AnyTone-D868UV VS datasette

My most starred repo has no code in it too!

A few years ago I bought an AnyTone AT-D868UV ham radio. As with any software-managed device, there were a few issues. I wanted a place to keep track of these problems for my own purposes. So I thought "GitHub Issues!"

https://github.com/geary/AnyTone-D868UV

I added a couple dozen of the problems I'd run into. And then it took a life of its own. Some people thought it was an official AnyTone support channel (despite my disclaimer). That's bound to happen.

The fun part was when people started an issue on how to upgrade a D868UV to a D878UV.

https://github.com/geary/AnyTone-D868UV/issues/59

Of course this was kind of an insane project unless you look at it from the point of a ham operator: radio hacking is fun!

Now about the gloves and chili.

Around 1974 I decided to stir fry a very hot dish of chiles and eggplant.

I didn't use any gloves, nor the fume hood that would have been wise.

Midway through the stir fry I noticed my forehead was burning.

But I ate the dish and it was delicious.

The next morning I woke up and my fingers were numb!

I went into survival mode and quickly realized that what I needed to do was eat a lot of yogurt, right then and there.

And it worked. I still have my fingers!

I am embarrassed to admit that my most popular GitHub repo is an issues-only tracker for something I didn't even create: a popular handheld ham radio, the AnyTone AT-D868UV/AT-D878UV.

After I bought my radio, I found a few firmware issues and looked for a way to communicate them to the manufacturer. No luck on that. There was an active Facebook group, but it is a weird place run by a radio dealer who would ban you for discussing anything he thought might interfere with his business.

So I made a repo and started adding issues for the things I'd noticed. People found it and it took on a life of its own. The most popular issue is a lengthy collaboration among several hams who worked out a way to update the firmware on the D868UV to convert it to a D878UV.

This was one of the topics that would get you banned on that Facebook group, as the group owner would rather sell you a new radio. The funny part about that is the upgrade involves buying a special programming board and considerable time and effort, plus the risk of ruining your radio. So it was really just a labor of love for a few hams who had a blast working out how to do the upgrade.

Hams may not build our own radios as much as we used to, but we can still hack the firmware!

https://github.com/geary/AnyTone-D868UV

thanks yea. it's been a while, but according to another recent comment on the github

Seems like a perfect job for Datasette: SQLite plus web api and UI

“Datasette is a tool for exploring and publishing data. It helps people take data of any shape, analyze and explore it, and publish it as an interactive website and accompanying API.”

https://datasette.io/

You might like this: https://datasette.io/ and it might even fill your blogging needs. Fully opensource (and there are extension to use llm's with it).

I wrote an async wrapper around SQLite in Python - I'm using a thread pool: https://github.com/simonw/datasette/blob/main/datasette/data...

I have multiple threads for reads and a single dedicated thread for writes, which I send operations to via a queue. That way I avoid ever having two writes against the same connection at the same time.

I've been working on this for almost six years now. The initial idea was to solve the "get stuff into a SQLite database" problem as effectively as possible, because my https://datasette.io/ project was only useful if you first get your data into SQLite.

It's since grown to handle all manner of manipulations. Possibly the most useful is its support for advanced schema alterations via the "transform" CLI command (and accompanying table.transform() Python method):

https://sqlite-utils.datasette.io/en/stable/cli.html#transfo...

https://sqlite-utils.datasette.io/en/stable/python-api.html#...

This addresses one of the most frequent complaints people have about SQLite - that it doesn't support a range of table alter operations beyond simple things like adding a new column.

sqlite-utils transform is an implementation of the pattern described in the SQLite docs - https://www.sqlite.org/lang_altertable.html#otheralter - where you create a new empty table with the modified schema, then copy the old data across and rename the tables as part of a single transaction.

Simon Willison's github would be a great place to get started imo -

https://github.com/simonw/datasette

I'm a fan on simonw's datasette/dogsheep ecosystem https://datasette.io/

I use Anki the exact same way. After a lifetime of learning I have accepted that I will never read over anything I write for myself voluntarily - so my two options are:

1. Write an article so good I can publish it and look it over myself later on. I did this last year with https://andrew-quinn.me/fzf/, for example.

2. Create Anki cards out of the material. Use the builtin Card Browser or even https://datasette.io/ on the underlying SQLite database in a pinch to search for my notes any time I have to.

Were you aware of, or tempted by https://datasette.io/ for creating your solution?