ProjectNews - sm0svx/svxlink GitHub Wiki
Information about the latest release is can be found on the Release page
The biggest news in this release is the support for RTL2832U based DVB-T USB dongles. This make it possible to use such USB dongles as cheap SDR (Software Defined Radio) receivers.
There now is a utility called "devcal" added to the toolbox. It’s purpose is to give the SvxLink sysop a way to measure and calibrate the input and output sound levels on FM. Read the devcal(1) man page for more information.
The DTMF decoder has been completely rewritten for better performance.
As usual a lot of bugs have also been fixed. The full list of changes and more details can be found in the README for release 15.11.
This is a bugfix release which fixes the following bugs in the 14.08.1 release.
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SvxLink now compile in C++11 mode with GCC and other compilers that understand the -std=c++11] compiler switch. The compiler switch will automatically be turned on if a version of libsigc++ greater than 2.5.0 is detected since those versions require C++11 to be enabled.
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Bugfix: The logic linking would cause a crash under some circumstances. For example SvxLink would crash on startup if link TIMEOUT was set and the startup Tcl function was modified to play an audio clip.
This is a bugfix release which fixes the following bugs in the 14.08 release.
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Bugfix: Fixes issue #87 "Suddenly stops speaking to the EchoLink directory server".
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ModuleEchoLink: If an incoming connect have a different IP address than the one registered in the Echolink directory server, the station list is now refreshed immediately instead of just rejecting the connection and wait for the next periodic refresh.
This release does not introduce any really big news but there have been a rather long list of smaller changes done since the last major release about eight months ago.
Read the full ChangeLog and download the release.
This is a bugfix release which fix a number of bugs that were present in the 13.12 release. The most fatal bugs that were fixed caused the voter to crash the SvxLink Server under certain conditions. Also, an assertion problem associated with Alsa that seem to mostly appear on the Raspberry Pi was fixed.
Read the full ChangeLog and download the release.
The SvxLink project has now moved to GitHub from SourceForge. The main reason for the move was that it was desired to change the version control system from Subversion to Git. SourceForge support Git but GitHub have better support for using the full potential of Git.
SvxLink also now have its own domain, http://svxlink.org/. The homepage is hosted by GitHub Pages.
The biggest news in this release are: improved logic linking, improved QSO recorder, support for squelch on GPIO, improved pre- and deemphasis filters. More details about each change can be found in the ChengeLog below.
Also note that the filename for sound clips have changed a small bit. A sound clip archive should now be named:
svxlink-sounds-<lang_code>-<voice name>-<samp rate>-<svxlink ver>.tar.bz2
Example:
svxlink-sounds-en_US-heather-16k-13.12.tar.bz2
A new audio codec, Opus (http://www.opus-codec.org/), is now supported for RemoteTrx links. The Opus codec is a new IETF standard for encoding audio with bitrates ranging from 6 kb/s to 510 kb/s. The audio quality is very good over the whole bitrate range. It is even better then AAC, at least below 128kb/s. To enable SvxLink to use the Opus codec, make sure to install the development libraries for Opus and recompile.
Full ChangeLog and source download can be found here:
Sound files can be found here but they have not changed since the previous release.
The biggest news in this release is support for EchoLink proxy. While implementing that, the handling of server specifications were also improved so that multiple servers can be configured. These are tried if the currently used server is not possible to connect to.
Other additions are support for PTT on GPIO and a transmitter shutdown DTMF command.
Full ChangeLog and source download can be found here:
Sound files can be found here but they have not changed since the previous release. Only the name of the 8k file was changed.
One of the most notable changes in this release is that the internal sampling rate have gone from 8kHz to 16kHz. This will extend the available theoretical audio bandwidth from 4kHz to 8kHz. In reality, SvxLink will filter the audio to about 5kHz bandwidth. It is also important to use the correct audio clips for SvxLink Server. If the old ones are used, the speech will be very fast. The tar archive to use is sounds-en_US-heather-16k-13.06.tar.bz2.
The EchoLink module now have an autoconnect feature, which have been requested for quite a while by some people.
Lots of smaller improvements and bugfixes.
Full ChangeLog and source download can be found here:
Sound files can be found here but they have not changed since the previous release:
SvxLink 13.03 has been released!
This is the first release of SvxLink that is marked as non-beta. All sofware version numbers have been set to 1.0.0. This release also mark 10 years of SvxLink development.
The CTCSS detector have been improved so that it is much quicker and also more reliable. The receiver voter implementation have also been greatly improved. An experimental implementation for APRS statistics has been added. Another useful new feature is an UDP "audio device" which for example can be used to interface with GNU Radio.
And as usual, bugs have been fixed.
Full ChangeLog and source download can be found here:
Sound files can be found here but they have not changed since the previous release:
After over two years a new version of SvxLink have now been released. During the two years a lot of new features have been added and a lot of bugs have been fixed. The most important changes are:
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Support for the Alsa sound system has been added
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A better audio codec, Speex, is now used in EchoLink connections between SvxLink nodes, improving the audio quality a lot
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A new module, PropagationMonitor, will announce propagation alerts sent out from vhfdx.info or gooddx.net.
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Slightly improved logic linking: Now possible to link more than two logics together
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Some functions can now be controlled by selective calling tones in addition to DTMF
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A new module, SelCallEnc can be used to send selective calling sequences by issuing a DTMF command
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RemoteTrx now have a simple fallback repeater mode if the connection to the SvxLink core is lost
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SvxLink Server configs are now stored in the /etc/svxlink directory
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New directory layout for event handler scripts and language packs
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External squelch indication can now be read from an evdev device
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Now possible to limit outgoing EchoLink connections to certain callsigns
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New Qtel translations: Hungarian, Russian, Ukrainian and Japanese
The complete ChangeLogs are available on the download page.
SvxLink Server now have a new DTMF decoder and also a new tone detector. The SpanDSP library is no longer required. The RemoteTrx protocol have been improved with audio compression and authentication.
The EchoLink module is now able to register itself on the EchoLink "link status" page. APRS functionality have been added so that position and other useful info can be sent to the APRS network.
Qtel have three new translations: German, Spanish and Italian.
A number of bugs have been fixed.
As usual, be sure to check out the ChangeLog for more detailed information.
This is mostly a bugfix release. That does not mean it isn’t important. It fixes a number of serious bugs that was present in the previous release. This one should be much more stable.
TCL 8.5 is now supported which seem to be the default on newer distributions like Fedora 9. SvxLink is not heavily tested on Fedora 9 though. I’m still running Fedora 8 myself so if you want to be really sure that it works, use Fedora 8.
As usual, be sure to check out the ChangeLog for more detailed information.
The most important change in this release is internal. Most of the audio handling code in SvxLink has been rewritten. This has made it possible to implement a couple of new features and will make it easier to implement audio related features in the future. Other changes include:
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Remote transmitter via TCP/IP now supported.
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Now possible to use left/right stereo channels as two mono channels.
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A signal level based squelch type was added.
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Bugfixes and compatibility changes.
As usual, be sure to check out the ChangeLog for more detailed information.
This release is a minor update to SvxLink. The most important changes are listed below.
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A new, much better, DTMF decoder in the SvxLink server software
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Now compile out-of-the-box on more Linux distributions. Tested distributions are: Fedora 8, Fedora Core 5, CentOS 5.0, Ubuntu 7.10 and Gentoo.
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Bugfixes and compatibility changes.
As usual, be sure to check out the ChangeLog for more detailed information.
It’s been way more than a year since the latest release. That does not mean that it has not happend anything during this time. I have just not found a suitable point in the development process that felt good for a new release. The most important changes are:
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Support for remote receivers linked over the Internet.
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Manual pages written (svxlink, svxlink.conf, remoterx, remoterx.conf, ModuleHelp, ModuleParrot, ModuleEchoLink, ModuleDtmfRepeater).
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CTCSS tone transmit, always or just when there is a signal received.
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Improved CTCSS squelch detector. It is now possible to run SvxLink with the squelch open.
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Implemented a simple signal strength detector that can be used with the voter when using multiple receivers.
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DTMF muting and squelch tail elimination added.
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New module ModuleDtmfRepeater that is used to retransmit received DTMF digits.
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Now using libsigc++ 1.2 instead of the ancient 1.0 version. This will make SvxLink much easier to install on modern distributions.
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Modularized configuration files. Each module now have its own configuration file under /etc/svxlink.d/.
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Voice mails are now stored in /var/spool/svxlink/voice_mail. Remember to move existing voice mails from /var/spool/svxlink when you upgrade.
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Added logrotate configuration for /var/log/svxlink and a system startup script.
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Now possible to filter incoming Echolink connections on callsign.
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A couple of Echolink standard functions implemented: "random connect", "reconnect to last disconnected" and "listen only".
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A couple of bug fixes
As usual, be sure to check out the ChangeLog for more detailed information.
Ok, time for another release. There was just too much small things in the ChangeLogs to wait with a release any longer. Hopefully, this release is bug free ;-)
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Bugfix: The SvxLink server would crash when recording voice mails on other distributions than Fedora.
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A new "connect by call" feature in ModuleEchoLink.
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The voice mail module now can send a notification e-mail when a new voice mail arrives for a user. First implementation by PA3FNT, improved by me (SM0SVX).
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Timestamps in the log file.
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Now possible to use both DTR and RTS together for PTT, which is required by some interface boards.
Be sure to check out the ChangeLog for more detailed information.
The biggest reason for this release is that a couple of serious bugs have been fixed. The most important changes are:
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Bugfix in the networking code which caused the svxlink server to crash or hang.
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New module Tcl which make it possible to write simpler modules in the TCL scripting language.
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New module ModuleTclVoiceMail, which is a simple voice mail system.
Be sure to check out the ChangeLog for more detailed information.
Hmmm… Let’s face it. I will not be able to release more than two times per year but I guess you have all noticed that already. Sooo… here is a brand new release for you to play with. For all of you running Qtel nothing have happened besides some bugfixes in libraries that are shared between Qtel and the SvxLink server. The SvxLink server is still the focus for my interest. The most important changes are:
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DNS lookups could sometimes block SvxLink which could cause dropouts in the sound. DNS lookups are now done as a background job.
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SvxLink could some times be silently logged out from the EchoLink directory server on communications error. Now an error message will be emitted and the directory server connection will be restored.
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There is a new, more flexible, event handling subsystem for audio announcements. All events triggers the execution of a TCL function. The TCL function is then responsible for emitting the proper sounds. Have a look at the installation documentation for more information.
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The repeater controller logic is now fully working and have been tested since march with good results. It is running a real repeater at SK3GW-R.
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It is now possible to link two SvxLink logics together if you have two sound cards in the computer. An example usage of this is to connect the local repeater to a remote repeater via a linking transceiver. Connection/disconnection is done with DTMF commands.
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A couple of configuration variables have changed since the last release. It’s all in the ChangeLog.
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As usual a bunch of smaller bugs have been fixed.
Be sure to check out the ChangeLog for more detailed information.
Time for another release. It’s been six months since the last release. It didn’t happen very much during the end of the last year so there really was no reason to make a new release. The last months I have been working a little bit on the SvxLink server. What’s new then:
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The repeater controller logic has now been tested for more than one month without any big problems. However, there are some audio issus still to be worked out.
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COS - Carrier Operated Squelch
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A macro (or short cut) system
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Qtel now have a connect sound for incoming connections
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Bugfixes
Check out the ChangeLog for more detailed information.
Hmmm… I aimed at making one release per month. I guess I failed… There was just too much fun stuff to poke around with so the thing would never achive release quality. And there were some bugs that just refused to go away. But now it’s here; the best release ever of SvxLink :-)
As with the last release, most effort have gone into the development of the SvxLink server. The biggest news in this release are:
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ModuleEchoLink now support multiple connections
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Anti-flutter mode for better DTMF detection
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A bunch of bug fixes and new small features
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Improved documentation
Qtel didn’t change much. The IP-address in the station list have been replaced with the node ID. This is of more use I think.
So, finally I have assembled a new release of SvxLink. One of the news is improved support for Alsa OSS emulation. Binary packages are now also available for Fedora Core 2.
Most work has gone into the development of the SvxLink server. It now can act as a repeater, DTMF detection has been improved, CTCSS squelch has been implemented, improved sound clips.
Unfortunately I have no real repeater hardware to try my software on so the repeater logic has not been tested in a real situation. It would be really interesting if someone would want to try it on real hardware.
The good news are that I’m back from my skiing holiday and no bones are broken.
The bad news is that I found a serious bug in the EchoLink communications svxlink server module. Connecting EchoLink stations only get a timeout. This bug does not affect Qtel. It’s fixed in CVS but I have not compiled a new release yet.
I also discovered that the DTMF detector is a little sensitive to speech. It detects random digits when someone is speaking on the channel.
Updated the web pages a bit and moved the menus from the top to the left. Also added some user documentation for Qtel and the SvxLink server.
I will be gone skiing for a week now so if I don’t answer your mails that’s why. I hope to find some mails from people that have tried the SvxLink server or Qtel when I come home :-)
RPMS are now available for Red Hat Linux 9. I have also whipped together some installation documents. No usage document yet though. Try pressing 0# when you have the svxlink server running to get some help.
So, here goes. The first try at EchoLink "sysop mode" grew into a pretty general voice services system for ham radio use. The svxlink server is a standalone server that is connected to a transciever. Voice services modules can then be loaded into the system. Existing modules right now are: a help system, a parrot module that plays back everything you say to it and an EchoLink connection module.
There is a lack of documentation at the moment but I’ll try to get some up as soon as I can. Only binary packages for Fedora Core 1 exist at the moment. Source code is of course available as well. Go to the download section to get your hands on the new goodies.
I just want to say that the project is still alive. It is just a little slow. I am now working on a stand alone link daemon. It is operational but there are still some work to be done to make it really usable. I will check in some code some time the following weeks.
The web pages should be operational now. It should be possible to check out from CVS and compile.
The project has now been registered at SourceForge. I will start moving everything over there as soon as I have figured out how everything works.
I saw that this site has now appeared in the Google search engine. I guess people will start finding this page then. I have not made any announcements yet because of a problem I encountered. The problem is with audio boards/OSS drivers that does not support playing sounds in mono. I have made a fix so that it should work in stereo mode as well. However, when I tested this the mic gain was very high. I could not make it work properly. I have probably made something really stupid but I can’t figure out what. Please tell me if you know.