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VARAC on Pi NG

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I have VARA running both from Build-a-Pi,from the VARA.exe and from RMS Express. THis is for CMS contacts only. I want to get into some actual QSOs!! I note also that VNC/Chrome is pitifully slow. I have downloaded VarAC, and edited the Varac.ini to fill in the details. When I run wine VarAc.EXE, I get heaps of error messages, mainly related to X11 display. The VARA HF modem starts, then disappears, then re-appears. The VarAC window appears for about 1 second then disappears. Top shows Vara.exe taking about 75% CPU but nothing is happening. It looks like I might have to give up on the Pi and try using W11 on the laptop but the idea is to have all Ham apps on the Pi.

33 Paul RodenhuisAuthorSuccess! After re-routing the USB cable from the Pi to the old W8.1 laptop, installing VARA and VarAC, I was ble to cal l CQ on 14.104.250.!! 3 comments Like Comment Send 3 comments Top comments Active Write a comment…

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Comments (12)

Gene Ishikawa

Jan 08, 2023

Do you see the TCP LED in green at the bottom of the VARA HF modem? If not, click "DISCONNECT MODEM" and then "CONNECT MODEM" on VarAC. For me, I need to do this every time I launch the app.

The modem works even though it shows "%CPU not available" in yellow. It's said to be a bug.

I use VARA HF+VarAC on RPi4 with a couple minor glitches like above which I can tolerate.

Gene

JI1BQW - Gene

Gene Ishikawa

Jan 12, 2023

Replying to

Hi vk2ahb,

To find the correct comport, check $HOME/.wine/dosdevices to see the mapping between com# and /dev/tty devices, and select the right one. In my case, com3 is linked to /dev/ttyUSB0 which is the right one for me. YMMV.

(Ref: https://wiki.winehq.org/Wine_User's_Guide#Serial_and_Parallel_Ports )

WRT the VarAC screen issue, did you install necessary microsoft components when you installed wine? I installed the followings after wine and winetricks:

export WINEARCH=win32

winetricks winxp

winetricks sound=alsa

winetricks vb6run

winetricks -q vcrun2015

winetricks -q dotnet472

vk2ahb

Jan 12, 2023

Replying to

Ahh, didn't know about that! I just used Jason's BAP. Where do I find them, how to install?

Paul

Gene Ishikawa

Jan 16, 2023

Replying to

<your comment> VARA modem comes back, now with GREEN TCP indicator, but VarAC screen doesn't fill in, just dies after a second or two.</your comment>

I happened to hit a very similar situation when I was testing installations yesterday. I was able to solve it by copying VarAC.ini file from another working environment. Worth trying.

Gene

vk2ahb

Dec 26, 2022

Tried again after setting the ENV for WINEDEBUG.

This seems new in VarAC.log

26/12/2022 23:03:49 - PSKReporter: logging enabled

26/12/2022 23:03:49 - PSKReporter: Connected

26/12/2022 23:03:50 - Opening DB connection

26/12/2022 23:03:50 - Current VarAC DB version: 2

26/12/2022 23:03:53 - Error: Setting port of main VARA HF modem: Path cannot be

the empty string or all whitespace.

Parameter name: path

at System.IO.Directory.GetParent (System.String path) [0x00016] in <e70d6e9587

d64cb3abb4b3f99bbf5a0d>:0

at VarAC.VarAC.Run_varahf_modems () [0x00057] in <4670b369b320454d8d9d9f07650a

c81d>:0

26/12/2022 23:03:53 - Error: Starting VARAHF modem: Cannot start process because

a file name has not been provided.

at System.Diagnostics.Process.Start () [0x00024] in <55ce033b43204763a015d4156

4e2639e>:0

at (wrapper remoting-invoke-with-check) System.Diagnostics.Process.Start()

at System.Diagnostics.Process.Start (System.Diagnostics.ProcessStartInfo start

Info) [0x0001b] in <55ce033b43204763a015d41564e2639e>:0

at System.Diagnostics.Process.Start (System.String fileName) [0x00006] in <55c

e033b43204763a015d41564e2639e>:0

VARAHF modem did start. VarAC.exe was running but no CPU used.

vk2ahb

Dec 26, 2022

I have VARA HF and VarAC running fine on the W8.1 laptop. Now have the latest and greatest running well. So I thought I'd give the Pi another go.

Same result as above. HF Modem appears once, disappears then comes back. VarAC.exe starts then disappears.

THis is from the VarAC.log

25/12/2022 23:52:06 - VarAC base directory: C:\Varac\

26/12/2022 00:02:11 - Starting VarAC (V6.4.15)

26/12/2022 00:02:11 - OS: Microsoft Windows NT 6.1.7601.65536

26/12/2022 00:02:22 - Debug mode disabled

26/12/2022 00:02:23 - FREQ Schedule off

26/12/2022 00:02:25 - PSKReporter: logging enabled

26/12/2022 00:02:25 - PSKReporter: Connected

26/12/2022 00:02:27 - Opening DB connection

26/12/2022 00:02:27 - Current VarAC DB version: 2

26/12/2022 00:02:34 - Connecting VARA Main Modem Command interface...

26/12/2022 00:02:35 - Connecting VARA Main Modem data stream...

26/12/2022 00:02:35 - Connecting VARA Main Modem KISS Command interface...

26/12/2022 00:02:35 - Connecting VARA Monitor Modem Command interface...

26/12/2022 00:02:35 - Connecting VARA Monitor Modem data stream...

26/12/2022 00:02:35 - Connected to VARA modem

26/12/2022 00:02:35 - Error: Unable to send command to VARA modem. Disconnecitng modem.

26/12/2022 00:02:35 - The operation is not allowed on non-connected sockets.

at System.Net.Sockets.TcpClient.GetStream () [0x00036] in <55ce033b43204763a015d41564e2639e>:0

at VarAC.VarAC.command_varahf (System.Net.Sockets.TcpClient conn, System.String command) [0x00018] in <4670b369b320454d8d9d9f07650ac81d>:0

26/12/2022 00:02:35 - Restarting VARA modem 1/2

26/12/2022 00:02:36 - Disconnecting VARA modem...

26/12/2022 00:02:36 - Error: Unable to read data from command stream of VARA modem. Disconnecitng modem command stream.

26/12/2022 00:02:36 - Unable to read data from the transport connection: Thread was being aborted..

at System.Net.Sockets.NetworkStream.Read (System.Byte[] buffer, System.Int32 offset, System.Int32 size) [0x000ac] in <55ce033b43204763a015d41564e2639e>:0

at VarAC.VarAC.<button_connect_varahf_Click>b__629_0 () [0x00041] in <4670b369b320454d8d9d9f07650ac81d>:0

26/12/2022 00:02:37 - Disconnected!

26/12/2022 00:02:47 - Connecting VARA Main Modem Command interface...

26/12/2022 00:02:47 - Connecting VARA Main Modem data stream...

Note: This is running the Pi 4 via VNC which might explain the hundreds of error messages i get about X11 and display.

Denis George Barton

Dec 13, 2022

I get the same results on my raspberry PI 4. I hope someone can get VarAC to run on a PI.

Denis

WB8SKP

on4dfn

Jan 10, 2023

Replying to

For the moment i can not use my rpi for varac but in the past it works good maybe next week i will give it another try to work with it. When is not connected to my radio it seems to be working. fingers crossed

on4dfn

Jan 14, 2023

Replying to

Update i run now RPI and at first sight it's working it will be long test to see whats happen in time greets

Gene Ishikawa

Jan 14, 2023

Replying to

That's nice. I've been trying fresh installations multiple times with an aim to come up with a reliable installation procedure without much success. VARA Modem is pretty reliable, but VarAC succeeded only a couple of times out of 10+ attempts. The most tricky part seems to be the dotnet and/or mono. Do you have any insight into it?

JI1BQW -- Gene