I have a couple older 2M mobiles, neither of which have CTCSS encoders. I am wondering if they might work with Vara FM in 1200 mode with the soundcard attached thru the mic and speaker connections. Any thoughts
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VY 73,
Wes AE6ZM

Mark,
Very helpful I'm getting very high speeds now.
john

bob, that was my problem, my audio was to low. had to turn speaker control full up.
now works great
thanks
john

Ticking the "RA Board" button did the trick. Thank you!

John,

I don't have a 71 on digital but do have several 710's and they work great. I have one on a 30 and another on a 45.

Assume you are trying 9600..wideband?

Tell the 71 to use 9600?

In Vara Settings->Vara Setup->FM System->WIDE. And set retries to 3.

Did you tell VARA FM you have a DRA? In Vara Settings->Sound Card->Device Input and Output (it's easy to get confused here and choose the wrong device) Should be listed as a USB PnP Sound Device.

Need to tell VARA what type of PTT to use. Vara Settings->PTT->Choose the radio button for "RA Board". Keep in mind if you more than one RA board detected (I had two at one time) in the previous
section, "Sound Card" can give you a drop down menu where "PTT" is shown to the right of the "Device Output" option is located. I had to select RA Board 1 or RA Board 2.?

See if this helps.
Steven
KC3DSO

I am using a DRA-30 on 1200 baud packet with no problem. Works great! However, when I try VARA FM (in Winlink) it never triggers the transmit of my V71. What am I doing wrong?

yes, that all seems to be the consensus.

I am good at 1200 baud and wide making vary fast connections and transfers,
I just cant get ext data menu 919 , 9600 to work. I think? I have sound level issue.

I have been working on a DB project - will get back to fun stuff? hopefully tomorrow or Friday

thanks again, looks promising
I'd like to get the club - EOC - all switched over to VARA FM, just working out some? issues.
73
john

John,
I don't think there is a "EXT BAUD RATE" setting. Which menu item are you referring to?

If you are referring to menu 919, "EXT DATA SPEED", this setting is what determines which connections on the 6-pin DIN you will be using. For the highest speeds with Vara FM, set this menu item to "9600", then use a cable that is wired for "9600", and in the Vara FM settings, select Wide mode. If you then connect to another station that is set up for Wide mode, you will achieve the highest speeds (about twice the speed as Narrow mode).

-Scott, NS7C

Scott,
Thanks that seems to be the case. It is very fast for us here, with FM wide on the DRA-30 board as is.

I had just wondered about the "EXT BAUD RATE " settings.
Still a mystery? if that effects the throughput.
At the moment I can?only set it to 1200 baud, but I had some recommendations for upping? to 9600, will try when I can get to it.

thanks john

Vara FM negotiates the connection speed. If a Narrow station connects to a Wide station (or vice versa), the Wide station will switch to Narrow, and the session will continue as Narrow.?

-Scott, NS7C

Mike,
Thanks this is all good info. Very helpful for our guys.
I'll run a big file later, and more details on our set up.
I am deep in some SQL updates this morning.

thanks!
john

John;

I misinterpreted the connection log you sent. The numbers are very misleading because the messages are very short. A realistic measure of throughput is to send a reasonably large data file attachment. 60KByte to 100KByte .jpg files are good, because they don't compress very much. My tests were done with a data file attachment that compressed to about 70KBytes.

Mark - AD7EF

John;

Those numbers are indicative of a good VARA FM NARROW link... Below is my session log from a local VARA FM gateway, operating at 1200bps, using my Kenwood TM-V71 with a DRA-45 board. My VARA FM modem was set for WIDE, but the gateway is listed as 1200 bps. The status indicator in my VARA FM modem window displayed NARROW during this session:

TM-D710G 'data' port (mini-DIN 6) 1200bps - 9600bps details...

I've taken a careful look through the various manuals for the Kenwood DM-710 series radios, particularly the TM-D710G / GA Service manual.

The mini-DIN 6 "data" connector at the back of the TM-D710 radio chassis (-not- on the control head) is used for data communications with an external TNC or with "USB sound-card" radio interfaces such as the TigerTronics SignaLink or the Masters Communications RA- and DRA- boards.

As with almost all other VHF/UHF radios that can support 9600bps data communications, the TM-D710 radio chassis "data" connector has separate "1200bps" receive and "9600bps" receive-audio output pins, and one transmit-audio input pin. The TM-D710 menu 518 "EXT. DATA SPEED" setting controls how audio into and out of the "data" jack is routed to the corresponding circuitry in the radio.

When menu 518 is set to 1200bps, receive audio after bandpass filtering is routed to the 1200bps rx-audio pin (5 - 'PR1'), and transmit audio from the tx-audio pin (1 - 'PKD') is routed to a stage in the modulator circuit where bandpass filtering will be applied. When menu 518 is set to 9600bps, receive audio immediately out of the discriminator (no filtering) is routed to the 9600bps rx-audio pin (4 - 'PR9'), and transmit audio from the tx-audio pin (1 - 'PKD') is routed to a stage in the transmitter circuitry immediately before the reactance modulator, where no filtering is applied.

There's an important consequence of having two different audio inputs on the data connector for 1200bps vs. 9600bps; if you want to use one "USB sound-card" radio interface to connect to P2P or gateway stations operating in either 1200bps / VARA FM NARROW or 9600 bps / VARA FM WIDE modes, your radio and sound-card radio interface device must both be kept in the 9600bps configuration. Otherwise, you'd need to change the menu 518 setting and the interface cable each time you change from low-speed to high speed data communications. Fortunately, most gateway stations and P2P stations that use a TNC or sound-card radio interface designed for 1200bps operation can accommodate 1200bps connections from stations configured to operate at 9600bps.

A very convenient feature of the Kenwood VHF/UHF external TNC implementation is that the pin 3 'PKS' PTT-control signal will mute the radio microphone when an external TNC or sound-card radio interface keys the radio. This makes voice coordination on a P2P data link simply a matter of keying the microphone when the data link is idle.

Mark - AD7EF

We have: typical here 256,000 b/min , this is 31 second session
john

John;

Do you know if other ops have been able to connect and exchange data with that gateway, with "full-speed" VARA FM WIDE throughput (better than 50KB per minute)?

Mark - AD7EF

Ralph,
Its our gateway, its set at 9600.
I think our sound level is wrong. will get back to radio tonight
thanks
let u know
john

开云体育

The transmit audio level to the D710 needs to be significantly higher if you use the 9600 pin for input.