Raspberry Pi WiFi 2.4/5GHz Solution

I use a Raspberry Pi as a WiFi Bridge to allow me to login to XFinity WiFi which is closer to my garage than my WiFi router (which is also XFinity – benefits of being a customer). Then all of a sudden I noticed that I had difficulty accessing a network. It appeared that I could not access a 2.4GHz band, just the 5GHz band and that stumped me.

What I found solved my problem is modifying the /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf file to include all the frequencies on both channels and POOF problem solved.

freq_list=2412 2417 2422 2427 2432 2437 2442 2447 2452 2457 2462 2467 2472 5170 5180 5190 5200 5210 5220 5230 5240 5260 5280 5300 5320 5500 5520 5540 5560 5580 5600 5620 5640 5660 5680 5700

I also added a neighbors WiFi who kindly allowed me access to facilitate my Zwift training sessions especially in the winter. Fun challenge.

NOOBS for Raspberry Pi

Where did the day go? Down the rabbit hole of SysAdmin work and so, while not particularly wasted, wasn’t time well spent.

It started when I decided to upgrade my server to Fedora 30, surprisingly enough, that went smoothly, took a coffee break and a lunch hour and everything came up smelling like a rose. I was due after last summer on the cosmic break board.

While that was going on was going on I decided to post a blog entry and that was when I went down the rabbit hole. First I updated all the blogs and then turned to the article and started by heading off to download an infographic from a link I was emailed, but as it was a tracker, it was blocked by my Pi-hole. I attempted to temporarily disable the pihole and found I could not login via the web interface. Using SSH, I was able to determine I had run out of storage space…but why?

I tracked it back to using the version of software, NOOBS that came with it. Lazy and as a result the 8GB card had only 5GB of storage and it was full with the base install. I certainly could have simply deleted a few of the apps (Mathematica and Wolfram Alpha being the largest unused apps I generally pull off) but as it is a rainy day, I optimistically put off gardening to between showers, little sensing how long this was going to take to put a clean copy of Raspbian on it.

It went very slowly, I forgot why I like to pull of those apps, and that old memory card is left to a slow older standalong Pi duties like Pi-hole, the update took forever but eventually I was rewarded with a reloaded from scratch Pi-Hole with plenty of space.

Now I was ready to make a blog entry and be quick about it as the update to Fedora 30, which takes at least a coffee break and full lunch to complete was already done. Except the Pi I used for the Pi-Hole to update wasn’t starting the HDMI. Aha I thought, the old HDMI recognition issue I thought, and sure enough the /boot/config.txt file was mangled slightly with a comment that NOOBS had made changes, argh, I might as well reload this one as the rain continued and so I did. It turned out that my new Pi case with a fan and everything has simply been reluctant to let the HDMI cable go all the way in and by the time I solved that I had updates going everywhere.

So after all of that, I don’t have time to post the entry to the blog, didn’t get any gardening done, didn’t get to read a little, and I am back to where I was at the start of the day although up to date in a maintainable fashion.

I suppose it is worth it; however, I have found that my view has completely changed. I no longer think it reasonable to spend time on System Administration, life is too short.

Hmmmm.

Solved HDMI not working on Raspberry Pi 3 for Vizio P-Series

There is the theory that the HDMI output of the Raspberry Pi is only initialized if a monitor/television is connected and powered up before a Raspberry Pi 3 is turned on.
Yet when I connect my Raspberry Pi 3 to a old Panasonic Plasma display the Raspberry Pi actually turns on the device and the screen activates every time.
Not so with the Vizio P series I just hung on the wall.

Aside: some of the Panasonic HDMI ports were damaged in a painting disaster…never use a 20lb weight to hold a tarp.

With the Vizio, whether the monitor is on or off and the correct HDMI port is selected or not, the Raspberry Pi 3 simply never brings up HDMI output.

Edit the /boot/config.txt file and uncomment these two lines

#hdmi_force_hotplug=1

#hdmi_drive=2

And the device works every time from every state.  The first line is as it appears, the second activates HDMI and enables sound rather than DVI mode which does not.

I did like that the Vizio takes edits the HDMI connection in its table to Raspberry

MagPi magazine #75

The 75 Greatest Raspberry Pi Projects star in this month’s edition of The MagPi.


FREE PDF OF MagPi #75 HERE

We asked our entire community, and stars from the Raspberry Pi Foundation, to unearth the best projects around. The result is an inspirational list of things to create. 

Also! Install the brand-new Raspberry Pi TV HAT official add-on board. Discover how to record and watch live television on your Raspberry Pi.

Plus all this inside The MagPi 75:

  • 4D Arcade
    Building an arcade cabinet that sprays water in your face when you crash.
  • Add 433MHz radio
    Build a secret chat device with Raspberry Pi to send and receive messages
  • Vintage knitting
    How one engineer hacked a knitting machine to create a giant star map
  • Camera Module
    How to add sight to your projects with the Raspberry Pi Camera Module. Plus! The best Camera Projects around.
  • Starter kits
    These amazing bundles make getting started with Raspberry Pi a breeze.
  • Minecraft resources
    Hack, build and code virtual worlds with Minecraft Pi.
  • Maker Faire New York
    The team visit the states and check out some amazing builds.
  • And much, much more



On The Bench: Google AIY Voice & Raspberry Pi

Setup my recently arrived Google AIY/Voice Project and am busy going about customizing the interface.  Short a MicroSD card but Amazon will fix that soon enough.

https://aiyprojects.withgoogle.com/

Note:  Enjoying the Linux nature of Raspberry Pi as well as all the Python tools and use.  Clearly a Confluence Project.