The Ultimate Modern Ham Shack – Configuration – Bringing it all together!

Topic	Building the Ultimate Modern Ham Shack (Part 4 of 4 Articles)
Subtopic	Bringing it all together – final configuration of applications
Equipment Required	Computer + Internet
Costs	Nothing / $AU60 for the Pro Version of Chronalart and/or $AU40 for the Ham2K CloudSync Per year.
Document last reviewed and updated (reviewed each year)	1st November 2026 – Release of Article – (note awaiting final technical review)

Important : If you landed on this page via your favourite search engine, as this is a multipage article, you might want to start here – https://www.vkhamradio.com/the-ultimate-modern-ham-shack-overview-and-concept/

Device	Workstation Name	Login Name	IP Address (will depend on your network
HamShackPC	HamShackPC	HamShackPC	192.168.1.201 (example) or x.x.x.201*Static*
WallDisplayPC	WallDisplayPC	WallDisplayPC	192.168.1.202 (Static) or x.x.x.202 *Static*
DesktopPC	Your Choice	Your Choice	DHCP or Static
HamShackLaptop	Your Choice	Your Choice	DHCP or Static
HamTablet	Your Choice	Your Choice	DHCP or Static

Now we are at the business end of this project. This article will cover the following

• Configuration of FLRIG (HamShackPC) – this really is the central component.
• Configuration of Ham2K Power Logger (HamShackPC)
• Configuration of ChronoAlert. (WallBoardPC)
• Setup of the Communications between the applications

The following image represents the communication channels between the “pieces”

Now I will state from the offset, these guides are not intended to be indepth configurations for these applications, but the bare minimum to get you started. Like everything in Amateur radio, there is no one way, no one path, as we all have different interests, and indeed different equipment, and different operating styles. Once you have the basics running, I fully recommend that you take a break, do some reading, some video watching and learn as much as possible about the application.

Configuration of FLRIG

Just before we start, there are probably a few of you questioning why we are using FLRIG, especially when there are other applications like HamLib, Omnirig, or not using an addtional middleware layer at all. It’s a worthwhile question to ask, and the simple answer is that going back 10 years or so, especially due to the price of equipment, you generally had one computer dedicated to your HamShack, and you run everything from there, or worst case, your family PC was the “shared” computer that was used for letters and spreadsheets etc, and pressed into Ham Radio when needed.

Now times have changed, there is a glut of low cost used or refurbushed PC’s around, Linux is a lot more user friendly than it has ever been (still not there, but better), and many developers are now writing platform agnostic applications (meaning available for Windows / Mac / Linux / Android / IOS), and older developers that hung their hat on Microsoft being forever (and the only choice), developed purely for Windows, using Windows Class libraries, are now scrambling to rewrite their apps in a platform agnostic language.

In summary, what this means is that more and more shacks are using a dedicated PC and quite often a second PC or NUC devices (that can include Pi’s or similar), so sharing the CAT interface to their Transceiver is desirable, and this can be done over a network. This capability actually has been built into FLRIG since 2009 as part of it’s earliest design architecture, specifically for its suite of applications. Other applications have started adding connectivity to FLRIG, eg. WSJTX since 2018.

The best part is that FLRIG is already installed on the HamShackPC.

The only thing you may want to do is place it as an icon on either your desktop (of the HamShackPC), which gets around searching the menus for the icon. When you do find it in the menu, right click on the FLRIG App, and select Add to Desktop which will add the icon to the desktop. This is worth doing as it is the most common app that you will be starting on this machine.

Now you can open it and lets start the configuration

However before we start the configuration we need to confirm that your interface to your Transceiver is being seen. If the underlying Linux operating system cannot see your interface, you are wasting your time if you are expecting FLRIG to magically make this interface appear. It is also a good idea to understand what your interface is called, reducing the need to take “stabs” in the dark on what the correct interface is.

So to do this

1. Click on the Main Mint Menu
2. In the Search Box – type Terminal
3. It will now show apps installed on the PC – click on Terminal

In this terminal box type

ls -la /dev/serial/by-id/

At time I wrote this, the transceiver USB connection was not connected, so the output I received was expected.

$ ls -la /dev/serial/by-id/
ls: cannot access '/dev/serial/by-id/': No such file or directory

So with the radio powered up, and USB Cable connected, I performed the command again.

ls -la /dev/serial/by-id/

ls -la /dev/serial/by-id/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 80 Oct 17 14:16 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 80 Oct 17 14:16 ..
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Oct 17 14:16 usb-Silicon_Labs_CP2105_Dual_USB_to_UART_Bridge_Controller_0112D3BE-if00-port0 -> ../../ttyUSB0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Oct 17 14:16 usb-Silicon_Labs_CP2105_Dual_USB_to_UART_Bridge_Controller_0112D3BE-if01-port0 -> ../../ttyUSB1

This time, the interface I was expecting showed up. If you are not seeing at least a change, in devices, then FLRIG will not see them either. If you believe it is working, then To configure this app, you will need to go to Config >> Setup >> Transceiver

Now this part of the configuration, it is impossible to provide the exact configuration for your transceiver. With over 60 rigs in its database, plus the different serial interfaces and names, and different baud rate settings, as well as the different interface products (even for one transceiver), it is a case of “trial and error” – hence my warning on connecting your rig to a dummy load whilst getting this right.

I have personally setup and tested with three rigs, a Yaesu FTDX10 (USB), an Icom IC-7300 (USB), and a Xiegu G90 (with Digirig Mobile interface). But the concept is the same. Once you have FLRIG working and responding to your changes (using the FLRIG GUI) correct, then generally you will not need to configure this again, and with all apps such as WSJTX, etc will operate via the FLRIG layer.

As an example, this is the working setup for the FTDX10….

Just a couple of quick pointers

Make sure you have selected the rig that matches your Transceiver

Click on the UPDATE button (if you have recently plugged into your USB Cable), before selecting the interface in the drop down (at the end of the line)

Make sure the BaudRate is the correct one. This will either be in your interface manual (e.g. if using a digirig), or it is a user customisable setting on your Transceiver.

Leave the rest as defaults, unless you read specific information on the need to change them

Click on INIT and you should see the CONNECTED diamond light up green

Once you have that Connected Green lit, you should find that the main FLRIG gui is now relecting your transceiver settings.

Have a quick play with the settings. You are looking for two things

1. As you change the control in the FLRIG GUI, that it is changing your settings on your Radio (e.g. volume, frequency etc)
2. When you make changes to your rig manually, that the changes are reflected back in the FLRIG GUI.

That is the bulk of the configuration done…..we just need to check one setting, under the CONFIGURE >> SERVER, we just need to check the settings are correct for XMLRPC.

As long as it states XMLRPC Port as 12345, then this is correctly configured. Don’t worry about XMLRPC client connected not showing Green, this will happen later.

That’s all we need to do for FLRIG. It is a central piece of the puzzle, sit needs to be setup correctly and be working.

You might be wondering why we are using FLRIG in this way and not having WSJT-X talk directly to the rig as you may have done in the past…the reason for this is that the Serial interface (in this case the USB connection to you rig), can only be used by one application. The reasons for this are

• Only one app can access the serial (USB) interface at a time
• If we have applications that are on other PC’s/devices, we need to have that information accessible via the network (wireless or wired) e.g. Logging software which needs to access the obtain the details to add to the log
• You may want to run a Windows only program on a Windows PC, and using FLRIG, you can connect to your FLRIG running on your HamShackPC.
• You might wish to fun Direwolf on a Raspberry PI (remember we talked about re-use of the Pi’s and the DigiPi Project is a great use), and it too, can talk over the network to FLRIG (via rigctld/Hamlib)

Configuration of WSJT-X

This is probably one of the applications that you want to setup on your HamShackPC for FT8 and other Digital Modes.

The main menu you want is

FILE >> SETTINGS

The first tab we want is the General Tab

1. Select the General tab
2. Enter your call sign (as this is what will be broadcast)
3. Enter your Maidenhead Grid (see this URL and enter your Suburb/City and State https://www.levinecentral.com/ham/grid_square.php)
4. Enter your IARU Region (https://www.iaru.org/about-us/organisation-and-history/regions/)

The next tab we want is the Radio Tab

1. Select the Radio tab
2. Select FLRIG – no need to select your exact rig, we will be passing all communications via FLRIG which we have setup previously
3. Enter the IP Address of your HamShackPC. Now your IP addressing my be different, so this should match your HamShackPC Address and add the :12345 on the end
4. Select CAT as the PTT method
5. Select Data/Pkt as the Mode. Most modern rigs have a Upper Side Band Data mode, which this will select, otherwise, just set to USB
6. Set the Split operation to the RIG, again most rigs have the abilty to handle a VFO A and VFO B frequencies, if not then just select Fake It
7. Select the tickbox to display your PWR and SWR when transmitting
8. Select the tickbox to halt TX when the SWR > 2.5 (great for reducing the possibility of blowing your finals if you SWR moves out of range with you know it)
9. Click on Test CAT, and this will turn green if CAT control is functional
10. If you get a green on CAT, then click on Test PTT and if functional will turn RED and you will see your Rig go into transmit mode. As soon as you are done, click it again to stop the TX.

The next tab we want is the Audio Tab

1. Select the Audio tab
2. This will be different to yours depending on the Rig you have connected. The one above is for my FTDX10. Again it might be case of unplugging your USB port and see what disappears and appears again when it is plugged in. You should have on generally marked input in the name somewhere
3. This will be different to yours depending on the Rig you have connected. The one above is for my FTDX10. Again it might be case of unplugging your USB port and see what disappears and appears again when it is plugged in. You should have on generally marked output in the name somewhere.
4. Finally, and not critical, you may wish to ticket Hide ALSA Card subdevices in fact, you might want to tick this before steps 2 and 3, as it will reduce the number of devices that appear as the subdevices are not what we are after.

Finally the next tab we want is the Reporting Tab

1. Select the reporting tab
2. Tick the prompt me to log the QSO. At least at the start, you may want this to maintain control of the logging. Each successful QSO on FT8, it will prompt you to log the call. Once you are more comfortable, you can set to Log Automatically as soon as the QSO is completed.
3. Tick the Enable PSK reporter Spotting. This is very important to the fabric of how you can use PSK Reporter to see where your signal is being received and how strong your signal is received. Similarly it integrates with the Chronalert you will be running on your WallDisplayPC, which will show you live where your signal is being heard.
4. Finally you will see that the defaults are already setup for the UDP Server, but you need to select the Outgoing network interface that it broadcasts out on. Normally you will only have one interface to select which is the network card on the HamShackPC, and you should select this. Your name may be different especially if you are running on different hardware. Basically this is the network card that it broadcasts your QSO’s to other companion software such as Gridtracker, Logging software etc.

That is the Critical tabs that we need to worry about. When you get time, come back and check many other options in those tabs, as well as the other tabs we have not covered and do your research. That is it for configuring WSJT-X.

Configuration of HAM2K Power Logger

Now I will take a short cut here, I have already a separate article on Ham2K Power logger that I produced just before completing this article, so I wont replicate the same detail. You can find that article here and it will take you through the initial setup (as well as an overview of the application)….https://www.vkhamradio.com/ham2k-power-logger-next-edition-the-next-generation-of-ham-radio-qso-logging/ (this will open up in another tab)

However, in that article the CAT Control setup is for a directly controlled Rig, which is something we dont want to do for our Ultimate Modern Hamshack PC network setup

So when you get to the CAT Control configuration of that Article, just come back to this page and complete the setup as shown, the reason for this is that we are controlling your Rig via FLRIG, which provides for UDP Broadcasting as well a CAT Control over XMLRPC. In effect, we are making our Ham Shack network extensible and in many cases, able to replace components as new products come out or products go end of life.

Anyhow, lets go into the Station Configuration

1. Select Station Configuration
2. Click on the ADD button

The following screen will appear. We are not selecting your brand and model of Rig here, but a software intermediary called FLRIG

1. Select Software Intermediaries
2. Select Radio Controlled via FLRIG

The following screen will appear, ready for you to put your settings in

1. Normally it will have a generic name in here – e.g. My Radio (via flrig) – Change this to the name of your rig but keep the (via FLRIG)
2. Now in here, add the IP address of your Ham Shack PC (basically the machine you are on at the moment). Now remember, if your network is a different addressing scheme you need to compensate and add the IP address of your HamShackPC. Now as FLRIG and Ham2K are on the same RIG, we would use 127.0.0.1 (local host) as well but trying to keep the amount of confusing address limited.
3. Just confirm that the Port number set by default is 12345 (yes that is the port number, not an example)

This should return to the main Station Configuration Screen for your check everything is working

1. Check the rig is now listed, but more importantly, it should show a green plug and usually the Mode and frequency and power (if reporting power), this tells us that Ham2K is communicating with the Rig via FLRIG.
2. Just check the transceiver is now in the Equipment inventory (it should be).
3. Enable Track Station info for Each QSO

That is it, the only changes from the Main Ham2K article, otherwise the rest is the same as the Main Ham2K article.

Configuration of ChronAlert

Now this is not meant to be an all encompassing guide on Chronalert. There are even features and configurations that I have configured or tried yet.

The developer has written a very good manual within the product itself, which explains things far better than I can, and I fully recommend reading it once you have it setup.

Furthermore, you will find some items marked as PRO version, and I fully recommend that you consider purchasing the PRO version, especially for the APRS spots,

When you start the app up, you will be presented with this screen. Select your Area.

Once you have done this, it will give you a minimalistic Map of the World (its default option)

Now we can configure it the way you want it

1. Click on the “Cog” for setup

You will now be presented with this screen (the overview screen)

Go into each one of the numbered items

So starting with Number 1, App settings

1. Enter your Country Region. Generally it fills it in from the initial Start up screen.
2. Enter your Callsign. This is important as the PSK Reported mapping on ChronAlert is based on this callsign
3. Select your area, or general area.
4. Setup your panel rotation time, so you could have the Australia Map on for 15 seconds before it switches to the World map (if these are the two panels you setup). You can just have one panel if you wish.

Next we move onto the Panels screen. The first thing you may want is to add your country as the second Panel. You do this by

1. Click on Add Panel
2. You then chose what Map View that you want as this second panel and give the panel a name
3. Choose the options (for each panel) that you want to show. Just so we are clear, the Map is what shows on the map (if it can be enabled), and the Card is the scrolling cards on the left hand side. There are way to many to go through, try each of them for yourself, and decide what you want it to show.

The other item you may want to configure is the Watch Zones. This watches for events happening near to your location and alerts you with sound as well as visual notification. Great if you disconnect your equipment when lightning is close by.

1. Click on Add Zone
2. Name your Zone – or keep it simple – Home
3. Set your type – e.g. repeater (if you monitor your repeater site) – in the free version just set the home symbol
4. Set the location (and make sure it is correct after you press find
5. Set the radius of the zone
6. And then click on Save Zone

Other quick notes on Chronalert

Digital Mode Maps – aka PSK Reporter (Free Feature)

One of the nice features that is available in Chronalert is the mapping of information from PSK Reporter. As the manual says :

Where your signal is being heard, drawn as spokes from your station to a receiver icon at each station that decoded you.
Spokes and icons are colored by the signal report: green is strong (-5 dB or better), yellow is -5 to -15 dB, orange is weak (below -15 dB).
Click a receiver icon to see that station’s callsign, your signal report, the frequency and mode, its grid square and country, how far away it is, and how long ago it heard you.
New reports take a few minutes to appear: PSK Reporter publishes them with a delay, and ChronAlert checks every 5 minutes, as PSK Reporter asks.

The graphics are quite nice and saves going to the PSK reporter page, again amalgamating many of your information into one very easy read display.

APRS Mapping (Pro Feature)

ChronAlert Pro can put live aircraft, ships, and APRS ham stations on your map.

Aircraft and ships come from your own RTL-SDR radio receiver on your network – nothing leaves your network.
APRS can come from the internet (APRS-IS, no radio needed) or from your own local radio decoder (APRS RF, via KISS TCP).
Each contact appears pointed the way it is moving, with optional trails. The four sources are independent; set up only the ones you want.

QSO Logger (Pro Feature)

ChronAlert can listen to your ham-radio logging software and draw the classic great-circle arc from your station to everyone you work or hear.
It reads the UDP broadcasts sent by WSJT-X, JTDX, JS8Call, N1MM+ and Log4OM, locates the other station by its Maidenhead grid (or a rough callsign-prefix fallback), and maps it.
Arcs are colored by band and the QSO Map card lists recent contacts. History rolls over the last 24 hours.

I mentioned that it is expected that Ham2K logger will have UDP Broadcasting of QSO’s in the near future, so this is relatively easy to configure in ChronAlert. I will publish an updated article once this is released and working

However, I do recommend purchasing the PRO Version of the software the products flexibility opens right up. The price is not a subscription, just a once of cost. However you be the judge, play with the free version but if you feel that there are some additional features you want, then I fully recommend it.

However if you wish to remain with the Free version, it is very capable, and perfect for a Wall Display system. It really comes down to what you want, what you need, and what you are prepared to pay for it, but the graphics and clarity on this product is really worth a look.

When I am operating, I have a separate tablet setup with its own screens and rotation, showing me the POTA/WWFF activations, or if it is quiet, then I might just have APRS information on that screen, whilst leaving my Kiosk Screen displaying my default screens (including weather). Just something that is not clear, with the Pro version, you can setup multiple devices, each one with its own panels / maps (sizes).

Here is a couple of mine

Just beaware that some of the features in the images are only in the Pro version

That is it – completely finished.

As I have before, I do recommend you take the time to really look over what you have put together and understand it.

The best part with the way this system has been put together, is it is very much plug-n-play. If one piece of software becomes end of life, or has a major failing we can swap it out without breaking it. Similarly if an application comes out with more functionality, in most cases it will be case of configuing and turning on.

One of the benefits, if you have followed this article series from start to finish is that I will be extending these articles with additional functionality, so you can take part in the changes with your system.