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Stardate: 20191013.1542
Location: Movie theater waiting to watch Joker.
Input Device: Gemini PDA
Audio: Movie advertising
Visual: Dim movie theater, advertising, in the periphery.
Energy: 75%
Mental: 75%
Emotional: OK, relaxed.
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So I have been hanging out on zello. Not so much speaking, rather,
just lurking. I am still unsure of the protocol for speaking on the
public channels, but I'm learning about that and even some of the
"evolution" of the ham radio hobby. I was able to get zello running
on my "dumb" phone, the Sonim XP5700, which I got for cheap awhile
back.
The phone is not necessarily "dumb" since it runs a version of
Android (v4.x) that Sonim customized for the device. I haven't
done much to modify or anything since the main purpose was to be dumb,
durable, and just do voice and text with the numeric keypad. Oh, and
also to do the mobile data gateway thing.
One of the things that I kept getting annoyed by was the Push To Talk
(PTT) button since it kept launching the AT&T Enhanced Push To Talk
(EPPT) application, which requires a service that I do not subscribe
to and there was no apparent easy way to remap the button. Well, I
finally got around to doing further research on what to do with this
button.
(OK, movie is starting...finishing later)
(OK, it's later.)
When I first got the phone, I saw some Amazon reviews of the device
and how other people shared the annoyed feeling about the PTT button
getting in the way. Some people just lived with it, others sent the
phone back, some even disabled the button by opening it up and
cutting the rubber nub that contacted the internal button. For me,
that was too intrusive. I wanted to see if I could at least remap
the button, but my research and tinkering were unsuccessful. So I
just lived with it.
Fast forward to now...I was able to spend some time trying different
things with the phone and now I have zello utilizing the PTT button,
which I was able to sideload via adb, I changed my launcher back to
t-ui CLI launcher (since the Sonim Launcher took back over awhile
back and I had to read up on how to revert the default back to t-ui,)
and use my speaker microphone for actual PTT, instead of just audio
and phone calls.
The t-ui launcher works pretty well and keeps people from messing
with my phone. I have aliases set up so I can get to my applications
quickly via the numeric keypad. Here's a pic. [1]
The speaker microphone seems to work well with the zello as well as
the built in PTT button on the side of the phone. The phone itself
is quite loud, but with the speaker microphone, it is much louder.
Here's another pic. [2]
I am also able to listen to zello calls and aNONradio simultaneously.
The conversations on zello can sound really interesting and even
surreal with aNONradio since when someone talks on zello, aNONradio
is turned down and plays in the background during the transmission.
Unfortunately, the phone no longer gets updates since the OS is so
old. With sideloading these apps, I have increased the attack
surface, but I'm not too concerned since it is mostly a dumb phone
and is quite limited. Hopefully I can keep on using it for some time.
(IMG) [1] T-UI CLI Launcher on Sonim XP5700
(IMG) [2] Sonim XP5700 w/ speaker microphone
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