Hello All,
I am please to make available my 2026 Raspberry Pi Image containing all 6 talk programs by Ian DJ0HF as well as other software that I think may become useful to the blind ham. Such as, Nano VNA Controller.
I had included brltty however it caused a problem. Thus this image does not include brltty. Users could easily reinstall it but they may find that any transceiver connected will not be accessible.
q) What is Required?
a) 1) A Raspberry Pi 4, 4b, 5, 400, or 500.
2) Suitable case with fan if not 400 or 500.
3) A keyboard if not a 400 or 500.
4) For all models, a USB speaker, or USB headset preferably one that is sold for use with a Raspberry Pi. It must state that it is compatible with linux and not need additional drivers.
5) A micro SD card that is 16Gb or greater. With the fastest read / write speed that can be afforded.
6) A monitor / screen is not required as Raspberry Pi's happily run headless. Afterall, all the AllStar nodes out there that use a Pi don't have a monitor attached.
q) I have all the hardware, what next?
a) 1) Download the 2026 talk program image from the link.
2) Use the Raspberry Pi imager or other image writing software that can manage xz compressed files to write the image to a sutable SD card. For convenience here's the RPI imager introductory link:
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/raspberry-pi-imager-imaging-utility/
q) What next?
a) 1) As I did last year I use the filename which provides vital necessary information. So users don't have to go hunting for the username, hostname or password. These are;
Username: ham
Hostname: rpi-controller
Password: radio
2) ssh is enabled Should a user wanted to ssh into a Raspberry Pi using this image, the command would look like this:
When prompted for the password enter radio (all in lowercase).
Additional Notes:
This method of accessing the raspi-config tool over ssh might be easier with a screen reader that is more familiar to the user.
Once the raspi-config tool is running a number of adjustments can be made as required. These may be, timezone, wifi credentials etc.
It should not be necessary to expand the filesystem to use all the space on the SD card as it should do this on first boot. Thus it does not matter if a 16GB SD card is used or a 128GB the image will fill the card. Giving the user space to add their own stuff.
Although, I have demonstrated a quick overview of the 2026 image via cQ Blind Hams Podcast. I will be creating another shortly, showing how to make changes to the current settings. This will include the raspi-config utility and the orca settings interface.
I will update the documentation in due course.
Here is the dropbox download link. Joel will replace the 2025 image with this one on blindhams.com and Buddy will also offer a resource, as will Ian.
When you have downloaded the image it should indicate that it is about 3.01GB in size. If your download is considerably different to that size then try downloading again as it would be waisting time writing a incomplete file to a SD card. I will generate a checksum if required.
If you have any questions please email me:
Last year's documents:
FAQ in html format:
Userguide in html format: