Raspberry Pi/Echolink using a USB-RIM Lite

I built an Echolink interface for the W4FCV repeater in Floyd, VA. This page is not so much to brag about it but rather to write down some notes for later reference.

The repeater in Floyd is a System Fusion capable machine with an Arcom RC210 repeater controller attached. The Echolink system will connect to one of the 3 "radio" ports on the controller. A look at the Repeater builder website shows a number of sound card interfaces that will directly connect to the back of a number of different radio's and repeater controllers. I bought one that fit the RC210 directly.

I shall not be explaining how the various steps are performed. They are well documented on their respective websites.

Things I used:

• Raspberry Pi 3 single board computer https://www.amazon.com/
• USB-RIM Lite sound card interface http://www.repeater-builder.com/products/usb-rim-lite.html
• 8GB MicroSD card https://www.amazon.com
• 3D printed 19" rack mount case https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:794695
• USB power supply https://www.amazon.com

What I did:

1) Install latest Raspian Lite image onto the SD card. Make sure to enable SSH.
2) Install SD card into the RPi. Attach an Ethernet cable and power.
3) Log in to the RPi and set up the environment with "sudo rasp-config".
4) Disable the WiFi and Bluetooth radio's as we'll be using Ethernet. Edit /boot/config.txt 

# Free up some memory by allocating less RAM to the graphics

gpu_mem=16

# Increase current to USB ports

max_usb_current=1

# Turn off WiFi and Bluetooth

dtoverlay=pi3-disable-wifi

dtoverlay=pi3-disable-bt 

5) Install SVXLink per the instructions https://github.com/sm0svx/svxlink/wiki/InstallSrcHwRpi

6) Configure the SVXLink config file http://www.svxlink.org/doc/man/man5/svxlink.conf.5.html. The USB-RIM interface required HID_RAW settings and the HID_PTT on GPIO3 also.

7) Configure the Echolink config file http://svxlink.sourceforge.net/man/man5/ModuleEchoLink.conf.5.html.