I read reports of sporadic problems with the Pi when the unit was underpowered. Top view of the Raspberry Pi in the Multicorp Enclosure.įrom my initial research, I learned that power was a potentially 'touchy' issue with the Pi. I found an adapter on Amazon for approximately $10 US. I worried about the conversion, but several people on the forums were successful with the adapter. Because the monitor was VGA, I needed a HDMI to VGA adapter. I finally decided to use a 16 inch VGA monitor that I purchased at Walmart for $69 US. I wanted to use a monitor no larger than about 15 inches and I had no small monitor capable of HDMI input.

The video output from the Pi is either composite video (from an RCA connector) or HDMI. The Pi with no enclosure would almost certainly be damaged, especially around my shack. In retrospect, I think this was a good idea. On the advice of much that I read, I also purchased an enclosure. I purchased the Pi from Newark Element 14. Would it have the 'horsepower' necessary to do logging and to decode digital signals? At the time, there were few reports of hams attempting to use the Pi for logging and digital communications. My only concern was the ARM processor running at 700Mhz. When I first read about the Raspberry Pi, I thought it would be perfect. I also wanted something with more modest power requirements and something that I might leave on 24/7. But my desk space is limited and I needed a computer with a smaller 'footprint' than my laptop. For digital operation, I use fldigi which is written and maintained by David W1HKJ and his associates. For logging I use CQRLOG, a wonderful logging program that is written and maintained by Petr OK2CQR and Martin OK1RR. I have an old Dell laptop (Inspiron 1420) running Ubuntu Linux that works great for both logging and running digital modes. Although I'm not an avid digital operator, I occasionally enjoy a PSK-31 QSO or sometimes I like to 'read the mail' or copy a weather map on WEFAX. Plus, the ability to read parameters directly from your radio is the essence of convenience (and laziness). Keeping up with the States and countries you've worked and each station's QSL history is fantastic. I have two major applications for a computer in my shack: logging and digital mode operation.

Use fldigi for general logging