Month: December 2018

I got a board that is loaded with push buttons, relays, opto-isolated inputs and a buzzer. I am planning to connect this to an arduino which will connect to talkkonnect vm via a USB. Stay Tuned.

 

Now talkkonnect can run on raspberry pi, orange pi and virtual machine. The idea for running talkkonnect on a vm is that it can be run as a gateway in the data center. For this to be a reality we are developing a USB interface box with GPIOs, relays, opto isolated inputs, switches and buzzers. This will allow you to connect talkkonnect gateway to your transceivers bridging otherwise non-compatable radio networks together. With this marriage of server technology and USB I/O controller the possibilities are endless.

Contribution from community member for BackLight LCD control, so the backlight is dim when no activity and bright when there is activity instead of being completely off.

Software Features
1. Software stack was created using golang which is a mature and flexible development platform
2. Uses external XML file for configuration of software features and definition of hardware gpio pins
3. Auto-provisioning of XML file from standard HTTP Server for easy remote central configuration/deployment/update
4. Detailed Logs available
5. Customizable sounds for events along with volume preference for each sound
6. Roger Beep function to indicate end of transmission to receiving party
7. Multiple Server Accounts support in configuration
8. Repeater Like beacon functionality for broadcasting periodic messages at defined intervals.
9. Text to Speech function for easy operation
10. Gmail SMTP Support for sending out Logs, GPS Location etc.
11. Configurable transmit timeout timer to prevent locked transmit (useful when interfacing to RF)
12. HTTP API Support for remote control
13. Panic function to request for help on the road etc.

Hardware Features
1. Can be build with components easily available online.
2. Form Factor of a Mobile Transceiver with external microphone with channel up/down navigation
3. Uses an HD44780 Standard and easily available LCD Screen to display status and events as they happen in real time
with backlight timeout control
4. Has LEDs for Online Status, Voice Activity, Participants in Channel and Heartbeat
5. Speaker Mute to prevent sound feedback and to emulate simplex communication like a real transceiver
6. Can connect to USB GPS/Glonass U-Blox7 GPS module for location tracking
7. Easy to interface to other systems like Radio Transceivers, etc.

Benefits of being open source licensing
1. Runs on the popular Raspberry Pi 3 Platform
2. Based on the open source mumble protocol and can communicate with PCs, Mobile Phones that run standard mumble clients
3. Both server side and client side software is free and open source available on github.com
4. You have a working stable platform for you to be able to create your own custom solutions to solve your own problems

talkkonnect version 1.2 is released on github.com/talkkonnect

To Build it please follow the following steps

go get github.com/talkkonnect/talkkonnect

export GOPATH=/home/mumble/gocode
export GOBIN=/home/mumble/bin

cd $GOPATH

cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/talkkonnect/talkkonnect

go build -o /home/mumble/bin/talkkonnect cmd/talkkonnect/main.go

 

I have been working hard on talkkonnect to bring the new features as listed below. The aim was to make talkkonnect
a fully customizable standalone desktop transceiver/gateway using the mumble protocol.

You will be able to download a copy of this latest release of software soon on github

Please visit us at www.talkkonnect.com and github.com/talkkonnect

Suvir Kumar

New Release Of talkkonnect December 2018 Version 1.20 Stable has the following features

1. Inspired by FreeSWITCH we have created an XML Configuration File which Opens a Plethora of Possibilities, making talkkonnect more
usable and versatile in the field.

2. You can now have multiple mumble accounts with server profiles and move between accounts by enabling the default tag to true/false

3. In the accounts section you can define server address and port, username and password, certificates, primary channel to join and your personal ident

4. In the global part there are 2 main sub-parts namely the software and hardware configurations.

The Software Section of the XML configuration file

5. In Software settings you can set the logging file information.

6. In Software AutoProvisioning part (HTTP) you can enable/disable AutoProvisioning, Set the ID of the machine, Set URL to get the provisioning file,
and set the name and path that you want to save the local config xml file to.

7. There is a Beacon function in which you can play a periodic WAV announcement into the channel where you can enable/disable this feature,
set the period in seconds in which you wish to send out the beacon message, set the file and path of the WAV file and set the volume of the message.

8. There is now text to speech functionality added to talkkonnect in which you can granularity control which event you want to enable/disable, the
volume of each event and the WAV file to play when each event fires.

9. There is an SMTP function which works with GMAIL where you can define your GMAIL credentials so that you can send local location information
via Gmail and also create a clickable link to show your position on google maps.

10. For the Software Sound settings your can enable/disable and set sounds for events, alerts, rogerbeep and chimes. You can also set the corresponding
WAV/MP3 Files to play and also set the volume for each type of sound.

11. There is also a TX Timeout feature which you can disable/enable it and also set the maximum time in seconds that a user can press the transmit key before
the tx timer fires and stops transmission, this is to prevent stuck keys and when interfaced to RF modules in the future to prevent problems caused
by stuck TX keys.

12. All Keyboard functions on the original menu are now available via HTTP API call in which the port can be defined. There is a granular control
for each function so the user can decide which commands will be available or not available via HTTP API

The Hardware Section of the configuration XML file

13. You can define which GPIO Pins you want to use for Voice Activity LED, Participants LED, Transmit LED and Online LED

14. You can disable/enable the heart beat LED/Signal feature and customize the period and duty cycle of the Heartbeat to match your requirements.

15. You can define which GPIO Pins you want to use as input push buttons for tx, channel up, channel down and panic button

16. You can have a physical rocker switch to set your comment or away messages telling your friends if you are available or not available when they
press F10 to display online users and information.

17. In The LCD screen (HD44780 Parallel Interface 4×20) you can now define the backlight timer and pins for interfacing the raspberry pi to the LCD
module.

18. You can now connect a USB GPS/Glonass U-Blox7 GPS module and set the interfacing parameters in the XML file

19. In The panic function you can set the filename and path of the WAV file you want to send if you press the panic button. You can also set the volume
of the sound file you want to send. You can choose to send your customizable ident, panic message. You can also choose to send your GPS coordinates, finally
you can set a TX timer to keep talkkonnect capturing sound via the microphone and TX enabled for a defined amount of seconds.