This is going to affect delivery of little packets of electronics from China and elsewhere:
The current VAT exemption for imports of goods in small consignment of a value of up to £15 into the UK will be abolished.
eBay will collect and remit VAT on consignments up to a value of £135 imported into the UK and sold to consumers.
In cases where the seller is a non-UK business and the goods are already in the UK, eBay will collect and remit VAT for supplies of goods sold to consumers within the UK.
If the buyer is a UK VAT registered business and provides their valid UK VAT registration number, the responsibility to account for VAT will switch to the UK VAT registered business customer.
All sellers will have to provide a gross price and separate VAT rate on their UK listings, so that eBay can determine the correct amount of VAT to collect from consumers.
All prices will be displayed inclusive of UK VAT. Where eBay is responsible for collecting VAT, this amount will also be shown separately at checkout.
I want to try controlling the Pluto from Portsdown4 via Ethernet rather than USB.
I obtained an Ethernet-to-USB 3.0 adapter and a short USB Micro male to USB female adapter lead. Here is the Ethernet-to-USB 3.0 adapter.
This is the USB Micro male to USB female adapter lead:
The USB Micro male plugs into the Pluto, the USB female connects to the Ethernet-to-USB 3.0 adapter.
With the Pluto connected to the Linux PC directly via the usual USB cable, I opened the Pluto mass storage “drive” on the PC. I edited the config.txt file with gedit.
I edited ipaddr_eth to be my chosen IP address for the Pluto and gateway_eth to the address of my router. Note: it is not advised to have the Pluto on the same sub-net as the internet connection, so I intend to change this later.
I removed the USB cable and connected the Ethernet-to-USB 3.0 adapter USB to the Pluto. I connected the Ethernet-to-USB 3.0 adapter to the network with an Ethernet cable (the yellow cable in the picture) with RJ45 plugs. The Pluto also had a Power Supply feeding it.
I was then able to ping and also browse the Pluto at 192.168.1.52, so the Pluto’s Ethernet connection seemed to be working.
On the Linux PC, putty connected to the Pluto fine.
I moved the new Raspberry Pi 4 into the Portsdown box and used the Portsdown functions to upgrade both Portsdown and Langstone software versions to their latest versions. Via putty, I ran set_sound to select my “3D Sound” audio dongle. I fed the output to the speakers in the box via a little audio amplifier.
Conditions seemed pretty flat. Just as I was about to pack up I remembered that I had failed to raise Gordon GI6ATZ earlier. I messaged him on ON4KST and we worked in the last couple of minutes of the contest, Gordon on SSB and me on morse code/CW. He is good at decoding my morse.
I already knew that some Refrakta LED “bulbs” I had bought from Maplin years ago generated a lot of RF. I used a cluster of 3 bulbs with GU10 connectors in the kitchen light fitting. Each bulb had 4 super-bright LEDs so must have had built-in switch-mode power supplies (SMPs) to produce the low DC voltage, SMPs which generated RF. I fitted ceramic 1nF 1kV capacitors (Line-to-Earth and Neutral-to-Earth) and replaced the bulbs with LEDs with longer LED chains 31 LEDs per bulb. This much reduced the problem at VHF.
I did a contest on Top Band (160m) recently and this prompted me to look at my high noise level and start hunting for noise sources.
Disappointingly, the kitchen lights were still a problem, adding about 30dB of noise on Top Band. I tried increasing the suppression capacitors to 100nF 1kV, but this didn’t help much. The bulbs look like this:
Inside there is a little SMP which generates the RF. The LEDs may last for a decade, but the SMPs are unreliable and may fail much earlier. In one bulb I bought recently, it failed within seconds with an audible pop.
I found that the living-room cluster of 4 LED bulbs was RF quiet. They have 80 LEDs on each face.
Looking inside, they seem to have no SMP, just a series capacitor, a rectifier a smoothing capacitor and a few other chip devices.
These RF-quiet bulbs came from zf304160642-1 on eBay.
This post is a reminder to me as to how to set up the N1MM logger for the RSGB AFS contests where the club status and club code are required in the sent part of the exchange. It might help you too!
In N1MM I selected RSGBCLUB as the contest.
I set Sent exchange simply as #
The log entry window then prompted for :
Rcv: received report
RcvNr: received serial number
Status: (H for HQ, C for Club Member and N for Not in club)
Club (club code, link to list of clubs in contest rules)
I tried the G7FEK antenna with a loading coil connected across the feed point. The only station who could hear me on 32W SSB was Nick G3DR who is a short distance away. Bob G4APV, also only a short distance away, didn’t hear me. 122 GHz would have been easier!
I gave up on SSB and tried CW/morse code. Stations still struggled to hear me, but gave me 599 reports. Real reports would be more helpful!
My big problem on receive was switch-mode power supply (SMP) RF interference. I had tried adding suppression capacitors (0.1uF 1kV ceramics) to LED light fittings which used SMPs. They helped a bit.
My base noise level was S7 and interference (QRM) could easily add 30dB of noise.
I kept certain RF-noisy lights turned off. I discovered that the back door light (a single super-bright LED) also generated RF on Top Band. It triggered at irregular intervals due to wind.
Top Band is not a pleasant experience here! I gave up early and went to bed.
I generated a Cabrillo file from the N1MM logger and it seemed to load up OK to the RSGB site.
I had extended the range of the Pluto up to 6 GHz. A new pre-amp from China gave me the opportunity to try the 6cm band.
I lashed up a patch array aerial which I’d been given by Barry G8AGN – it has 64 patches. It looks like the patches have two different lengths. Barry has marked it “15dB”.
I pointed the aerial out of the skylight towards Finningley.
I was rewarded with audio and a waterfall display from GB3KEU at IO93NN, 47km away.
The Pluto seemed to drift up and down gently or perhaps the beacon was drifting a bit too; Peter G3PHO, who assembled the beacon some years ago told me it runs on an ovened crystal.
Beaconspot lists the frequency as nominally 5760.925 MHz, so that is about 20 kHz down from the dial frequency. The Pluto may be a bit out on this band.
I certainly would not have heard the beacon without the pre-amp.
I found that I needed to tilt the aerial up by about 30 degrees to get maximum signal. Perhaps there was some reflection from the window? Or an odd atmospheric effect?
My only other activity on 6cm has been drone module wide-band analogue TV, so this is my first narrow-bandwidth reception on 6cm. It is also my first microwave reception on Langstone.
3cm seems to be working OK again. The was a little bit of assistance from rain scatter. This was particularly helpful for working Peter G3PHO over the local hills.
Langstone is basically a combination of a Raspberry Pi 4 and an Analogue Devices ADALM-Pluto. Potentially it should cover 4m, 2m, 70cm plus the microwave bands up to 6cm and possibly beyond via harmonics. It will need appropriate filters and amplifiers. It can be combined with Portsdown 4 for DATV.
There doesn’t seem to be one site for Langstone, so here are the links I have gathered so far:
I ordered a RasPi4 with 7″ touchscreen, PSU, heatsink and 16GB SD card from PiHut and a Pluto from DigiKey UK.
The RasPi4 came with various connectors and leads. I stuck the heatsink on the RasPi4‘s processor can.
After some digging about for information, I connected the jumper leads to the screen connections:
Red: 5V
Green: SDA
Yellow: SDL
Black: GND
And at the RasPi GPIO connector end:
Red: pin 2
Black: pin 6
Green: pin 3
Yellow: pin 5
Note which way round the ribbon cable goes (white with blue marked ends). The conducting contacts are on the reverse side of the blue. They must mate with the conducting contacts on the boards. Pull out the plastic wedges just enough to slide the ribbon end in, then click the wedges in again to clamp the end of the ribbon, so it looks like this:
Above shows the RasPi4 board screwed in place. I attached the PSU lead & plugged it in:
A pink LED lit up (lower left on the RasPi). The SD card came with a system on it. Turning the boards over showed this display:
I wanted to integrate Portsdown 4 for DATV, so I started at the Portsdown 4 Wiki. This said: “You MUST start with a fresh build of RaspiosBuster (NOT Raspbian) on an SD Card of 8 GB or greater”.
Back to Colin’s site, I followed the instruction to download Raspbios Buster Lite. He has instructions for downloading to a Windows PC, but I downloaded to my Ubuntu Linux PC and then installed Raspberry Pi Imager for Ubuntu. I extracted the image from the zip file. I ran the imager & selected the image via the Custom option and the SD card (from the RasPi4 in a USB adapter) and clicked Image. The image seemed to transfer OK. Remounting the SD card on the Ubuntu Linux PC I got two drive icons: rootfs and boot. In boot, I right-clicked and used New Document>Empty File to create a new file: ssh (as instructed in Portsdown 4 Wiki).
I moved the SD card back to the RasPi4 and powered it up. It flashed up a message resizing something on the screen and then went through the usual boot stream of messages, ending in Raspbian GNU/Linux 10 raspberrypi tty1 and a login prompt.
I cut the power to the RasPi4 and remounted the SD card back in my Linux PC. I launched a terminal window and entered the command sudo gedit and selected /rootfs/etc/dhcpcd.conf file on the SD card.
With my router at 192.168.1.1 and 192.168.1.51 the address I’d chosen for the RasPi4, I edited the static ip configuration lines to read:
With the SD card back in the RasPi4 and an ethernet cable connecting to the local network I applied power to reboot. The RasPi4 start-up message sequence included:
Started Hostname
dhcpcd on all interfaces
Reached target network
In a terminal window on my PC I typed ping 192.168.1.41. Packets arrived OK. I typed putty and in the putty session I entered 192.168.1.41 in the Host Name(orIP address) field. I got the message connection refused.
I realised I had the address wrong. I pinged 192.168.1.51. Packets arrived. I unplugged the RasPi4 from the network. Packets stopped arriving. I had the right address!
My internet router is on the 192.168.1 subnet, so altering the RasPi4IP address above means that the necessary internet access is there to install Portsdown 4 and install Langstone. On my Linux PC I entered 192.168.1.51 in putty. I got a login prompt. I logged in as user pi with password raspberry. Paste didn’t work, so I typed in three commands (slide the scroll bar right to get all of the long command):
I got: Installing BATC production version of Portsdown 4
As instructed, I went for a cup of tea. When I got back, the Portsdown 4 menu was displayed.
I entered the Langstone Options submenu via menu M2.
I touched Install Langstone. It said Installing Langstone Software, Please Wait for Reboot.
A short while later, it re-booted and the Portsdown 4 menu returned.
I plugged the Pluto into the RasPi4 via its USB lead. The Ready LED lit and LED1 flashed. In M2 I touched Switch to Langstone.
I got the Langstone screen with the message: Lang_RX.py not responding.
I ordered the recommended audio USB device. While I waited for that to arrive, I searched the junk box. I found a “3D Sound” USB dongle. It wouldn’t fit against the other USB plugs, so I took its covers off. I added a mouse and also plugged in Minitiouner, fed from my Es’Hail2 satellite dish.
Re-booting and running Portsdown4 on receive, I got a lovely decode of the Es’Hail2 beacon, using the Play with ffmpeg VLC option, with sound from the RasPi jack socket.
Colin G4EML has provided some useful diagnostic programs. I set the putty session going again and entered:
cd ~/Langstone ./stop ./HW_Test
HW_test let me check the screen touch and also verified the mouse buttons and wheel were working.
./Pluto_Test
This verified the throughput, 1919, in my case was close to the expected 1900.
./Sound_Test
Sound_Test is now superseded by set_sound. Sound_Test found my audio dongle giving the details:
Unable to find the default sound device hw:CARD=Headphones,DEV=0 hw:CARD=Set.DEV=0
I amended Lang_RX.py and Lang_TX.py as suggested and restarted Langstone. Running Sound_Test again via putty, it still said “Unable to find the default sound device“. However when I restarted Langstone it did not complain about a missing sound card. I still got the message: Lang_RX.py not responding.
Then I noticed Colin had updated Langstone to include a new utility, set_sound. I updated Langstone on the RasPi4 by entering the following commands in the putty session on my Linux PC:
cd ~/Langstone ./stop ./update ./run
set_sound found only one device, the 3D Sound dongle. I selected 1 and it edited the Lang_RX.py and Lang_TX.py for me. Neat!
I also made sure all the USB plugs were properly seated in the RasPi4 sockets and that the Pluto and MiniTiouner plugs (with the thick black leads in the picture below) were in the USB3 (blue) sockets.
Restarting Langstone gave me a waterfall for the first time. Plugging headphones in the 3D Sound dongle gave noise, so that looked and sounded promising.
I connected the Pluto to the 70cm pre-amp & yagi & pointed the yagi at GB3FNY:
My first reception on Langstone! The horizonal stripes are probably OTH radar swipes.
I plugged the Pluto USB cable into my Linux PC. I edited config.txt as below (leaving the original lines as # comments), saved it & ejected the Pluto “drive”.
Although putty on my Linux PC linked fine to the RasPi4, I failed to get it to link to the serial port on the Pluto, so I decided to try kermit. In a terminal session, I executed: sudo apt install ckermit
I knew ttyACM0 was the serial device for Pluto. In terminal I ran:
kermit -l /dev/ttyACM0 -b 115200
C-Kermit 9.0.302 OPEN SOURCE:, 20 Aug 2011, for Linux+SSL+KRB5 (64-bit) Copyright (C) 1985, 2011, Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York. Type ? or HELP for help. (/home/gray/) C-Kermit>
At the C-Kermit> prompt I entered c for connect and later root and analog for the Plutologin name and password respectively:
(/home/gray/) C-Kermit>c Connecting to /dev/ttyACM0, speed 115200 Escape character: Ctrl-\ (ASCII 28, FS): enabled Type the escape character followed by C to get back, or followed by ? to see other options. Welcome to Pluto pluto login: root Password: analog Welcome to: _ _ _ __________ | _ \ | | | / | _ \ \ | |/ / || |\ --.| | | | |_/ / | __/| | | | | __/ _ \--. \ | | | / | | | | || | || () /_/ / |/ /| |\ \ _| ||_,|____/____/|_/ _| _| v0.30 http://wiki.analog.com/university/tools/pluto ^C
I entered the following commands (shown in bold) and got the following responses:
fw_printenv attr_name Error: "attr_name" not defined fw_printenv attr_val Error: "attr_val" not defined fw_setenv attr_name compatible fw_setenv attr_val ad9364 reboot
Communications disconnect (Back at Lab) (/home/gray/) C-Kermit>exit Closing /dev/ttyACM0…OK
Barry G8AGN referred me too a youtube video which set a third parameter, maxcpus, on the Pluto. I checked the first two parameters and added the third:
I copied pluto.frm file dated 21-Aug-2020 into the Pluto “drive”. I ejected the Pluto drive. LED1 flashed rapidly. Eventually the Ready light came on again and LED1 flashed slowly as usual.
I’ve noticed the config.txt file on the Pluto had reverted its IP addresses back to the original. I don’t know what has done this; possibly the firmware update?
I browsed 192.168.2.1 and got Welcome to the ADALM-PLUTO QO-100/DATV custom firmware:
Rather than powering the RasPi4 via the little (Mini?) USB connector, I opted to supply 5.1V via two pins on the GPIO connector: pin-9 for negative (Gnd) and pin-4 for positive.
Misc scribbles:
[I installed libiio on my Ubuntu 18.04 Linux PC by executing this command in a terminal session: sudo apt install libiio-utils]
