Spring Is Here!

I wanted to give you all a little preview of some of the new RPi2 Allstar release capabilities.

  - Automatic Radio and Cable Sensing

 It will automatically sense the radio you have connected. Just hook the radio to the URI or any sound FOB with some wires connected. It doesn't matter what wires or how they are connected.
The RPi2 is smart enough to adapt to any wiring arrangement, it will just work.
This eliminates making special cables or figuring out how to connect your radio!
We hope to have have this to the point where you would not even have to connect anything, just lay the parts out on a table and press a button but that probably won't be until the next release.
More details will be in the documentation.

  - Thought control

 The new code has the ability to remember your node preferences and make recommendations for connections based on thought.
There will be a special wireless adapter that will connect via the GPIO and can actually read brainwaves to allow thought analysis to connect nodes and allow other Allstar command execution. The work on this is currently very preliminary but so far it is working well.
One of the best features of this mode is the ability for Allstar to know if you are aggravated with someone talking on the node and automatically switch it off or change nodes.

  - External Device Control

 There will be a limited amount of external device control in the first release.
We currently have it working with a smart refrigerator via Ethernet using a combination of DTMF and voice controls.
For instance you would enter a DTMF sequence and the refrigerator would ask you what you wanted to do. You could say "check temperature" to get the internal temperature.
You could also say "check soda pepsi" or check "beer" and it would check its inventory and report back the status.
This would be useful if you were busy in a conversation and you didn't want to get up and check. We will be adding more control capability in the future.
A toaster and a microwave interface are both in the works and should be in the next release.
We also hope to extend this so you can check other peoples refrigerators of other nodes.
This is especially helpful if it is a nearby node and you want to make a visit.

  - Digital Voice Detection

 And finally the best addition to the new code is a digital voice detector.
This automatically detects the crappy audio from a node that is connected to one of the RF digital voice networks - Dstar, Fusion, DMR, etc and automatically rejects and disconnect the call.
This is an especially useful feature that will keep our Allstar network functioning like it should with the best audio possible.
There will also be an optional feature that sends an Allstar advertisement back to the station before the disconnect telling them they should ditch their expensive digital equipment and join the Allstar team!

  So standby for the new RPI2 Allstar release coming in the 2nd week of April - and that is not a joke.

 Oh yes and don't forget what today is!

Enjoy!

 All For Now
Comments Invited - 73

SmØke out..


And Thanks to Doug WA3DSP for the material for this post.