dropin replacement for hamlib's rigctl(d). Instead of sending text commands over a TCP channel, gorigctl is implementing the Shackbus standard, using Protocol Buffers for (de) serialization and MQTT for transportation. Thanks to MQTT's Publish/Subscribe architecture, serveral clients can access the radio simultaneously.

gorigctl tries to maintain compatibility with hamlib's rigctl cli commands.

ADVICE: This project is under development. This application is still under development and not considered ready for production.

ADVICE: The user experience depends heavily on the backend implementation of the selected radio. Radios with a stable backend provide the best experience. Hamlib's rig matrix provides an overview over the available backends and their status.

Supported Platforms

gorigctl has been tested on the following platforms:

• AMD64
• i386
• ARMv6
• ARMv8

and the following operating Systems:

• Linux (Ubuntu, Raspian, Armbian)
• MacOS (Sierra)

Windows should be supported in the future.

Download

You can download a tarball / zip archive with the compiled binary for MacOS, Linux (ARM/AMD64) and Windows from the releases page. gorigctl is just a single exectuable.

Installation / Dependencies

gorigctl depends on hamlib as a 3rd party library. You can either install hamlib on Linux and MacOS through their packet managers or build hamlib from source for the latest updates and new rigs.

Linux (Ubuntu >= 14.04)

$ sudo apt-get install -y libhamlib2 libhamlib-dev

MacOS

$ brew update
$ brew install hamlib

Requirements

In order to operate your radio remotely through gorigctl, you need to either run your own MQTT Broker (Mosquitto is a good choice) or connect to a public broker, like iot.eclipse.org or test.mosquitto.org. The load of these brokers and the ping to your place will influence the latency. These public brokers are good for inital tests, however they are sometimes overloaded.

Getting started

Configuration

Both, the server and the client provide extensive configuration possibilities, either through a configuration file (TOML|YAML|JSON), typically located in your home directory /home/your_user/.gorigctl.toml. or through pflags.

An example configuration file named gorigctl.tomlis included in the repository.

All parameters can be set through pflags. The following example shows the options for

$ gorigctl server mqtt --help

MQTT server which makes a local radio available on the network

The MQTT Topics follow the Shackbus convention and must match on the
Server and the Client.

The parameters in "<>" can be set through flags or in the config file:
<station>/radios/<radio>/cat

Usage:
  gorigctl server mqtt [flags]

Flags:
  -b, --baudrate int                Baudrate (default 38400)
  -p, --broker-port int             MQTT Broker Port (default 1883)
  -u, --broker-url string           MQTT Broker URL (default "test.mosquitto.org")
  -C, --client-id string            MQTT ClientID (default "gorigctl-svr")
  -d, --databits int                Databits (default 8)
  -a, --handshake string            Handshake (default "none")
  -D, --hl-debug-level int          Hamlib Debug Level (0=ERROR,..., 5=TRACE)
  -r, --parity string               Parity (default "none")
  -P, --password string             MQTT Password
  -t, --polling-interval duration   Timer for polling the rig's meter values [ms] (0 = disabled) (default 100ms)
  -o, --portname string             Portname / Device path (default "/dev/mhux/cat")
  -Y, --radio string                Radio ID (default "myradio")
  -m, --rig-model int               Hamlib Rig Model ID (default 1)
  -X, --station string              Your station callsign (default "mystation")
  -s, --stopbits int                Stopbits (default 1)
  -k, --sync-interval duration      Timer for syncing all values with the rig [s] (0 = disabled) (default 3s)
  -U, --username string             MQTT Username

Global Flags:
      --config string   config file (default is $HOME/.gorigctl.[yaml|toml|json])

Start a radio server

$ gorigctl server mqtt

Start the GUI for connecting to a remote radio

$ gorigctl gui mqtt

Start a CLI interface for a local radio

$ gorigctl cli local

How build gorigctl

The Wiki contains detailed instructions on how to build remoteAudio from source code on Linux, MacOS and Windows.

Known issues

• Running "gorigctl gui local" on an embedded device like the raspberry is lacking performance. An alternative is to launch a server and a client is seperate terminals / sessions.

Troubleshooting

Feel free to open an issue if you encounter problems.