Aloha and welcome. I'm WH6AZ, here to bring you high signal insights about radio mail, the win link iPhone application I created. Today I'm going to show you how you can create a portable VARRA hotspot, so you can get your email from anywhere. And when I say anywhere, how about operating from the tropical jungle of Hawaii ? Stay with me and I'll guide you through every step of the process. Let's take a look at what we need. First of all, I'm going to get the billing T4, a little computer here, with the battery. What's great about this computer is that the only need 12 volts to run. So I'm going to go ahead and connect that and start it up. And I have here a digirig sound card that can just plug into USB and plug into my radio. And I'll just grab my radio and set it up. So today we're going to use the Kenwood Chitch 74. And I'm just going to pretend we are off-grid, which we are right now. And fortunately there is a win link gateway nearby that we can connect to. So first we want to check and make sure the hotspot is starting on the device. So here it is, shows up, I'll connect to it. So then my phone can just basically pair with the computer. Okay, so now I can just launch video mail and go in settings. And I will go and look for the modem that's being advertised from the billing. So I'm going to select the T2-T74, that's the profile I want to use. And one of the things that's important to notice is that when using a HD, oftentimes the volume control here is also how you turn on the HD. And it's hard to remember if you have the right settings, which is very important when you're doing a connection. So in order to actually see that there is a audio monitor I can use here and bring it up. It's connecting. It actually shows me the volume that's coming from the radio. And I can just adjust it. I want it to be about mid-range here. So like so, seems a lot right. Okay, so now I'm just going to go out. Okay, so I'll move the run. Hopefully we can have both device in the camera field here. I'm going to go ahead and compose an email. And one other trick you can use is you can press the little microphone down here and I can dictate a message. Sending hello from the field. There you go. And now I'm going to go ahead and look for my favorite station here, K-chicks S . And I'm going to try to see if I can make a connection. So radio mail is connecting to the modem launching the VARRA modem on the head less computer. And here we have the radio already connecting. There you go. It's connected. Sending the message. There you go. We've been able to send an email of grid using radio mail and HD. And a headless computer managed by radio mail. So now that we're back at the shack, before we jump in and see what's inside that computer, let's talk a little bit about the challenges of running VARRA on the headless computer. VARRA is designed as a GUI application. It means that the user is expected to interact with it with the keyboard, with the mouse, and be able to actually see the window, which of course on the headless computer, you can't do any of that. A headless computer means you don't have a monitor, you don't have a keyboard, you don't have a mouse. It's really meant to operate as a server. And VARRA is not designed for that. Fortunately, there is a solution for that, and the solution is a program I created called VARRANE, which is really meant to act as a NANNY for VARRA. Let's take a look at VARRANE and what it does. First of all, if you look at the architecture diagram here, you notice that if a client wants to connect to a headless computer, he needs to know the address, the host, and the port to connect to VARRA, but also in some cases, to reconfool to be able to do cat control for VARRAHF. All this information had to be configured manually previously, and what you really would want to have is much like nowadays you don't configure printer on the network, you just discover them, you want the ability to do service announcement. So, job one for VARRANE is to be able to broadcast and do DNS service announcement and basically declare on the network, there is a VARRA instance, here is where it lives, here is its name, and here is where you're going to find it. And Radio Mail can listen to those messages and basically allow you to automatically show your friendly name, and you can select the device and connect to it and don't have to deal with the settings. The second thing that VARRANE supports is really allowing you to do remote management, meaning that you can start and stop the modem for you, and it's important because in some cases, if you have the same computer that is shared for VARRAF M, VARHF, connected to Radio that has the same sound card, you can't really run both instances at once. So, the starting and the stopping of VARRA needs to happen remotely, and VARRANE facilitates that and can start and stop the instance for you. The other thing you may want to do also is have more than one configuration file, VARRA doesn't support multiple devices, but if you swap the configuration file before you start VARRA, you can achieve the same result. VARNENE will manage a 9i file per device and make sure that it's set up before VARRA start. Last thing, if you're on a headless of your environment, you're not going to be able to see the gauge on the VARRA application, and you're not going to be able to verify that your level is correct, and VARNENE also helps in that it will connect to the sound interface and will send you a representation of the audio stream coming in, so you can make sure that your volume is set up appropriately, and that everything will work. First of all, you're going to need some sort of computer to run VARRA, and while you could be running that on a Raspberry Pi, I prefer to use an alternative, the billing here, T4 computer, which is a great option for a couple of reasons. First of all, it is relatively inexpensive, they are here on Amazon and sell for $85. Usually you can get them for less than $100, but also they run 12 volts, so that makes it compatible with the rest of your batteries or the equipment you have for your radio, and because it has an Intel processor, you don't need to deal with any sort of mediation. They come with Windows pre-installed, so that makes it very easy to run VARRA all of the bugs. You can also install Linux if you prefer, I'll show that in a future video on how to do that. So this is the first piece you need, you need a computer, you're going to need also a sound card, my favorite option here, what you've seen me use is the DigiRig, it's a very small sound card, you can get them for about $50 here, and it's just a fantastic device, you plug USB one end, and then you just have an audio jack here, you can get all sorts of cable for various radio you have, just pick the option that works for you, and you get everything you need. So once you get that equipment, then the next step is to set up Windows so that VARRA can run, and VARRANE can get installed on that, so let's take a look at that. So here we are now connected to that Windows computer, and I'm going to go ahead and download the VARRANE agent, so I can just go to GitHub, islandmagic/VARRANE with 2N, and I can just find the release here, click on it, and I have the choice for a few packages here, and I'm going to go download the Windows one, there's also builds for various architecture of Linux, MD64 and ARM version as well, if you prefer, but for now I'm going to use the Windows, and I'm going to click on that, you'll notice Windows is prompting me things that is potentially suspicious, or dangerous because it contains an executable, so you can just go and ignore and download it, or if you prefer, you can actually build it yourself from source, so you can make sure you know exactly what you're installing on your computer. And here I'm just going to expand the zip file, and there are two files in the zip you're going to find VARRANE itself, which is the executable that you can run from the command line, as well as sample JSON file, which is a configuration file for VARRANE. So I'm going to extract into my home directory, so I'm going to go here, and I'm going to look for my home folder, and I'm not a Windows user, so bear with me here, and I'm going to select folder and extract. Okay, so now I should probably have placed this in a folder, so now I'm going to go in the terminal, and I'm using PowerShell, but you can use what you feel comfortable with, I'm using this, so at least I don't mistype commands all the time, and so here is VARRANE and the JSON file, so let's take a look at the configuration file and see what you can contain. So I think I can just open the notepad. Let's see if that works, yes, it works. So this is just a plain text file, and it contains structured data, and it shows you a couple of examples of what you can use for configuring your setup here. So I'm going to try to use the simplest configuration possible that can work here, so I'm going to go ahead and just delete what I don't need. So first of all, you'll see the port, this is the port that the agent listens to, and that radio mail connects to to execute various commands when it needs it, so normally you don't really need to change it. And then you have an array here that defines the various modem configuration, essentially that you want to define for your system. So I'm going to define a, I'm using VARRANE, so I want to make sure the type is VARRANE, because the VARRANE and VARRANE have advertised differently, so this allows radio mail to know what to look for, depending on the context of what you're trying to do, so it's best to describe it here. Here it points to the VARRA program itself, the executable, and here is where it gets interesting here, you can actually define your own configuration file, so that when VARRA is launched, actually, before it's launched, this configuration file can be set up and it's being used . So this looks pretty good, so I'm going to save what I have here, but before I start everything, I'm going to want to create a configuration file, especially for this device, and I'll show you in a minute why that's useful. So I'm going to go and launch VARRANE itself, and I need to do a few things here to make sure that it's set up properly. So first, I want to make sure that the sound card selected, match my sound card, in this case, it is the sound, the USB and P sound device is the digital ring, so that looks pretty good. So I'm going to close that. Second thing I need to do is to make sure that the PTT is set to the proper device, and here it says set up to come, and come 11. So if I don't know, if you ensure where your digital ring is, you can always bring the good old device manager. And in Device Manager, there is the COM port section here, and you can look at the kind of device you have connected, in this case the Silicon Lab, USB Bridge is the device that's in the G-RIG, and it's set for COM 11. So this looks correct. So now I can just go and close VARRA FM, and then what I'm going to do is go in the directory where VARRA is, VARRA FM. And if I look at what's in here, I have the VARRA FM that INI, which is the main configuration file that VARRA uses. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to create a copy of this, and I'm going to, oops, that's not what I want, VARRA FM, and I'm going to name it THD74. It doesn't matter what you name it, as long as that's what you use in VARRA-NI configuration. So all right, so now I have one created here. Great. And if I go look at my configuration, this is correct. So this basically instructs VARRA-NI to say, when you start this device, open VARRA-FM and also use this configuration file. And this allows me to essentially create as many modern or as many devices as I want, and they may have different sound call, they may have different COM port that they use, and they will be swapped automatically for me. So this looks pretty good. I'm going to go and save the file here. So I'm going to close this now, and I'm going to start VARRA-NI. And VARRA-NI will look for the JSON configuration file in the same directory. We'll do some parsing to make sure it's correct, and we'll start and bind to the interface. So now let's run a test to make sure everything is configured properly. So I'm going to start a terminal here from another computer, and what I can do is just tell that to this Windows computer on the AD273 port, which is where VARRA-NI listens to. I can issue a few comments here, I can list the modem that I have defined, and here is the THD74, and I can ask where I need to start it. And what should happen here is, yep, it just went ahead and started VARRA-FM, and basically launched it for me, and then when I go and stop it, it should shut it down and restore the original configuration file here. If you look at the logs, it actually found my particular INI file, set it up, and then basically restore that INI after that. So it looks like we're in pretty good shape here. So let's head over to Radio Mail now, and I can go into Settings, VARRA-FM modem, and you'll notice now this has changed a little bit, you'll have a default modem, which like for the packet modem, and where you discover devices like Mobiling, and if you use the option before, it will say manual, and now I can go, and I will auto-discover the devices on the network. So here's my THD74, I can just click on it, and what's nice about it is, you also have a audio monitor, because in a header situation, you're not going to be able to see this is a lady volume of the songcard, and you want to be able to adjust it on your radio. So I can just click here, and it will connect, let's take a look here on the radio I'm running here, and so this is the quiet, I'm chilling the volume, I can go, it tells me when it's too loud, and I'm going to go about mid-range here, and you'll see here it says microphone, USB, PNP, song device, if you remember, this is the songcard that we define in VARRA, so, and so VARRA, you will go inspect the INI file from VARRA, we'll figure out which songcard to use, we'll connect and stream some data back to radio, it doesn't stream the audio, but it will just, it does some analysis, and send back RMS, DBFS, essentially value, so it can be displayed here. So this looks good, I'm going to go back and try to make a connection. So, from the connection, I'm monitoring here on the second radio, it's going to be really loud, there you go, that was the connection, and basically now you've seen on the Windows machine, it just started VAR itself, did the connection, and shut it down on instant, and now you're done. So now let's take a look at how you would define more than one radio and why that is useful, so I'm going to go back here and stop VARRA and VARENI, and I'm going to open the configuration file here, so I'm just going to go ahead and copy this section here, and I'm going to rename it for my IC705, IC705, so here you can really put any name you want, and because we live in the 21st century, and I really like my IC705, I'm going to add a little hot emoji here, and I'm going to rename the configuration here to have a specific VARRA configuration file as well, so this looks pretty good, and now the other thing I need to do is to start VARRA FM, and make sure I have a configuration that matches what I want, so I'm going to go and look for the sound card, so this is pointing to the DJ rig, I'm now going to choose this other sound card that I just plugged in off-camera , so here we go, a cross-phone speaker, so that's good, and then the PTT is different, it's going to use CAD control, and it's going to use the, what do I find it here, icon, there we go, now I don't remember which port it's using, so I'm going to use the same trick as before, I'm going to look at the device manager, and hopefully you will tell me where my IC705 showed up, there it is, CIV, COM7, so you can just go here, COM7, choose the icon, IC705, it should be up here, there we go, okay, and the CIV address, make sure it corresponds to your device in case you 've changed it, but I think this looks pretty good, so now these settings are correct, and I can go in close VARRA, and now I have a copy essentially of the configuration file that I care about, so I'm going to make sure I make a copy, no that's not how you do it, there you go, so now I'm going to copy the VARRA FM.ini, and I'm going to clone it to VARRA FM.IC75.ini, which is what I specified in my VARRA configuration, so this looks good, I basically have now two configuration files, the THD74, and the IC705, you can also inspect those files if you're ever curious what's in them, this is not helping here, you can just go look at that, and it will show you basically the input device, microphone speakers, down there you should find also the CAD control, all the things we've defined, and I should be basically correct here. Alright, so now let's go ahead and make a connection, well actually I have to go back to, I should reopen to the PowerShell here, I'm going to go back to, let's restart VARRA.ini here, and while this is starting we can go back to radio mail, and look for new device here, so I'm going to go back in settings, VARRA FM, and here it is, we find our previously defined model, and then the UIC705 with a little hot emoji, how cool is that? So now let's take a look at the audio interface, it's a different codec, so it swapped the file correctly, we're looking at pretty good volume here, so now let's see if we can make a connection. Looking for the device, there we go, it did a connection, and what's really interesting now is that basically if I want to go back to my other configuration, I'll just go here, select 2G74, go back here, and press connect, and now it should make a connection for my other video. [Music] Now before you go, there are probably a few things you're going to want to make sure you do, so that your computer function well for you in the field. First thing is you need to ensure that VARRA-ini automatically launch when Windows start, plenty of instruction online that shows you how to do that. The second thing is you're going to make sure that there is a hot spot setup in your computer, so your iPhone gets an IP address and can talk to it. One way to do that is you can go in the option here, and maybe actually move myself out of the way, and you can start the mobile ops spot by just clicking here. One of the issue with that is that this does not survive a restart, so in order for it to stick, you need to tweak a few configurations, and I'll put a link in the description that shows you exactly what to do. And the third thing you're going to need is some sort of downgirl to essentially trick the computer into thinking there is a display attached. It's something that's very peculiar to Windows, but without display, even if you set up Windows to automatically log you on, you won't do it because it feels like it needs a display to do that. So I actually got tricked by that. I didn't know it was the case. So you have a basically little downgirl that's called a virtual display, and those devices will basically trick the computer into thinking there is a monitor, and it will start up and get configured for you. So I strongly encourage you to check all these settings, restart your computer, make sure that it actually boots up, start the Wi-Fi hotspot for you, logs in automatically, and everything is good before you head into the field. I made the mistake, and believe me, you don't want to find yourself in the field without a computer booting up. As a REST result, you can also install Microsoft Remote Desktop on your phone. This will give you at least the ability to see what's going on if there is some failure, but for the most part you really want to achieve a headless system where you apply the power, everything starts up, and is ready for you to go. I hope you enjoyed this video, and I will motivate you to create your own portable Varo FM hotspot, so you too can check your email from anywhere. And now go outside, get on the air, until next time, 73 and Aloha. .