saycharlie - Free SVXLink Dashboard for Ham Radio Operators

Overview

saycharlie is a comprehensive dashboard designed to manage and interact with SVXLink, a general-purpose voice service system for ham radio operators. Built with Python and JavaScript, saycharlie leverages Flask for robust backend functionality and utilizes SocketIO for seamless real-time communication. This integration facilitates dynamic interactions and ensures efficient management of the SVXLink services.

Features

• Real-time Updates: Instantly displays the last talker in the communication system, ensuring users are always up-to-date.
• DTMF Code Transmission: Allows users to send DTMF codes through a well-defined API, enabling remote control over radio links.
• SVXLink Control: Provides API endpoints to stop and restart the SVXLink service, offering administrative control without needing direct server access.
• Callsign Lookup: Fetch ham radio operator names using their callsigns, integrating with external databases for enhanced communication.
• Interactive Dashboard: A user-friendly dashboard that not only visualizes but also allows interaction with the SVXLink system in real time.
• Talk Group Management: Facilitates the management of talk groups, enabling users to create, edit, and delete groups as needed.
• PTT Control: Enable or disable Push-to-Talk (PTT) via a simple button interface, facilitating easy management of transmission.
• UI Customization: Offers dynamic customization of the user interface, including adding buttons, configuring columns, and changing the application background.
• Comprehensive Settings Management: Manage settings and categories to adapt the dashboard to specific needs and preferences.
• VU Meter: Displays the volume unit meter for the both input and output audio signals, providing a visual representation of the audio signal strength.
• Update System: Allows users to update the application with a simple button click, ensuring the latest features and improvements are always available.
• Weather Information: Provides real-time weather information for the user's IP address location, ensuring users stay informed.
• Double-click to make the dashboard full screen: Double-click anywhere on the dashboard to make it full screen, providing a more immersive experience.
• Double-click to show a hidden menu: Double-click on the weather icon to reveal a hidden menu, providing system reboot, shutdown, and update options.
• System Information: Displays system information, including the operating system, kernel version, and CPU information, ensuring users have access to essential data.

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• SVXLink installed and configured on a linux system
• Python 3.6 or higher

Installation

Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/BrainicHQ/saycharlie.git

Change directory

cd saycharlie

Make the install script executable

sudo chmod +x install.sh

Run the install script

sudo ./install.sh

Enabling the SVXLink raw audio stream for VU Meter support

To enable the VU Meter to display audio signal strength, you must enable the raw audio stream in the SVXLink configuration. Locate the SVXLink configuration file and add the following line under the Rx (microphone) block and Tx (speaker) block:

[Rx...]
...
RAW_AUDIO_UDP_DEST=127.0.0.1:10000
...

# Audio stream via UDP for VU Meter
[TxUDP]
TYPE=Local
AUDIO_DEV=udp:127.0.0.1:10001
CARD_SAMPLE_RATE=48000
AUDIO_CHANNEL=0
PTT_TYPE=NONE
MASTER_GAIN=0
TX_DELAY=100
PREEMPHASIS=0

...

[MultiTx]
TYPE=Multi
TRANSMITTERS=Tx1,TxUDP

...

[SimplexLogic]
TYPE=Simplex
RX=Rx1
TX=MultiTx

After adding the line, restart your SVXLink service. The VU Meter should now display the audio signal strength.

Updating

To update saycharlie, double click on the weather icon to reveal the hidden menu. Click the "Update" button to update the application to the latest version. The update process will automatically download the latest version from the GitHub repository and install it. After the update is complete, the application will restart automatically.

Usage

After installation, access the dashboard via http://saycharlie:8337 or http://localhost:8337 to begin managing and interacting with your SVXLink service.

Logging

The application logs are stored in the /tmp/saycharlie.log directory. To view the logs, use the following command:

tail -f /tmp/saycharlie.log

Contributing

The project is open-source, created and maintained by Silviu Stroe YO6SAY. We welcome contributions from the community, whether they are feature requests, bug fixes, or improvements to documentation.

License

This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 - see the LICENSE file for details.

Support

For support, feature requests, or any other inquiries, please open an issue in the GitHub issue tracker for this repository.

Acknowledgements

We would like to express our gratitude to the following contributors for their support and contributions to the project:

• Michael Gross (DK1AJ) for his valuable testing, helping with audio stream setup, and providing feedback.