One of the first things I wanted to do with arcOS was to provide a module for use as a training tool. When Jason and I started working on putting together the Amateur Radio Challenge Course, I knew it was the perfect match. Check out Jason’s video about the Challenge Course to get a quick overview.
If you want to host your own Challenge Course, everything you need to be up and running is available as a module built for arcOS.
Installing arcOS on a USB drive is easy! Just follow the documentation in the Quick Start Guide. Once you’ve installed arcOS, you can have your Amateur Radio Challenge Course on the air in under 3 minutes.
Here’s how to do it :
- Connect your DigiRig + radio + GPS, and boot into arcOS.
- Enter your information into the Station Setup dialog.
- Clone the arcos-linux-modules repository into your station’s QRV directory.
- Modify the direwolf.conf file to use your location.
- Move the 99_CHALLENGE.sh script up one level.
- Re-run the Station Setup.
That’s it! If you are monitoring with another radio, you should hear a “Special Event Station” announcement.
For participants to check-in/out of the Course, they’ll need their DTMF-encoded callsign. You can generate this 10-digit number using the text2tt command like this :
$ text2tt kg4vdk Push buttons for multi-press method: "554A4444888355" checksum for call = 7 Push buttons for two-key method: "5B4A48C3A5B" checksum for call = 3 Push buttons for fixed length 10 digit callsign: "5448352358"
This is the one we want to use :
Push buttons for fixed length 10 digit callsign: "5448352358"
To check-in to the Course and start the clock, participants should send their 10-digit DTMF callsign, followed by 00# (zero zero pound).
To check-out of the Course and stop the clock, participants should send their 10-digit DTMF callsign, followed by 73# (seven three pound).
When a participant checks-in, a directory named CHALLENGE is created in the ARCOS-DATA persistent storage, with a sub-directory for the participant’s callsign. This allows for participants to run through the Course as many times as they wish, while keeping records of previous attempts. This can be useful for tracking progress over multiple runs.
To easily view the times for a given station, you can use the challenge-times.sh script like this :
$ challenge-times.sh kg4vdk KG4VDK-20240611T2230.log - 0 hours, 23 minutes, 18 seconds KG4VDK-20240611T2245.log - 0 hours, 18 minutes, 3 seconds KG4VDK.log - 0 hours, 15 minutes, 46 seconds