Several years ago(2013ish) when the (folded project)Neo900 http://neo900.org/ was taking shape I requested hardware switches on all radio transmitters and a POCSAG pager module on the board.  The desire for an optional rx only radio silent un-trackable phone mode evolved into the Neo900's hacker interface where a developmental POCSAG pager module could connect in the future once the phone was available.  I had a few interactions with RMS and had an email thread with him where even the 'man who would not own a cell phone' admitted that if his conditions were met he might consider such a phone as his first mobile device.

The head of the Neo900 project, JoergRW, who's work you all probably know from the OpenMokos many of us have played with, sadly ran out of health and had to fold the ambitious project.

I want to see what can be done to get a POCSAG pager module and required software working with my pinephone.

The idea is that POCSAG paging service is still reasonably universal for medical and emergency services and is broadcast from FM broadcast, 400mhz, or 900mhz towers, these pages are passively received by the pager receiver.  If using a dedicated chip we were already getting 30 days or more form a AA alkaline cell so power budget is minuscule I believe most hardware comms are simple serial.

Use case:
If I were to soft deactivate my telephony modem I could be radio silent and untrackable, should I be in what I consider a safe location and wish to make a call it is simple for me to automatically soft activate my modem as part of the dialing process script and also soft deactivate when I complete my call.  More interesting to us all is that as long as I have a subscription to a paging service I can also receive calls under most conditions, often with better coverage than some mobile telephony providers, by receiving a page with a caller-ID which can be called back quickly with an answer button in the paging rx app.  The paging service can also often receive SMS and emails forwarding them to the user, with some middleware these could even be encrypted and decrypted at the phone removing another privacy invasion.
The always on nature of a mobile telephony device is used to track our every move, I want us here to break this cycle.

I believe that one-way paging, wireless peer-to-peer fidonet-like programs like Briar, consideration of integrated or tethered UHF radio tx/rx for amateur radio or unlicensed bands, and perhaps even use of fixed or mobile one/two way satellite data services can free us from many of the tracking and anti-user technologies which have grown up with cellular and internet technologies since the 90s.

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I have to say, having your go-to distro on the PBP is nice.

The eOS image prompts for setup on first boot—something the other images could stand to improve (Manjaro installation image excepted, of course).

Very nice to use so far.

Hi,

My pinephone64 arrived today and it looks very, very cool but...I can't get the back off so I can get at the battery! I apparently need to do this to remove a piece of place over the contacts.

I found the little 'notch' on the corner, but can't work out what to do with it. I've tried pulling the front/back bits apart with my finger nail, pushing in with the tip of blunt knife (ala iphone 'pin' mechanism) but so far nothing except for some sore fingernails. I'm pretty sure I'll end up scratching the thing to death in the process of getting it open - it seems to be a talent of mine - but I just thought I'd check first to see if I'm missing something obvious.

Bye!
Mark

Courtesy of PureTryOut & TheosProta for starting a thread on this issue.

Image Install :

First download the latest Jumpdrive release (0.6 alpha) from ( Link Below ) and write it to an sdcard using any tool (dd, etcher, everything should work). Put the sdcard into your phone and reboot, it should now boot Jumpdrive rather than the pmOS system.
Then plug your phone into your PC using the provided USB-C cable, the internal storage of the device (eMMC) should now appear as a mass storage device on your computer. Download an image from (Link Below ) you'll probably want    

Is there a general download section for this board for the different firmware images for this board?

Was there ever files released by pine just for this board even if its older just an authentic release to start with?

Since this chip is a common chip for other devices like the android tv boxes and other boards im planning to try anything and everything i can find till i find something i like or that works but i thought ide start here first with an official release of something to try?

I'm trying to get Mobian to work on my Pinephone, but can't get it to boot. I flashed the most recent image to an SD card, but when I try to boot, it just gives me a green LED that stays on indefinitely. Through Matrix I found an issue on the Mobian Gitlab that describes exactly the problem I'm having:

Unable to boot Mobian on 3GB "Convergence Edition" Pinephone

Is this an issue specific to the convergence package since it has different hardware than the regular Pinephone?

Please join me online Sep 15 (Wednesday) at the RIOT Summit, and discover why Rust on PineTime is a great way to learn IoT. 

Also what's "The New Normal" for IoT Devs? Could it be Simulators + Remote Testing? We'll chat about that too.

Free Registration: https://summit.riot-os.org/2020/


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Obviously a useful feature. I have a micro SD plugged in with Arch flashed on it. How do I install arch?

(09-02-2020, 04:53 PM)Potts Wrote: Obviously a useful feature. I have a micro SD plugged in with Arch flashed on it. How do I install arch?

Just got my PinePhone yesterday.

I went through the setup, configured WiFi, which seemed to connect just fine.  On reboot it doesn't seem to auto-connect, but if I manually click on the SSID I want, it connects up fine.

I checked resolv.conf and checked that the interface got an IP address.  Both look good.  I'll admit, the PostmarketOS is new for me, so maybe I missed a quirk.

Any suggestions on what to look for?  My WAP sees the device.  My device is getting assigned the DHCP assigned IP and DNS settings.  But, I can't seem to connect to anything, even directly by IP.  

Any help is appreciated.

Hello everybody, 

Ordered PinePhone convergence edition yesterday. I got an order number but did not receive any other information. 

What is the process? How long will it take to reach here to Europe? 

Is there any place where we can track the order?

Thanks