And it’s not good … 🙁

It doesn’t look like there will any supply of the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W until, at least, the 1st half of 2023 – and that’s only if the chip supply chain “recovers” within that time frame.

Given the conversation I had this morning – the prospects for the Pi 4 based ClearNode are also diminishing for the rest of 2022 – there’s a 6 month lead time for that board as well.

Challenging times …

73 … Gerry.

It had to come I suppose, we did our best to put it off as long as possible, but we really have to move the ClearNode Mobile App for Android up to a later minimum SDK version. This is mostly because we’re seeing more and more instability in the older version of the AWS IoT MQTT Libraries that our node control system relies on. We’ve been getting reports of poor connection behavior in the Android app – and we have been able to confirm this in our testing.

We just put out a “point” release for Android 9 (V1.32.8) – most of you will pick that up automatically – this should help with the MQTT connectivity issues. After that, if Android 9 is the most recent version your device will support, you will not be able to get subsequent versions of ClearNode for Android. Your Android 9 device and this version (1.32) of ClearNode will continue to function, you just won’t be able to update it as we move forward with new releases.

The only constant is change …

73 … Gerry.

You may have noticed that the vast majority of ClearNodes and ClearZeros have auto-magically upgraded to RedNode API 90. The ClearNode mobile app – Apple iOS and Android versions 1.32 are already in the App Store and Play Store respectively.

The major changes are “Fleet Last Heard” and “Fleet connection activity” – both available from the “Your Nodes” context/share menu. “Fleet” refers to ALL ClearNodes and ClearZeros currently running – a global view.

Fleet Last Heard

I’ve been impressed how most of the Digital Networks provide a live feed of where traffic is coming from – super useful if you’re looking for “action” or trying to verify if you’re making it into the system. So to make that happen we’re using the internal signaling data to provide a live feed of where nodes are active – i.e. receiving on their embedded radios and putting traffic onto a target system. This release targets the AllStar and EchoLink connections, with limited information for Digital connections. There will be another concerted effort to make the data from the Digital connections more useful – stay tuned – there’s a chunk of complexity in there that needs to be wrangled.

Fleet connection activity

We consistently see frustration among new users who are just getting familiar with Voice Over IP systems – where to go to get involved ? This functionality provides a sorted and time constrained list of where connections are being made and dropped. This is often a good indicator that a Net is getting underway as the inbound connections to a System Hub start ramping up. You can also start your connection and get involved – right there from Connection Activity list !

Other …

• More custom courtesy tones
• Voice ID as alternative to CW ID
• Node host name is exposed for configuration in Operating System Setup
• Fixed the “Change Pi ‘root’ pswd” which got trashed in an earlier release

A lot of work went into this release and it’s a certainty there are bugs … the sooner you report ’em the sooner we fix ’em … 🙂

This foundational work underlies this release and the next – so there’s more to come ! The next Major Release is already on the drawing board … exciting stuff in the works.

Have fun !

73 … Gerry.