Starting a field notebook

This is the first post, so it does the first-post thing: explains why the blog exists and what to expect.

Tuxlink is a native Linux Winlink client that also does tactical APRS. It is alpha, it is opinionated, and it gets built and broken mostly in the field and on a pile of dev hardware. A lot of what makes the project interesting never makes it into a commit message or a release note — the rig that refused to key until a serial line was closed, the dev Pi doing something cursed, the on-air session that finally worked at 2am. This is where that goes.

Rough plan for what lands here:

• On-air testing. Real rigs, real bands, real failures. ARDOP and VARA over HF, packet over VHF, and whatever the antenna situation allows that week.
• Dev-Pi jank. The homelab and the build hardware have opinions. Documenting them so the next person (or the next me) loses less time.
• Field notes. Setups, gotchas, and the occasional photo of gear in a place it probably shouldn’t be.
• Updates. What shipped, what’s next, and where the alpha is honest about its edges.

(Placeholder image above — real field photos to follow once there’s a rig in front of a camera.)

If you want the software itself, it’s on the download page and the source is on GitHub. If you want the mess behind it, you’re already in the right place.

More soon.