开云体育

ctrl + shift + ? for shortcuts
© 2025 开云体育
  1. RaspberryPi-4-HamRadio
  2. Topics

Repeater controller decode packet radio on repeater input?

 

开云体育

I am pondering using a Raspberry PI for a repeater controller. ?Until now I’ve been a firmware bare-metal repeater controller builder. ?A local repeater has a problem in that people keep leaving their APRS beacons turned on and dialing over to the repeater. ?The APRS beacons on top of other people once in a while. ?It beacons when nobody is talking as well but the PL is silencing it I presume. ? ?

It would be a really cool feature if the controller could recognize the APRS packet on the repeater input and announce the callsign of the sender, with or without mentioning their ancestry. ?

Do any of the software packages for the Raspberry PI do this? ? With or without an external TNC??

Thanks!


KA2DEW- Tadd ?
?
 

开云体育

Ah, yes.? We have had the same problem!? I bet every one of those radios is a recent Yaesu model - their UI is really easy to mess this up without knowing it.

What we did was to add a USB sound dongle to one of the Raspberry Pi computers that host our Echolink / AllStar link network interfaces.? The repeater is a Yaesu DR-2X to which we have added a Arcom controller for overall management.? The repeater receive audio is tapped into and passed to the audio dongle through a DC blocking capacitor; Direwolf watches the signal, decoding what it can.? Its output is appended to a log file, which the control operators can read via a remote console over the Internet.? We chose not to broadcast the miscreant's call sign over the air, to be sure we have a human in the loop.

One thing we had to wrestle with was that the Raspberry Pi was crossing the audio streams as soon as Direwolf was started.? Some research suggested it was a known problem with the Pi-4B version that we had, though I still can't fathom how that would occur.? Regardless of the cause, we simply configured Direwolf to not open the transmit side (used "null" as the Tx device instead of letting Direwolf open the dongle for both Rx and Tx), and that fixed it.? Direwolf is started as a "Service" when the Pi is booted.

Hope this helps!

Greg? KO6TH


Tadd KA2DEW in NC via groups.io wrote:

I am pondering using a Raspberry PI for a repeater controller. ?Until now I’ve been a firmware bare-metal repeater controller builder. ?A local repeater has a problem in that people keep leaving their APRS beacons turned on and dialing over to the repeater. ?The APRS beacons on top of other people once in a while. ?It beacons when nobody is talking as well but the PL is silencing it I presume. ? ?

It would be a really cool feature if the controller could recognize the APRS packet on the repeater input and announce the callsign of the sender, with or without mentioning their ancestry. ?

Do any of the software packages for the Raspberry PI do this? ? With or without an external TNC??

Thanks!


KA2DEW- Tadd ?
?
 

开云体育

Greg, ?that is pretty close. ?I am hoping somebody will integrate the feature into the controller, with or without Direwolf. ?
I pondered using a separate Raspberry PI and Direwolf, and letting the Direwolf see the receiver audio and then use text to speech and a GPIO to tell the repeater controller that COR is present. ?Now I need to add an audio switch so open squelch noise doesn’t get into the controller, etc etc. ? ?I think it would be easier in the controller software in the first place.?

Somebody will add this feature, maybe. ?My Yaesu FTM500 is really easy to screw up to send APRS on a repeater. ? I have done it once in a year, but fortunately it was my 440 repeater haha. ??

I don’t have Internet control. ?While I do have packet capability, the site owner would want to run the frequency numbers on my new transmitter, and I don’t want get into that for this purpose and I don’t want to get caught adding a transmitter without going through the process. ?

We’ll see if anybody picks this up as an attractive value-add to repeater controller software. ? Right now I’m using an NHRC-5 controller but if somebody had this feature I might have to hook up a Raspberry PI based controller just for that feature. ?Even if it isn’t a big problem on my repeater, the locals would stand for a demo and might ponder moving the 2m repeaters to whatever solution adds the feature. ?

73 de Tadd KA2DEW




On Jun 20, 2024, at 12:25?PM, Greg D via groups.io <ko6th.greg@...> wrote:

Ah, yes.? We have had the same problem!? I bet every one of those radios is a recent Yaesu model - their UI is really easy to mess this up without knowing it.

What we did was to add a USB sound dongle to one of the Raspberry Pi computers that host our Echolink / AllStar link network interfaces.? The repeater is a Yaesu DR-2X to which we have added a Arcom controller for overall management.? The repeater receive audio is tapped into and passed to the audio dongle through a DC blocking capacitor; Direwolf watches the signal, decoding what it can.? Its output is appended to a log file, which the control operators can read via a remote console over the Internet.? We chose not to broadcast the miscreant's call sign over the air, to be sure we have a human in the loop.

One thing we had to wrestle with was that the Raspberry Pi was crossing the audio streams as soon as Direwolf was started.? Some research suggested it was a known problem with the Pi-4B version that we had, though I still can't fathom how that would occur.? Regardless of the cause, we simply configured Direwolf to not open the transmit side (used "null" as the Tx device instead of letting Direwolf open the dongle for both Rx and Tx), and that fixed it.? Direwolf is started as a "Service" when the Pi is booted.

Hope this helps!

Greg? KO6TH


Tadd KA2DEW in NC via groups.io wrote:
I am pondering using a Raspberry PI for a repeater controller. ?Until now I’ve been a firmware bare-metal repeater controller builder. ?A local repeater has a problem in that people keep leaving their APRS beacons turned on and dialing over to the repeater. ?The APRS beacons on top of other people once in a while. ?It beacons when nobody is talking as well but the PL is silencing it I presume. ? ?

It would be a really cool feature if the controller could recognize the APRS packet on the repeater input and announce the callsign of the sender, with or without mentioning their ancestry. ?

Do any of the software packages for the Raspberry PI do this? ? With or without an external TNC??

Thanks!


KA2DEW- Tadd ?
?
 

Hi Tadd,

Ok, I understand.? Adding a wart on the side of the existing controller might cause more trouble than its worth.? We already had the Raspberry Pi in place, and an easy spot to tap into the receive audio.? Because we use PL decoding in the Arcom controller, the receiver itself runs with the squelch open.? That means that we have no issue with the un-squelch delay clipping the front end off the packet, something that makes decoding the packets problematic.? It's something to consider.? But adding that Raspberry Pi for Echolink / AllStar support was an interesting exercise in itself, with challenges in breaking ground loops and various sources of some pretty nasty audio hum.? We also considered tapping into the RF coming into the receiver (between the receiver and the cans) and using Direwolf with an SDR dongle, but this was easier.? Perhaps the RF-tap / SDR approach might work better for you, though you'd still need a computer of some sort.

Good luck!? And Yaesu, if you're listening, please fix your user interface on these rigs!

Greg? KO6TH


Tadd KA2DEW in NC via groups.io wrote:

Greg, ?that is pretty close. ?I am hoping somebody will integrate the feature into the controller, with or without Direwolf.
I pondered using a separate Raspberry PI and Direwolf, and letting the Direwolf see the receiver audio and then use text to speech and a GPIO to tell the repeater controller that COR is present. ?Now I need to add an audio switch so open squelch noise doesn’t get into the controller, etc etc. ? ?I think it would be easier in the controller software in the first place.

Somebody will add this feature, maybe. ?My Yaesu FTM500 is really easy to screw up to send APRS on a repeater. ? I have done it once in a year, but fortunately it was my 440 repeater haha.

I don’t have Internet control. ?While I do have packet capability, the site owner would want to run the frequency numbers on my new transmitter, and I don’t want get into that for this purpose and I don’t want to get caught adding a transmitter without going through the process.

We’ll see if anybody picks this up as an attractive value-add to repeater controller software. ? Right now I’m using an NHRC-5 controller but if somebody had this feature I might have to hook up a Raspberry PI based controller just for that feature. ?Even if it isn’t a big problem on my repeater, the locals would stand for a demo and might ponder moving the 2m repeaters to whatever solution adds the feature.

73 de Tadd KA2DEW

1 - 4 of 4