VU2CPL
Manoj Ramawarrier

Unified single-page dashboard for the whole shack, built in Vue 3 and served from Node-RED via uibuilder — replacing the legacy AngularJS /ui board. Thirteen collapsible cards (FlexRadio, LP-700, SPE amplifier, rotator, lightning protection, power control, solar conditions, DXCC tracker, RBN skimmer, Raspberry Pi fleet, internet health, GPS NTP, UberSDR receiver) lay out in a responsive masonry grid that adapts from phone to desktop with no build step. Each card polls flow context every 1–5 s, shows a colour-coded collapsed summary and expands for full telemetry. Top bar carries the callsign, a live/offline connectivity pill and four clocks (UTC / IST / sunrise / sunset). PWA-installable on iPad and iPhone via "Add to Home Screen".

Subscribes to four DX cluster telnet sources (VU2CPL, VU2OY, VE7CC, N2WQ) and pulls worked/confirmed DXCC data from Club Log via a nightly API call. Each incoming spot is prefix-resolved against cty.xml and classified against the confirmed grid — new DXCC entity (red), new band (blue), new mode fill (amber). Alerts fan out to the shack dashboard panel, MQTT, the FlexRadio slice, and a Telegram bot, with per-band / per-mode filtering.

Real-time Node-RED flow tracking all four slice receivers via the FlexRadio TCP API, with dual SmartSDR client support (AetherSDR + iPad). Colour-coded active-slice indication — amber for RX, red for TX — now surfaced as the FlexRadio card in the Vue 3 shack dashboard above, and still on the legacy AngularJS /ui board.

Automatically disconnects antenna and radio when lightning is detected within 25 km, from Open-Meteo CAPE and weather-code polling plus a local AS3935 sensor over MQTT, and inhibits TX on the FLEX-6600 so the rig cannot key up into a disconnected antenna.

Full remote operation capability including antenna switching via Tasmota MQTT relays. Operates the FLEX-6600 via SmartSDR from anywhere. Integrated with the lightning protection system for safe unattended operation.

ESP32 firmware bridging an outdoor AS3935 lightning sensor to the shack MQTT broker. Moving the sensor outdoors — 18650 + TP4056 + solar, IP65 enclosure, shade-mounted — recovers the chip's rated ~40 km range that an indoor I²C bus eats. The full AS3935 register surface plus battery-voltage telemetry (vbat_mv on /hb + /status, on-demand query_vbat) is exposed over MQTT, so noise floor, watchdog threshold, TUN_CAP calibration and %SOC are all tunable live from the dashboard without opening the enclosure. WiFiManager captive portal carries WiFi and the shack broker's ACL-scoped iot MQTT credentials — no compiled-in secrets. v0.4.3 (Oct 2026, the first GitHub release) heals the one stall the heartbeat cannot see: a latched IRQ line is read clear, five silent minutes re-initialise the AS3935 and ten restart the board; OTA updates over HTTP with bootloader rollback since v0.4.1.

WinKeyer-protocol compatible CW keyer on an ESP32. Loggers drive it with the standard K1EL WinKeyer protocol over USB serial or WiFi TCP, with the host protocol audited against a genuine K1EL WK3.1; elements are timed on the device, so the network adds no jitter to the CW. The paddle keys a FlexRadio over the network with no KEY or PTT wire (verified on a FLEX-6600), and the sidetone of memories is paced to the radio's measured CW timing so it stays in step with the air. Opto-isolated KEY/PTT/FSK outputs for any other rig. An OLED or LCD shows speed, backend and link state, and scrolls the CW being sent in large letters; settings live on a web page at vukeyer.local and survive power cycles. WinKeyer protocol by Steve K1EL; the K3NG keyer by Anthony Good K3NG was the behavioural reference — the implementation is original.

Stratum-1 GPS-disciplined NTP server on a Raspberry Pi 3B with a u-blox NEO-M8N. Kernel pps-gpio + chrony pulls PPS error down to ±171 ns — well below anything a userland NTP implementation can match. Publishes chrony status, satellite count and fix quality over MQTT to the shack dashboard, with an LWT offline marker. Production timeserver for the LAN.

PPS-disciplined NTP server on a NodeMCU ESP8266 with a Quectel L89 GPS. Captures the PPS edge on a GPIO interrupt for sub-microsecond second alignment, holds stratum 1 across short PPS dropouts via holdover logic, and once the PPS+RMC pair goes stale for more than 5 s advertises stratum 16 / refid INIT (RFC 5905 §3.5) so clients cleanly fall back to other NTP sources rather than trusting a drifting local clock. Publishes status over MQTT with the same schema as the Pi NTP server and an LWT offline marker. WiFiManager captive-portal config — no compile-time secrets.

A build of JTDX for the VUCG community, with native releases for macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel), Windows and Raspberry Pi / Linux. v0.7.5 fixes the start-up crash on Intel Macs, brings Apple-notarised Mac apps, stops cut-off late transmissions, lets a queued station switch Tx on by itself (plus Halt and queue on the Halt Tx button) and runs up to four copies on one FlexRadio; v0.7.4 gets a FlexRadio’s audio through a firewall or VPN, adds a Discover button for the radio, US states beside U.S.A. stations, and QO-100 alerts on 13cm; v0.7.3 added a check for new releases (one anonymous GitHub request a day, off with a tick in Settings), a %LOG macro that logs a JTTY QSO without the dialog, and an Auto CQ button that keeps its width while it counts down; v0.7.2 added FT4 spots on 70cm and 23cm, an 8m button and the countdown itself; v0.7.1 corrected the About box credits; v0.7.0 added a FlexRadio VITA-49 rig type that needs no SmartSDR, with its own Flex panel, QO-100 satellite operation, a Profile menu, the rig’s mode beside the frequency, and FT2 decoding as deep as MSHV with LZ2HV’s AP7. v0.6.0 made AutoSeq go for a new DXCC, band or mode first and added a right-click station queue. v0.5 gave JTTY a screen of its own, kept Auto CQ to your own CQ runs and made TCI reconnect on its own; v0.4 added JTTY Auto CQ and macro sets; v0.3 added JTTY (WSJT-X 3.2’s keyboard mode, by K1JT and the WSJT-X team) and FT2 (double-speed FT4, created by Martino Merola IU8LMC with Salvatore Raccampo 9H1SR, ARI Caserta — ft2.it). Throughout: Club Log–driven DXCC status, needed-DXCC alerts to the desktop and Telegram, one-click band and mode buttons modelled on MSHV, and an Auto CQ button that keeps QSOs flowing hands-off. Based on JTDX by Igor UA3DJY, Arvo ES1JA and the HF community, itself derived from WSJT-X by Joe K1JT and team.

Native SwiftUI macOS client that talks to LP-700-Server over WebSocket. Live power / SWR / channel / alarm display, full control-verb support, settings persistence, a menu-bar glance-view, and macOS notifications for alarm states. v0.1.2 (Oct 2026) adds a once-a-day check for newer releases, colour power-scale bars on the Avg / Peak cards, a compact single-Controls-card layout, auto-reconnect that actually retries, and an idle CPU cut from 30 % to 17 % during live telemetry. Pairs with LP-700-Server so a single HID-attached meter drives operating positions, logging PCs and phones simultaneously. Forked from and tracking the original LP-700-App by Vinod VU3ESV.

Go WebSocket bridge for the Telepost LP-500 / LP-700 USB-HID power and SWR meter. Owns the meter's HID handle and fans live telemetry out to many concurrent clients — browsers, phones, logging PCs — while routing control verbs back. Cross-compiles to Linux (amd64 / arm64 / armv7), macOS (Apple Silicon + Intel) and Windows (amd64) via a tag-driven GitHub Actions release workflow; ships a systemd unit and udev rules for headless Raspberry Pi deployment. LAN-only, zero auth. v0.2.2 (Oct 2026) adds a once-a-day check for newer releases (web-UI notice and a journal line), scope and spectrum WebSocket frames, and honest NACKs for range and alarm verbs while the meter is in auto-channel mode. Forked from and tracking the original LP-700-Server by Vinod VU3ESV.

Rust rewrite of the DX Cluster Aggregator, running the whole aggregation stack headless on a Raspberry Pi behind a multi-user web GUI — WSJT-X / JTDX / MSHV decoder feeds and cluster telnet merged into one stream, per-account ClubLog matrices driving seventeen alert levels, Telegram alerts, and match marking on FlexRadio and ExpertSDR3 panadapters. v2.23 (Oct 2026): the cluster line now leaves at the dial in RBN Aggregator’s shape — SNR, baud, mode, CQ grid and audio offset in the comment — so loggers written for Aggregator read DXCA unchanged, and WAS alerts take the US state from the spot’s own grid before the FCC licence address. Since v2.22.2 admins see a banner when a newer DXCA is released (one anonymous GitHub check a day, check_for_updates = false turns it off). Original concept and reference implementation by Vinod VU3ESV.

Swift / SwiftUI macOS app that mirrors and controls SPE Expert HF amplifiers over either local USB serial or remote WebSocket, with a two-way live mirror of the amplifier’s LCD. Since v2.0.11 it checks GitHub once a day for a new release and offers the download. Named after and inspired by the original MacExpert by Georg Isenbürger DJ6GI/NZ1C; RCU protocol reverse-engineered from scratch by VU2CPL.

Native macOS client for the ON4KST chats VHF, UHF and microwave operators keep open beside the radio — any number of rooms at once, each pane holding its own login, room picker and station list, and each able to be torn out into its own window. Since v1.1 it checks GitHub once a day for a new release and offers the download, without ever installing anything itself. Named after and modelled on KST2Me by Bo OZ2M; the protocol work here is original.

Native macOS port of LZ2HV’s MSHV multi-mode weak-signal program (FT8 / FT4 / Q65 / MSK144 / JT9 / JT65). Apple Silicon and Intel, Developer-ID signed and Apple-notarised, with patches on a macos-port branch so new LZ2HV releases merge cleanly. Apple Silicon builds since mac11 (Intel Macs stay on mac10); since mac13 the app menu carries Check for Updates… and a once-a-day check against the port’s GitHub releases, which never installs anything itself.

Single macOS container app that hosts independent amateur-radio control apps as plugins in one window — switchable between a vertical sidebar and horizontal tabs. Each plugin stays in its own repo and ships as a standalone .app; the suite loads it through the RadioPluginKit contract — the host links only the contract, never compiles a plugin in. Plugins are discovered at runtime (browse a catalog or sideload a .radioplugin) and run out-of-process as sandboxed ExtensionKit extensions, so crash isolation is real and adding one never requires rebuilding the suite. Ships with an empty catalog: published plugins today are LP-700, LP-100A, Band Pass Filter and Antenna Switch; SPE amplifier (MacExpert) and SO2R Box are next. Notarized universal releases, macOS 14+; v0.1.29 tracks upstream through v0.1.28 (plugin icons, enable/disable browser, panes kept alive across tabs) and adds a once-a-day check for new releases. Original concept and reference implementation by Vinod VU3ESV — upstream at VU3ESV/AmateurRadioSuite.

Menu-bar macOS app showing system-clock drift against NTP servers and an attached USB GPS, with a one-click "step the clock now" via chrony. Built for digital-mode operators where ~1 s alignment matters and the LAN may not always reach an upstream NTP source. An optional bundled gpsd + chrony stack turns the Mac itself into a stratum-2 NTP server for the rest of the shack; a small privileged helper daemon lets the app talk to chrony without sudo each time. Since v0.1.7 the app checks GitHub once a day for a new release (Settings › General turns it off).

Python 3 remote-control server for SPE Expert HF amplifiers, running on a Raspberry Pi over USB serial and serving both a built-in web dashboard and a WebSocket API — the full Application Programmer’s Guide Rev 1.1 plus the undocumented RCU command set. v3.0.1 adds a SunSDR / TCI tune backend beside FlexRadio, a safer band sweep, and a dashboard banner when a newer release is on GitHub. Based on original work by OH2GEK, rewritten and extended.

Self-contained NanoVNASaver v0.7.3 .app bundle for Apple Silicon (release 0.7.3-mac2). Upstream NanoVNASaver only ships Windows and Raspberry Pi binaries, so this build carries its own relocatable Python 3.12 with PySide6 / Qt and the NanoVNASaver package, behind a small bash launcher in Contents/MacOS/ — it runs on a Mac with no Homebrew or other Python installed (the mac1 release borrowed Homebrew’s Python and did not). Slimmed from ~1.4 GB to ~305 MB by stripping unused Qt frameworks, qml, translations, metatypes, and lipo-thinning every Mach-O binary to arm64. A macOS UI sizing patch relaxes upstream's hard-coded setFixedHeight/Width calls so Qt stops clipping label text on native macOS control chrome (50kHz→50kH, Sweep→Sweer, Rescan→Rescar). Ships with a hand-drawn 1024 px macOS-style .icns (rounded square + Smith-chart logo) in place of the upstream 128 px fallback. Logs to ~/Library/Logs/NanoVNASaver/nanovnasaver.log for easy support. The launcher checks GitHub once a day for a newer Mac build and offers it in a dialog (defaults write org.nanovna.saver CheckForUpdates -bool false turns it off). Upstream program by the NanoVNA-Saver project.

A seven-key Bluetooth LE macro dial turned into a physical front panel for AetherSDR over its TCI WebSocket — tuning with grid snapping, split, PTT, ATU tune, mode cycle, mute and band stacking. Doubles as the plugin’s first-light hardware test: five defects found on the air, all now merged upstream. Plugin by Nigel Fenton G0JKN.

A companion VHF receiver to the HF WebSDR — the same drag-tune waterfall in the browser, switch modes, zoom, and listen off-air with no install. Two receivers share the one instance: an SDRplay RSP2 covers the 2 m and 70 cm amateur bands and the VHF airband (118–134 MHz AM), while a second MSi2500 dongle on its own antenna covers the FM broadcast band — so someone listening to FM no longer pulls the amateur bands off the air. Bookmarks cover the local repeaters, Bengaluru airport and approach frequencies, and the Bengaluru FM stations. Served over HTTPS with a Let's Encrypt certificate, on a self-hosted OpenWebRX+ instance. OpenWebRX+ by Marat Fayzullin, an extended fork of Jakob Ketterl DD5JFK's OpenWebRX.

Python WebSocket gateway that owns the Idiom Press Rotor-EZ (Hy-Gain DCU-1 compatible) FTDI serial port on the shack Raspberry Pi and fans azimuth out to any number of clients — Node-RED, a built-in web UI, future Mac apps. The third shack USB device lifted into a gateway service alongside spe-remote and LP-700-Server: same threaded-reader + asyncio-writer pattern, so the serial port has a single owner and clients no longer have to restart Node-RED to free it. Self-contained web UI on port 8090 — large heading readout, click-to-slew compass dial, preset bearings (N/NE/E/SE/S/SW/W/NW), prominent STOP, and LP/+180° long-path. JSON state + heartbeat events over /ws, /healthz endpoint, all writes serialised through one lock so poll queries and client commands never interleave on the wire.

Headless SDR skimmer server in Rust with in-process FT8 / FT4 / CW / RTTY / WSPR decoders behind one registry, running on Linux, Raspberry Pi, macOS and Windows. Deployed as the station daemon on a Pi 5 driving the Red Pitaya as VU2CPL-9. A joint project, built together with Basil Thomas W6BT, Vinod VU3ESV and Ram VU3RDD.

Public web-based SDR receiver running on a self-hosted UberSDR instance — drag-tune the HF spectrum waterfall in the browser, switch between LSB / USB / CW / AM / FM / digital modes, adjust the filter, zoom the waterfall, and listen to the off-air audio with no install. The default deep-link below opens at 7.150 MHz LSB so you land mid-40m phone band ready to listen. Hardware is an RX-888 MkII front-end fed by an LZ1AQ wideband active loop (0–30 MHz HF coverage); reachable via UberSDR's zero-config tunnel at vu2cpl.tunnel.ubersdr.org. UberSDR by M9PSY (madpsy), built on Phil Karn KA9Q's ka9q-radio engine; the receive antenna is Chavdar Levkov LZ1AQ's active loop design.

Native macOS controller for the YCCC SO2R Box Plus contesting switch. USB-HID to the box; live front-panel mirror in the SwiftUI UI (TX/RX, footswitch, speed pot) using the YCCC HID protocol. Hosts OTRSP and Winkeyer TCP servers, so N1MM+, Win-Test, WriteLog and TR4W see it as a standard SO2R interface. Supports the default 2-radio SO2R mode and the 4-radio SO2R+ mode. Co-developed with Vinod VU3ESV (LB9KJ); the YCCC HID protocol was reverse-engineered from YCCC's own SO2RBox.exe and cross-checked against N4AF's TR4W uYCCCSO2R.pas.

Live, sortable tables of DXCC standings for every Indian (VU / AT / AU) callsign, from two data sources on one page. The LoTW tab parses all 17 ARRL DXCC Standings PDFs each month — Mixed / Phone / CW / Digital / Satellite / bands 160 m to 6 m / Challenge / Honor Roll. The Clublog tab scrapes the Asia Top-2000 Confirmed league every day and pulls out Indian prefixes. Both tabs share the same layout: green highlight for column leaders, red for changes since the last snapshot, click-through to QRZ.com on every callsign. Table layout adapted from the original VU DXCC list template by VU2DCC.