Portsdown 4

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Revision as of 22:25, 16 August 2020 by G8GKQ (talk | contribs) (→‎FAQ)
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The Portsdown 4 system has been specifically designed to be used with the Raspberry Pi 4 and the official Raspberry Pi 7 inch touchscreen.

No other models of Raspberry Pi or touchscreen are planned to be supported in the near future so please don't ask.

Capabilities

The Portsdown 4 has the following capabilities:

  • DVB-S and DVB-S2 (MPEG-2 and H264) transmissions from a LimeSDR Mini connected by USB
  • DVB-S and DVB-S2 (H264 only) transmissions from a Pluto SDR connected by USB
  • DVB-S (MPEG-2 and H264) transmissions from a DATV Express Board connected by USB
  • Supported transmit video sources include the Raspberry Pi Camera, C920 WebCam or a USB-connected EasyCap composite video capture device
  • Streaming to the BATC Streamer using the Raspberry Pi Camera or EasyCap composite video capture device
  • Reception and display of DVB-S and DVB-S2 (MPEG-2, H264 and H265) signals received by a BATC MiniTiouner Mk 2 connected by USB.
  • Display of streams from the BATC Streamer

The Portsdown 4 does NOT support the BATC Filter-modulator board or Ugly mode.

Currently not everything is working, so have patience.

Software

The software build is also compatible with the Langstone Microwave transceiver software, which can be loaded by from touchscreen selections (menu 2) AFTER the Portsdown software has been installed. To operate, the Langstone software needs a Pluto to be connected by USB, and a compatible USB Audio dongle.

The build is on GitHub at https://github.com/BritishAmateurTelevisionClub/portsdown4

You MUST start with a fresh build of Raspios Buster (NOT Raspbian) on an SD Card of 8 GB or greater, so you will need to rebuild any previous Langstone or Portsdown A27 card.

FAQ

  • Is it possible to rotate the PiCam image in software as it is on it's side?
No - you need to do the camera mounting modification which Colin G4KLB described in CQ-TV 267
  • Can I upgrade from Langstone or a previous version incluing Portsdown A27?
No - you must start with a clean image on your SD card
  • When I try to update I get the error "Unable to contact GitHub for update, Internet connection to Google seems OK". The solution is to log in by ssh and run the following commands:
cd /home/pi
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/BritishAmateurTelevisionClub/portsdown4/master/update.sh  -O /home/pi/update.sh
chmod +x /home/pi/update.sh
./update.sh

More information

For early release information see https://forum.batc.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=103&t=6804

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