Moxon Antenna Design Software Under Linux

Here again, is another piece of Amateur Radio software for Windows running under Linux. This time it is the Moxon Rectangle Generator by Dan Maguire (AC6LA), running under Wine for Ubuntu Linux. Nice. Again, on this box I'm running Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (long-term stable).

Note that I recently went out of my way to reconfigure the Ubuntu 10.04 LTS update sources to include the latest version of Wine automatically - I will post a how to do that soon (if you haven't Googled it already). On a similar note, I also have the system pointing to the latest Mozilla sources for Firefox updates.

The screenshots for this are on my Flickr set titled "Amateur Radio Linux Screenshots Moxon Rectangle Generator".

Echolink Running Under Linux

The power and flexibility of Linux is shown here, as Echolink for Windows is running using the "Wine" emulation software. Like my recent Linux-related post, it is Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.

Wine launches the Windows installer, and the installer thinks its running under Windows.

The screenshots are from my Flickr photo gallery titled "Amateur Radio Linux Screenshots Echolink".

Radio Programming Software Under Linux

Here I managed to get Bob Freeth's (G4HFQ) Yaesu radio programing software running under Linux. The computer involved here is running Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (long-term stable). A Windows environment emulator called "Wine" launches the Windows installer, and the installer thinks it is running under Windows.

Getting this software to work is especially nice, because modern Linux distributions have great USB support, and the programming cable I used was immediately recognized! Just be sure to select the appropriate serial port.

USB Serial Port to COM1:

Although unlikely, it may be necessary to manually link the emulated USB serial port to the COM1: port of the Wine emulator. This is easy enough from the command-line:

sudo ln -s /dev/ttyUSB ~/.wine/dosdevices/com1

This sets the configuration to force COM1: as the USB serial port. Put "sudo" in front of the command if you do not have root privileges. In any case, type the command-line exactly.

The screenshots are shown in my Flickr photo gallery titled "Amateur Radio Linux Screenshots Programming Software". They simply show the programs VTBVX3 and FTB60 installed, nothing more. But these programs do work as well here as they do in Windows! Perhaps better :-)

A final note regarding licensing: This happens to be running on a dual-boot Windows XP/Ubuntu Linux box; one of over a dozen computers I use. Being dual-boot, it is physically impossible to use these programs on both "systems" at the same time. So, it obliges the one-machine/one-user at time rule. No cheating here. And I am delighted to support a fellow developer and ham.