|
Re: Questions: setting up a ratflector - how to host?
I have my ratflector running on a home Internet account through Charter Spectrum here in Louisiana.? A ratflector needs to be on a static IP address.? My ratflector is running on a Raspberry Pi.? Information on setting it up that way can be found in the document "Drat Ratflector on a Raspberry Pi v3.pdf".? I have that document available for download off my ratflector, but it is probably in the Files section here too.? You can set the static IP address up in your own router.? The hostname for the ratflector StTammany.ratflector.com was offered to me as a service of Ed Woodrich and John Davis through dstarinfo.com.? I then got with https://noip.com/remote-access?to set it up for the ratflector to point to a ddns IP name.? Software running on my home computer called DUC, short for Dynamic Update Client runs to check to see what IP address I was given by the Internet Service Provider, Spectrum.? The address is relayed back to noip.com so they can make sure all calls to the ddns name I specified gets routed back to my current IP address.? It has worked flawlessly.? You can drop a message to the guys over at dstarinfo.com or just set up directly with noip.com for a ddns name so you can tell people what URL to put in their software to find your ratflector.? For example,? Noip knows me as sttammany.ddns.net and keeps track of my current IP address as stated above.? The ratflector.com address is linked to the ddns.net name.? You could probably link to the ratflector using either URL.? Noip.com used to offer a free service but you had to log in so often to renew it or pay an annual fee to keep from having to be reminded to go back every 30 days to renew.? I don't know if they still offer the service that way or not.? I found it easier to pay for the service upfront for a couple of years as it was not that expensive.
|
|
Re: Problem With D-Rats
开云体育Yep… That is weird. I will watch for that issue to pop up. Hard to figure out if it does not occur very often. Best – Jack/KD4IZ ? ? From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Glen Strecker
Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2020 23:14 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [d-rats] Problem With D-Rats ? To add to what Daryl said when he transmitted something happened that put the thing in a loop.? I had the ratflector running on my Raspberry Pi, and my normal stand-alone D-Rats running on a separate laptop.? All of a sudden, the ding alert that lets me know a message came in started going non-stop.? A message Daryl typed was being retransmitted over and over again in a pattern that showed up on Ports StTammany, SEWX, SEWX again, back to StTammany, then to RAT, then to SEWX twice more and so on.? This continued from 19:22:14 to 19:23:56.? It finally stopped when station K9PTF dropped offline.? I also dropped offline.? The times listed are what the StTammany.ratflector.com picked up.? It did not show on the ratflector when I killed my laptop version because I had to do a forced shutdown to get control of it again.? When I brought my station back up on the laptop, the looping had stopped.? This is only the second time I had ever seen something like this happen.? I have seen a problem once before when SEWX and GwinnettARES tried to run both reflectors on the same computer when one of their machines crashed.? That resulted with a single chat message popping up on both ports at the same time, but without the looping.? This looping ran for over 2 minutes and bounced back and forth between three different ports and would sometimes repeat on the same port twice before jumping to the next one.? Weird. |
|
Re: Problem With D-Rats
To add to what Daryl said when he transmitted something happened that put the thing in a loop.? I had the ratflector running on my Raspberry Pi, and my normal stand-alone D-Rats running on a separate laptop.? All of a sudden, the ding alert that lets me know a message came in started going non-stop.? A message Daryl typed was being retransmitted over and over again in a pattern that showed up on Ports StTammany, SEWX, SEWX again, back to StTammany, then to RAT, then to SEWX twice more and so on.? This continued from 19:22:14 to 19:23:56.? It finally stopped when station K9PTF dropped offline.? I also dropped offline.? The times listed are what the StTammany.ratflector.com picked up.? It did not show on the ratflector when I killed my laptop version because I had to do a forced shutdown to get control of it again.? When I brought my station back up on the laptop, the looping had stopped.? This is only the second time I had ever seen something like this happen.? I have seen a problem once before when SEWX and GwinnettARES tried to run both reflectors on the same computer when one of their machines crashed.? That resulted with a single chat message popping up on both ports at the same time, but without the looping.? This looping ran for over 2 minutes and bounced back and forth between three different ports and would sometimes repeat on the same port twice before jumping to the next one.? Weird.
|
|
Problem With D-Rats
I ran into an issue tonight with D-Rats 0.3.9 under Windows 10 64-bit (which I thought was the latest version). While I have 6 raftlectors set up to choose from, I am usually on the St. Tammany Ratflector...but will be on the AE5HE Ratflector, when I'm primary or backup Net Control for the New Mexico D-Star Net, on the 2nd or 4th Thursday, respectively.
Tonight, while on the St. Tammany Ratflector for the Arklatex D-Star Net, I posted a message, kidding El, KD4JL (we only pick on the ones we care about...and with friends like us, you don't need any enemies (hi hi))...but it got posted on numerous ratflectors at the same time. El told me "your keyboard is really screwy". Glen, KG5CEN, said when he pinged my station, he got "Station WX4QZ running D-RATS 0.3.9 on Windows 8->10 (6, 2, 9200,2, ") -- he noted "I have never seen those sort of numbers after the version before", and added "In contrast, the KG5CEN-1 returns? Station KG5CEN-1 running D-RATS 0.3.9 beta 3 on Linux - Raspbian GNU/Linux 10".? I only have ONE COPY of D-Rats running here. I don't know if it was the latest update to Windows 10 - 2004 update from Microsoft, that messed things up...or folks are linking MULTIPLE ratflectors together. To me, the only time if a message should go out like that would be for a QST, set to all ratflectors joined to, or just the current one. The ONLY QST's I sent out are the openweather data at 30 minutes past the hour, and the GPS-A data for aprs.fi at 15 minutes past the hour. Yet, when I go to aprs.fi, my callsign is NOT on there with the rest of the stations from central Arkansas. So, what I'm going to do is ONLY enable the ONE ratflector that I am on at the time, and DISABLE the rest of them (including the 2 net chat rooms I have been joined to)...especially if there are going to be multiple linkings going on. Or, instead of using D-Rats for net checkins, I'll go to NetLogger (which I'm trying to set up, as logging with Windows Notepad is a bear), and quit using D-Rats...and be available only via Email or WL2K. While some nets also have Facebook groups, not everyone is on Facebook. D-Rats has been a great help during nets, but I'd hate to have to get rid of it. If someone can provide some clarification on this, I'd appreciate it. This was very frustrating to me, to say the least. it reminds me of when on Echolink, stations connected would link to a station that was also linked to a conference server, and it'd put the whole thing into a digital loop, where no one could transmit. I do know that the *WX_TALK* conference server will detect if a station connects with conference mode enabled, and it will immediately disconnect them. Daryl, WX4QZ |
|
Re: D-Rats version 0.3.9
Glen,
? I probably should've checked the log to make sure that it was online, but normally I just do that when I bring D-Rats up the first time. I had to shut things down here for a few hours last night, as "a back door cold front" (moving northeast to southwest across the region, instead of either west to east, or northwest to southeast), spawned some thunderstorms. One moved into the downtown/midtown area of Little Rock, producing torrential rainfall, and lightning...but aside from a special weather statement issued by the National Weather Service, no other advisories or warnings were issued. ? However, with lightning less than 20 miles a way (it can strike up to 200 miles from the parent thunderstorm, the latter documented in Oklahoma a few years ago), I wasn't going to take a chance. A few years ago, I read a story where a ham radio operator had spared no expense for lightning protection...you name it, he bought it, and installed it...it was top of the line, and price was no object (must be nice to have all that money). ? Anyway, it did him no good...a strike to his antenna, vaporized the tower, mast, antenna, and coaxial cable. Inside his house, the inside of the UPS units and computer towers were black as coal, with the circuit boards melted and fused together, a melted monitor, and scorch marks down the walls of his home. He's lucky his structure didn't burn down, but he likely had to have all the electrical work redone. If the stuff was grounded, the direct hit overcame all of that. ? Each lightning bolt has 3 million volts and 300,000 amps of electricity, is no wider than your finger, but can be 5 miles long, can strike up to 200 miles from the parent thunderstorm (as noted above), and is 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit...5 times hotter than the sun's surface. In other words, it's no contest...no amount of grounding or surge protection is going to save your setup from a direct hit. You might as well unplug everything that you can. Even the phone company notes that "absolute protection from lightning is impossible". ? The preacher who married my wife and I over 17 years ago, was on the phone a few days before the wedding, and lightning hit their phone line. It literally knocked him across the room, and he nearly lost his hearing as a result. ? I personally am a 2 time indirect lightning strike survivor...but I carry no electrical charge, and can be handled safely (hi hi). While Skywarn severe weather operations got me into ham radio in 1991, after 28 years, I got burned out, and switched the emphasis to railroad crossing safety...see my QRZ profile for into. Daryl, WX4QZ |
|
Re: D-Rats version 0.3.9
At the time Daryl’s incident occurred, the StTammany Ratflector was offline while I was getting the operating system upgraded to the current version. The jump from Debian Jesse to Buster failed and I ended up having to re-image the SD card and completely rebuild the required additional software add-on packages required by D-Rats. I did not finish the repair until midday the following day.
Most of us running D-Rats on Raspberry Pi’s have been doing so for some time. Stepping through the various beta updates has been a simple process because all the required support software was already loaded when we did the initial install. For someone doing a fresh install, it can be a real bear because the additional software needed have to be added one by one with a series of sudo apt commands. Without those added items, the program will not run. So I don’t have to recreate the wheel here, the items needed can be found in the document “Drat Ratflector on a Raspberry Pi v3.pdf”. Even if you don’t plan to operate a Ratflector, the added packages are still required for the software to run on a Pi. This is not an issue for those running under Windows. Cordially, Glen P. Strecker Cell (504) 382-5777 Fax (866) 924-7088 Hamshack Hotline #4210 Sent from my iPhone X |
|
Re: D-Rats version 0.3.9
I'll have to download the new version...but there might be a glitch that I wasn't aware of before.
I have several ratflectors set up, but when I first connect, it goes in alphabetical order. My first alphabtical connect is to the AE5HE Ratflector, but I switch to the St. Tammany Ratflector, since that's where I usually hang out. However, last night, Jack, KD4IZ, said that I was showing up on BOTH the RAT and WA7DRE ratflectors (last seen, I guess)...and the only way I thought of that happening was that both are in my ratflector list, so I can monitor other traffic. But, I was actually on the St. Tammany Ratflector at the time. Yet, I only have ONE copy of D-Rats running, under the WX4QZ callsign. Is this something to be concerned about?? Daryl, WX4QZ |
|
Re: D-Rats version 0.3.9
I have uploaded these to the files section of this group.
/g/d-rats/files/D-RATS%20Program%20Files |
|
Transfer settings
D-RATS was conceived as a way to use the low speed data channel of D-STAR radios. One scenario where D-RATS would be used is where there are multiple stations on a simplex frequency, and some of those stations are using portable radios with the power saving feature turned on. Under those conditions, this is my understanding of the transfer settings in the Preferences>Radio>Transfers window: When sending messages or transferring files, D-RATS sends some blocks of data and waits for an ACK before proceeding. Under strong signal conditions you might want to send a small amount of large blocks, which means waiting for fewer ACKs. Under weak signal conditions, sending a larger amount of smaller blocks means a smaller block has to be re-sent if an ACK is missed. The Block size and amount of Blocks in the Pipeline between ACKs is adjustable to suit signal conditions. The Warmup settings are a method to insure portable radios using the power saving feature receive data. The warmup length is the amount of "fake" data that is sent before the "real" data so the receiving radio can be brought out of power saving mode and not miss any "real" data frames. Once the receiving radio has been awakened, it stays awake until it has determined that there is no longer any channel activity. The length of the stay awake time is adjustable in the radios settings. The warmup data need not be sent on every transmission as the receiving radio may still be awake. The warmup timeout can then be set to expire only after the receiving radio is expected to have gone back to sleep. The forced transmission delay time is the amount of time D-RATS waits before sending data (real or not) to the radio to be transmitted. This is intended to reduce data collisions. If the value is positive, the delay time is fixed. If the value is negative, the delay time is a random value between x and zero. In practice, I have found when sending D-RATS data through a repeater and gateway, warmup timeout should be set to zero so that the warmup blocks are sent with every transmission. The warmup length should be long enough so that a pathway can be established between the transmitting and receiving radios before data is sent. This has been my experience using D-STAR radios. If you are using some other type of modem, I encourage you the experiment with different settings. I suspect the transmit delay settings will not make much difference and changing the block setting is where you will find the best throughput. Finally, when you add a port in the Radio window, the Serial connection label states that it is for a D-STAR radio connected to a serial port but, the data sent to this port is just ASCII, and not formatted for any particular (like a TNC). If your modem simply turns on the transmitter when the buffer is full? (as some commercially made modems do), you can use the serial connection. The data rate can be as high as the serial port in your computer will support. Chat text is sent in one stream and can be and can be up to 4096 bytes long. Perhaps some of the new modulation schemes coming online (like VARA FM) can be adapted to work with D-RATS. As one of my maker friends says: "Play, break and learn". Happy experimenting. Patrick (N3TSZ) |
|
Re: How to debug a d-rats coredump
David, It appears from gdb that you're running a "stripped" version of the d-rats executable. If you want to see symbols with the stack frames, you'll need to run a version of d-rats with symbols that haven't been stripped. Wish I could give you better news about debugging that particular crash... -Dave On Thu, Jun 11, 2020 at 11:14 AM David Ranch <dstar@...> wrote:
|
|
Re: D-rats : slow file transfer and message transfer performance
Hi ... "??I'm also curious what the impacts are around tuning " ...? Depending on whether you are going to use the RADIO, the NET or even a TNC you have to adjust so that the transfer is the most effective. 1.024 to NET, 512 to RADIO or TNC .
|
|
Re: d-rats 0.3.9 beta 2
A big Thank You to Patrick N3TSZ for pointing me to the right place! 3.9 beta 3 up and running on an RPI4 4GB! The 4GB is amazing fast and reliable, I can't see how it could be improved on. Now to find one in stock somewhere. To the development Team, that adult beverage still waiting for you!!
-- AL M KF5SMH |
Glen Strecker
Jack Spitznagel (KD4IZ)
Daryl Stout
Patrick Connor
Dave Slotter, W3DJS
Luis ea1axy
Al Massaro KF5SMH