Testing with real hardware

hamstack is tested thoroughly in containers and a VM, but a container has no radio. If you have hardware, a report of what worked and what did not is the most useful contribution you can make. File it with the hardware report template.

Do not put your callsign, grid square or email in a report you want kept private; N0CALL and FN31pr are fine stand-ins.

Safe first steps (no transmitting)

hamstack devices            # does it see your radio's serial port and sound card, and group them?
hamstack doctor             # what does it say about the radio, permissions, ports?
hamstack rig add hf --profile <your profile> --modem none
hamstack start hf           # rigctld only: starts rig control, does not transmit
rigctl -m 2 -r localhost:4532 f      # read the frequency through hamstack's rigctld

If your radio is not in the short list, search: in the guided setup choose s, or hamstack rig add with a profile you made from hamlib’s list. Tell us the baud rate and anything you had to change.

What to try, in order

Area	What to check	Notes
CAT	`rigctl ... f` reads the frequency; changing it on the radio changes the reading	needs the right CAT baud rate on the radio and in the profile
Audio	`hamstack devices` shows the codec; `doctor` finds the sound card	note the ALSA card name
PTT	key the radio from `rigctl ... T 1` then `T 0` (into a dummy load!)
Mercury / Direwolf	the service starts and stays up; the web UI or `hamstack packet listen` shows activity	transmit only into a dummy load or on a frequency you are licensed for
GPS	`hamstack gps use`, `hamstack gps`, `hamstack gps grid`	cold start can take minutes, with a view of the sky
Digirig	a Direwolf rig with `--profile digirig`; the PTT line is the serial port’s RTS	profile ids and sound-card names are unverified
AX.25 kernel stack	`hamstack ax25 setup`, `attach`, `call`	needs a kernel with AX.25 (Debian, Fedora; not recent mainline kernels)

Transmitting

hamstack never transmits by itself. Anything on the air is your responsibility under your licence: use a dummy load for tests, identify properly, and follow the rules of the band.