OpenTuner 0.A Available

I’m happy to release a new version of OpenTuner. Its almost been a year since I did the experimental Dual Tuner release (0.7) which was a big rewrite and this new version has also been a big rewrite of various parts. This new release brings in the experimental support for Winterhill and Longmynd. This means you can use OpenTuner as a Longmynd client, as a Winterhill client above the usual Minitiouner and Picotuner hardware.

To be able to accommodate these changes you will notice that the layout has changed a bit. The biggest change are the property panels. They used to be a fixed layout, but because of the different sources available now they are dynamically generated. A lot of the information will be similar, but depending on the source there are a few changes.

Currently there are a few options for sources available:

1. Minitiouner – The original FTDI Module version and the new PicoTuner version.
2. Longmynd – Both the M0DNY version as used in the Longmynd Client, and also the Mqtt version as available on the latest firmware from F5OEO.
3. Winterhill – The modified Winterhill version as what was used with the Winterhill client is currently supported in this version, with the original Winterhill coming soon.

The main screen has now been simplified where you can select and configure sources and also select extras “features”

The current available features are:

1. MQTT Client: Point this feature to a Mqtt broker and it will send live mqtt topics about each tuner and their status. This is nice if you are using for example Node-Red and want to integrate some more functionality into your dashboards.
2. Quick Tune Control: With this you can control Open Tuner from other software like QuickTune.
3. BATC Wideband Spectrum: This is specifically for use with QO-100 and shows the spectrum data as received from the BATC Online Version (*internet required)
4. BATC Wideband Chat: This is specifically for use with QO-100 and allows you to receive and use the online chat directly in OpenTuner.

You will also notice two disabled checkboxes which are the two features currently being worked on, a interface for the latest F5OEO DATV Firmware and also a special HamTV mode for use with the HamTV transmitter which was recently launched to the ISS and will probably go live in the next month or two. Test versions of this going out soon to testers 🙂

Other small changes include a bunch of changes to how you can control the tuner for terrestrial use, switching of two LNB supplies on both the FTDI and PicoTuner versions and many more. Go explore and let me know if you get stuck 😉

Since I don’t see any big GUI changes coming soon I’ve decided that its also time to get some decent documentation together. The main page is here and various links from within OT will take you there. I’ve added the basics to the various documentation sections, but will expand more as needed. Let me know if you are missing info that needs to be in the documentation, or a specific use case that needs more explaining.

As always, if you have any issues please post to either the Github Issues Page, or the BATC Forums. Keep in mind that because there are so many configurations possible now, its important that you specify which hardware you are using, the settings/source and steps to reproduce the error when posting issues as its very time consuming the get the basic information from a issue query.

I’d like to thank everyone who has supported me in various ways, from the beta testers, to the supporters and everybody else.

A special thanks to Rolf DJ7TH who has sent me his versions of Minitiouner and PicoTuner hardware. Its definitely been a great help with adding more features and it looks so pretty 😉

Enough waffling, go download the latest version and try it out 🙂

73,
Tom – ZR6TG