New Node not transmitting out.

[CrissCross]

Hi all hope you are well. Im hoping to get some advice or assistance.

We have a new note setup running the myGMRS image. 

We can send commands to the node via command line just fine but not via dtmf. The node seems to connect to hub 175 and can hear traffic but can not transmit. 

When checking the repeater is keying up on transmit be are using the usbradio module on the node. I have tried switching it to the simpleusb module but that wont key up the repeater on transmit.

Any ideas or suggestions as to what to check. Im pretty tech savy for the most part and know my way around linux. 

Thanks a bunch

Chris WRMK385

[CrissCross]

Update, Looks like the issue was in the usbradio.conf file. Duplex was set to (zero) changed to 1. Once I hear activity I will confirm audio gets sent out on the network.

[JeepCrawler98]

Are you wiring the node to also repeat local audio or are you having the repeater do that internally? If the former; duplex=2 will repeat local audio if it's missing from your setup. duplex=1 injects/pulls link audio, beeps and boops (telemetry), and hang time (if it's longer than the repeater's internal controller).

Typically on our gear we set the repeaters to base station or duplex mode and use asterisk as a full repeater controller handling all audio, but if you're splitting roles between the hardware duplex=1 works best there (or if you're using a link radio). 

duplex=0 only gives link audio and is useful for some external controllers, but it behaves funny on DTMF decoding and not announcing nodes statuses and whatnot

Edited January 26, 2022 by JeepCrawler98

[CrissCross]

20 hours ago, JeepCrawler98 said:

Are you wiring the node to also repeat local audio or are you having the repeater do that internally? If the former; duplex=2 will repeat local audio if it's missing from your setup. duplex=1 injects/pulls link audio, beeps and boops (telemetry), and hang time (if it's longer than the repeater's internal controller).

Typically on our gear we set the repeaters to base station or duplex mode and use asterisk as a full repeater controller handling all audio, but if you're splitting roles between the hardware duplex=1 works best there (or if you're using a link radio). 

duplex=0 only gives link audio and is useful for some external controllers, but it behaves funny on DTMF decoding and not announcing nodes statuses and whatnot

Hey thanks so much for your reply. To be honest im still knew to how all this works.

It is setup to run everything through asterisk. I was able to get on last night looks like things are working ok but a few hicups. The audio coming across the linked networks is great however the audio coming out the repeater is about 1/2 the volume it was before going through asterisk.

I did have to switch over to use usbradio vs simpleusb. I just could not get simple usb to work. (not sure why)

usbradio is working well over the link but DTMF is flaky and local audio out of the repeater is now really low. So Im working to figure that part out. Any advise would be great

To be honest im still knew to how all this works.

[SteveShannon]

Probably a silly question, but is the repeater transmitting in narrowband?  That will make the audio much lower.

[CrissCross]

10 minutes ago, Sshannon said:

Probably a silly question, but is the repeater transmitting in narrowband?  That will make the audio much lower.

Great question Sshannon. It is not, always good to double check though. You just never know.

[CrissCross]

Just wanted to provide an update. Got everything working for the most part. I was able to switch over to simple usb radio. Node is connected to the 175 hub. 

The next challenge: 

I noticed that some operators come in very muffled on the repeater but when listening online they are nice and clear. I suspect some tweaks to the simple usb radio config files is needed. I will continue to monitor and report back with updates.

[JeepCrawler98]

Consult your repeater's service manual and check your emphasis settings on SimpleUSB; if the audio coming out of the repeater is already emphasized / de-emphasized by the repeater then you want to turn that off in SimpleUSB.

If the audio pins on the repeater provide/take flat audio (discriminator and/or data pins), then you'll want to enable de-emphasis / pre-emphasis on SimpleUSB

And of course it's possible to have it mixed as well; de-emphasis is applies on the receive side and pre-emphasis applies to the transmit side.

Edited February 2, 2022 by JeepCrawler98

[CrissCross]

Thanks a bunch, Ill do some double checking

Question 1: Would this still be a possibility if most audio comes in ok?

Question 2: I notice that when Im connected to the 175 hub via *3175 that after about 24 hours I get disconnect. Is this normal?

Any ideas and thoughts are greatly appreciated. Thanks again for all the help. 

[JeepCrawler98]

1 hour ago, CrissCross said:

Thanks a bunch, Ill do some double checking

Question 1: Would this still be a possibility if most audio comes in ok?

Question 2: I notice that when Im connected to the 175 hub via *3175 that after about 24 hours I get disconnect. Is this normal?

Any ideas and thoughts are greatly appreciated. Thanks again for all the help. 

1. There often sort of pattern to it (IE link audio always sounds tinny, but local sounds good, or vice-a-versa) but it's highly dependent on hardware. Keep in mind that emphasis is a bit of a hodgepodge with all the equipment on linked network where there's no set standard; there's lots of repeaters that are audibly over-de-emphasized, so maybe don't use what you hear as a reference without paying attention to what machine is keying up on the network (use the network map) to see if there's a pattern. Then there's the debate on where the right spot is to apply emphasis; on the SWCRS hardware we run de-emphasized audio over the link so it sounds natural to the audio streams and Zello gateway, others prefer to run flat audio across the backbone, so equally important is to be consistent with the repeaters you typically link up with. What equipment are you running and what pin-outs are you using to get audio in/out?
2. Yes the standard *3 connect mode will not attempt to re-connect if there's a network glitch; if you want a persistent connection use the 'permanent' linking which will try to re-establish the link in case of an outage, I'm not sure if these are included in the stock config but try *13175

Edited February 3, 2022 by JeepCrawler98

[CrissCross]

Thanks a bunch. This information helped a lot and audio is not working very well

As for connecting seem *13175 does try to connect but instantly reports disconnected. Im assuming maybe that 175 is not allowing permanent connections from my node. I can reconnect to 175 via *3175 about 15 minutes after a lost connection.