VW e-up! charge LED blinking yellow
Stefan Helander

VW e-up! not charging – charge LED blinking yellow

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I had a problem where my VW e-up! wouldn’t charge from time to time. The LED by the charger inlet was blinking yellow indicating “Parking lock not engaged”. Of course I had checked that the parking break was applied and gear shifter in P position.

It turns out that also the steering wheel must be locked. So, after driving, before turning the ignition off I do:

  1. Put the gear lever to P position
  2. Apply the parking break
  3. Turn off the ignition and remove the key
  4. Turn the steering wheel slightly until it locks

Now apply charger cable and verify that the charger LED turns green after a while (or blinking green if a timed charge is active).

MacBook Air model 2013 running Ubuntu and working builtin camera
Stefan Helander

Macbook Air builtin camera on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

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When Apple decided that it was time for my MacBook Air model 2013 to die, by not supplying anymore OS updates, I decided to install Ubuntu instead of throwing a piece of perfectly working hardware away. The only reason this hardware was “obsolete” is because Apple decided it to be. The same behaviour goes for Microsoft by the way and I think we need a debate about climate impact where people need to buy new hardware just because Apple and Microsoft decides so, but that is another discussion. The reason you are here because you probably want your builtin camera to work with Ubuntu on your MacBook Air 🙂

Anyway, this is how I got the builtin camera to work under Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (these are my notes on how I did it from collected searches on the Internet):

sudo apt install git curl xzcat cpio
git clone https://github.com/patjak/facetimehd-firmware.git
cd facetimehd-firmware
make
sudo make install
cd ..
git clone https://github.com/patjak/bcwc_pcie.git
cd bcwc_pcie
make
sudo make install

Someone had noted that at this point a reboot was needed. I didn’t need to do that. It just worked by doing:

sudo depmod
sudo modprobe facetimehd
When the cover is removed use a 10 mm wrench to adjust the brake to the desired tensions. Install the cover in the reverse order as described above.
Stefan Helander

VW e-up parking break adjustment

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Adjusting the parking break on VW e-up is quite easy. It requires a couple of screwdrivers and a 10 mm wrench.

In the bottom of the rear cup holder, use a little flat screwdriver to remove the screw cover.

Find the screw covered by a cup in the bottom of the rear cup holder.
Find the screw covered by a cup in the bottom of the rear cup holder.
Use a small flat screw driver to remove the cap.
Use a small flat screw driver to remove the screw cover.
Remove the torx screw, lift the console a little and push it forward to remove it.
Remove the torx screw, lift the console a little and push it forward to remove it.
When the cover is removed use a 10 mm wrench to adjust the brake to the desired tensions. Install the cover in the reverse order as described above.
Use a 10 mm wrench to adjust the parking break to the desired tension. Reassemble everyting in reverse order.
Stefan Helander

Windows Server Task Scheduler not running tasks

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When trying to enable or disable a task, an error message saying “The selected task “{0}” no longer exists, To see the current tasks, click Refresh” is displayed. When clicking the Refresh, the Task Scheduler is empty but if closed and reopened, the tasks are visible again.

A similar scenario is described in this article.

This is how I solved it, which was much easier:

  • Right click on a task and select Export. Save it to a file.
  • Right click the same task and select Delete.
  • In the right pane, select Import and select the previously saved file.
  • Save the imported task and if necessary, enter Administrator password.
  • Repeat for all tasks in the Task Scheduler.

After this all the tasks started working again.

FX-4C HF SDR transciever
Stefan Helander

FX-4C no power

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Suddenly I had almost no power output at all on 12 meter band. It turned out that I had accidently turned the AF knob while transmitting and this set the power calibration wrong. To solve this, I did:

  • Connect a dummy load
  • Set CW mode
  • Press PWR button and turn AF knob to 5 watts
  • Press and hold key (PTT) and while transmitting, turn the AF knob until the meter displays as close to 5 watts as possible

Now the power calibration is done and the rig will output power as expected,

Stefan Helander

[Landscape Alert] N computers haven’t contacted Landscape within the last 5 minutes

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Receiving emails from Ubuntu Landscape with warnings, subject line “[Landscape Alert] N computers haven’t contacted Landscape within the last 5 minutes“.

Solution:

Log in to the machine(s) mentioned in the warning and do:

sudo systemctl restart landscape-client
Erik Svensson

GNS3 how to uppgrade from 2.2.45 and got error messages

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If you got an error message (unable to locate package libvirt-daemon-system) while uppgrading from GNS3 2.2.45 VM to a newer version. Do as follow.

go to shell

sudo apt update
sudo rm -r /usr/share/doc/libvirt-deamon-system-systemd
sudo rm -rf /var/cache/apt/archives/libvirt-daemon*
sudo apt –fix-broken install libvirt-daemon-system-systemd

exit from shell and do the upgrade

Stefan Helander

Tuning the HF-P1 vertical antenna for 6m and 4m bands

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According to the manual sheet you should just push the extender section to the bottom for 6m (50 MHz) but this did not work for me. Using a NanoVNA I could find a workable configuration for both 6m (50 MHz) and 4m (70 MHz) bands.

For both bands I only used only one base pin (instead of two for HF), the coil pushed down to it’s lowest position and the tuning was done using the telescopic top part. The telescopic top part was extended partly:

6m8 sections of the top part extended, top part length 79 cm
4m2.5 sections of the top part extended, top part length 28 cm

If anyone has a better take on tuning on these bands please let me know 🙂 I have just tuned on SWR, no clue what the radiation pattern might be. Also, note that these are measurements that worked for me. Check your SWR.

6m operation
6m SWR
4m operation
4m SWR
Stefan Helander

Importing an Anytone AT-D878UV codeplug into AT-D578UV, AT-D168UV or AT-890UV

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To import a codeplug for Anytone AT-D878UV into the CPS for AT-D578UV or AT-D168UV, the only way is to export it to CSV from the AT-D878UV CPS and then import it. But for some strange reason, Anytone has decided to make the CSV formats slightly incompatible… Come on, Anytone. Why??? This bug/feature seems to be related to splitting Color Codes into RX and TX that was implemented in the 3.06 release of the CPS.

The import into the CPS for AT-D578UV or AT-D168UV will silently fail. No error message is displayed but upon investigation I discovered that the Color Codes for the DMR Channels were wrong (set to CC1 in all cases). I maintain a codeplug for AT-D878UV with almost 900 channels, so fixing this manually is not an option.

I use the latest CPS for all models, that is for AT-D878UV version 3.07, for AT-D578UV version 1.21 and for AT-D168UV version 1.06.

A workaround is to edit one of the column headers in the CSV file before importing. Which column depends if you are importing to AT-D578UV or AT-D168UV.

AT-D878UV -> AT-D578UVChange “RX Color Code” to “Color Code”
AT-D878UV -> AT-D168UVChange “TxCC” to “TxCc”

Anytone AT-D878UV to AT-890UV

If you open the RDT-file from an AT-D878UV into the CPS (version 1.01N in my case) for the AT-D890UV it will look fine but I discovered that channels randomly got the wrong TX CC in the AT-D890UV after doing this. Some settings in APRS get lost too but those can be edited manually. And the APRS TOCALL for AT-D890UV is APAT89.

So basically the RDT file from AT-D878UV can be opened and used in the AT-D890UV CPS but the file Channels.CSV must be edited and then imported into AT-890UV CPS.

This is how I solved it.

I use LibreOffice to manipulate CSV-files. Excel will probably work too.

  • Export Channels.CSV from the AT-D890UV cps. The content is not important, we will only need the header line from this file.
  • Export Channels.CSV from the AT-D878UV. I assume these are the channels you want into your brand new 890.
  • Open the Channels.CSV from the AT-D890UV and copy the first line (header line).
  • Open the Channels.CSV from the AT-D878UV and replace the first line with the line you copied from the AT-D890UV file.
  • Go to the column with the “RX Color Code” header (in my case column U). Copy the content from the entire column except the header.
  • Scroll right to the column with the “txcc” header (in my case column BY at the far right). Paste the content below the header cell.
  • Save the edited Channels.CSV file from the AT-D878UV and go to Import in the AT-D890UV CPS and import only the Channels.CSV file.

This way you will get all TX CC the same as RX CC.

If you have found more incompabilities that needs to be handled, please let me know and I will add it to the article.

Stefan Helander

FreePBX/Asterisk missing DID; how to force DID on trunk

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If you get a SIP account from a provider which isn’t really a trunk it can be configured as a trunk in FreePBX but DID on incoming calls is set to “s” so it is impossible to get an inbound route working.

The trunk in this case will only have one DID so a workaround is to set the DID “hardcoded” on the trunk in order to get the inbound route working.

Edit extensions_custom.conf and add something like this, but replace “123456789” with the DID you wish to set:

[custom-123456789]
exten => s,1,Noop(Setting DID to 123456789)
exten => s,n,Goto(from-trunk,123456789,1)

Now edit the trunk and go to the pjsip tab and enter custom-123456789 (replacing “123456789” with your DID) in the Context field.

Now all incoming calls in this trunk will get your desired DID and your inbound route will be able to catch them by the DID.