Configure the serials port on the Raspberry Pi

The Raspberry Pi uses the serial port as a monitor, by default, so you will need to disable this so that you can use the serial port for the base station receiver.

There are a couple ways to do this and it differs a bit depending on what model Raspberry Pi you own.

Try the easiest method first:

1. Run the Raspberry Pi configuration tool to disable the serial port:

raspi-config

Select the Advanced Options menu option, followed by Serial menu option, then select Disable. Exit save and reboot. 

2. Manually edit the inittab and cmdline.txt files. Follow the steps provided below, which include steps to make a backup of the files we will be editing in case you make a mistake or you want to revert back to the original files.

Note for Raspberry Pi Model 3:
The raspberry pi 3 has changed things around a bit: ttyAMA0 now refers to the serial port that is connected to the bluetooth. The old serial port is now called ttyS0. So if you have an RPI3, everywhere you see "ttyAMA0" below, you should read "ttyS0".

At the command prompt type:

Code:

sudo cp /boot/cmdline.txt  /boot/cmdline.bak

sudo cp /etc/inittab  /etc/inittab.bak

Edit the cmdline.txt file and remove references to “ttyAMA0”

sudo nano /boot/cmdLine.txt

Then look for the following and remove it:

console=ttyAMA0,115200 kgdboc=ttyAMA0,115200 

Exit and save – CTRL x, y, ENTER

Next you need to edit inittab:

sudo nano /etc/inittab

Look for and delete the following line:

T0:23:respawn:/sbin/getty -L ttyAMA0 115200 vt100

Exit and save – CTRL x, y, ENTER

Reboot your Raspberry Pi



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