TARXVF
If you need to pronounce it, that’s “tar-chief” I suppose.
I’m fascinated by radios, aviation, and languages. I like open source.
I spend a lot of time paragliding, working on radios and other hobbies and side projects too numerous to list without being thoroughly embarassing. Some of those occasionally get posted publicly, even incomplete.
I have no shame about putting incomplete projects on the internet, nor talking about plans and then not following through. Most of the fun in a project for me is figuring out how to do it - I do these things for my own edification.
That’s also why I don’t stick to one topic or industry or career subpath; instead I find myself rotating through interests - most recently (mid 2024) I’ve been hard into motorcycles, and I’ll be back around to radios again shortly I’m sure. (2025 Feb update: Yep. Several times now.)
Recent Projects
- xcl.is, LTE private network project focused on experimentation and Amateur radio use, to include eNB firmware reversing, CoreDump (Open5GS network packet and log visualization/troubleshooting tool), and much more.
- porkalpine.org, Alpine image and packages for Amateur radio, focused on digital mode hotspots and repeaters.
- XVF Deploy, a custom infrastructure management tool leveraging ansible, bind, and a good pile of Python to automatically manage all my domains and deployments. Previously known as pim17.
- amts.rf.band and fcc_licdb, a way of loading all of the relevant FCC ULS database dumps and then rendering them out to maps, in this case to support ORI’s 219MHz band regulatory work.
- 47CFR, a tool to make proposing changes to FCC (and other CFR regulations) easier to parse, manage, and discuss by rendering source xml to markdown and using standard software engineering tools such as git diffs or pull requests to compare change sets.
Other projects
- maidenhead, arbitrary precision maidenhead grid square conversion library.
- cables, tool to quickly and efficiently describe connector pinouts and custom cables, where all information required is on a single sheet of paper.
- thales25, partially implemented openscad project to make replacement batteries for Thales Racal 25 radios. On hold while I wait to see if the market fills the gap and saves me the effort, since two other independent hams are working on the same thing. Separately. (These radios are genuinely cool)
- tarsat, originally the first demonstrated on-radio amateur satellite tracking software. Now, while I wait for OpenRTX to mature enough for it, a local satellite and transponder tracking and CAT control software toolkit and library. Uses Satnogs-db and Bill Gray’s satcode and lunar libraries (Thanks!).
- dmr.tools, web based codeplug editing and firmware upload. WebUSB.
- MMDVM_HS_CICD, added CI/CD builds to
MMDVM_HS, originally in support of what was then pim17, now porkalpine. - pyM17 first actual implementation of M17 that could be used with full support of the protocol as it stood at the time. Designed to support development and proof-of-concept efforts around M17 IP networking, and was the basis of all M17 network demonstrations until N7TAE made mrefd.
- dmr_programmer cli-only mass DMR programming tool for MD-380 style radios, based on my Chirp fork with DMR support hacked in.
History
I contributed the firmware upgrade code and a few other bits to the old md380tools.
I’m responsible for DMR.Tools, a web-based codeplug editor and firmware upgrader for TYT DMR radios using WebUSB.
You can find a lot more dmr.tools details elsewhere on this site.
I was heavily involved in the start of M17 across all aspects and split from that group in late 2023 in no small part due to the way my friends at ORI were treated. I’m still very much into radios and writing code for and against them, but I’m much pickier about who I’ll partner with and what I share publicly.
Contact
You can reach me through email at literally anything at this domain (example: “support [at] tarxvf [dot] tech”), but if you’re using email services from a large company make sure to check your spam box to get my replies. I run my own mail and I don’t send enough email for the big places to decide whether I’m a spammer, which seems a contradiction.