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Inconsistent CQCQCQ responses
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I am testing out D-RATS for my local club from an EmComm perspective, because we bought into D-STAR a while back and have a large number of ID-880H and IC-80AD radios and I want t put them to use.
I have three radios all at my home location, the ID-880H is using an externally mounted antenna, one of the handhelds is using a mobile antenna installed in an upstairs room and the second handheld is using a very basic outdoor antenna inside my basement. We have one local D-STAR repeater which unfortunately has no gateway, but that's a separate issue for a different forum. All radios are tuned to this one single repeater. I am using "d-rats 0.3.10 beta 5 connect"? all on Windows 10 with full updates applied. All radios use a USB to RS-232 and then RS-232 to the 2.5mm TRS connector on the radio. What I find is that when I run "Ping all Stations", sometimes I get two responses from the other two radios and sometimes I only get one response and yet I know the other radio sent a reply. Each radio should see a response from each of the other two radios. I have checked the settings in the radios so that they are all programmed the same except for callsign. I have checked the D-RATS config to ensure they are all set the same except for callsign, Name and ping reply. I had this problem before and it seemed to get fixed by moving the USB to a different physical port on the computer and picking up a new serial port number, but that only seemed to last a few days. I saw the details in a previous message about performance through a repeater and the warmup times settings and played with those, but no change. If I take one of the radios out of the equation, and do a ping all stations, I do seem to get a response back from the missing radio, but it is marked in black and not blue, which I assume means it was heard but not acknowledged in some way. Can anyone suggest what else I should be looking into? 73 Mike VA3MCT EC York Region ARES |
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Marius, YO2LOJ
开云体育This is a consequence of the CDMA concept in D-Star data
transmissions and to the fact that the radio's "are all programmed
the same except for callsign". On 18/12/2022 13:57, VA3MCT wrote:
I am testing out D-RATS for my local club from an EmComm perspective, because we bought into D-STAR a while back and have a large number of ID-880H and IC-80AD radios and I want t put them to use. |
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Marius,
Thanks for the swift response. I did think that was the issue I was seeing, Two radios both trying to respond simultaneously to a single CQCQCQ. I have now removed one of the radios and the D-RATS (closed it down). Now what I see is as follows:- Station A runs Ping All Stations. Station B responds back to the ping and marks Station A as Black in the Stations list Station B runs Ping All Stations. Station A never responds. and I never saw the Station A callsign on the radio screen. That might lead me to think this is an RF issue. However, if I go back to using the radio with an antenna in the basement (Station C), then Station B and C can both see each other without issue. So I do not believe it is an RF issue and I do not believe it is a lack of TDMA.? I tried to make testing simpler by going to Chat on each of the three stations. When doing Chat, its just one station sending out with no expectation of an acknowledgement from the receiving stations, unlike the ping. Station A sending Chat is seen by Station B and C Station B sending is seen by Station C but not Station A Station C sending is seen by Station A and B So, there would appear to be an issue with Station B's transmission (ID-880H) as it is not seen by Station A (IC-80AD) and yet it is seen by Station C (IC-80AD). 73 Mike VA3MCT |
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Marius, YO2LOJ
开云体育Please also be aware that there are 2 data modes in D-Star: DV low speed and DV ligh speed. DV high speed is not supported by all radios, while low speed is supported by all of them. On 18/12/2022 15:42, VA3MCT wrote:
Marius, |
开云体育Hi this Ron / WB3ILX,If you are using a Signal link or any device in the 6 pin mini din on the 880H just plugging the device in puts the 899H into analog FM mode. ?At least it does on mine. ?Just FYI. ?The orange data cable should work with the 889H. ?Also when doing RF with DRATS it is never a good idea to do a PING. Ron / WB3ILX On Dec 18, 2022, at 11:13 AM, Marius, YO2LOJ <marius@...> wrote:
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开云体育Mike, When a ping comes back with the station’s callsign in black, it indicates that the station just recently signed off.? Those in blue are online or on the air.? The reason to know that a station just went QRT lets you know that if you had traffic for that station, it cannot presently go out.? You could either keep your station on the air until they come back up on frequency or redirect the message to one of the ratflectors acting as a file server and mail drop that would deliver the traffic for you the next time the station is back. ? As for the multiple IDs being seen, you might check to make sure that station did not accidentally bring up the D-Rats software twice.? Some of the Windows 10 machines are running quite slowly these days due to the large numbers of patches and updates that have been added to them over time.? When trying to start the software we might sometimes click on the icon to start the program, but nothing seems to be happening, so we click on it again thinking it didn’t start, only to find out later that we now have two instances of the software running on the same computer.? This would cause you to see that station’s call when you do a ping, because the second running software answered the ping and everyone else might see it twice. ? I have never documented that problem happening any other way. ? Cordially, Glen – KG5CEN StTammany.ratflector.com |
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On Sun, Dec 18, 2022 at 01:26 PM, WB3ILX wrote:
Also when doing RF with DRATS it is never a good idea to do a PING.Ron, There is no SignalinkUSB involved here, though I do use them for Winlink Packet and VARA FM occasionally, but not at this time for this use case. I am also intrigued by the comment "Also when doing RF with DRATS it is never a good idea to do a PING." The D-RATS software enables it to work. If it's not a good idea, then maybe it should be removed when using an RF connection. I am NOT a D-STAR expert by any means, but could you please explain why this is not a good idea?? 73 Mike VA3MCT |
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The radios I am working with are all older models.
D-STAR readyThe ID-880H provides D-STAR DV mode digital voice and low-speed data communications. The IC-80AD supports the D-STAR?“DV” mode, which transmits digital voice?concurrent with a low-speed (1200 bps) data?stream.? |
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Glen,
Thank you for the explanation of the color coding of the callsigns in the Stations column. In my situation, because there is some kind of issue with the communications between these three radios, I am seeing a station come up as blue on one machine and black on another, or not at all. My next test is to remove the repeater from this scenario and try on a simplex frequency. As for the second comment about multiple copies of d-RATS running simultaneously, that is not the case with my testing. 73 Mike VA3MCT |
开云体育Hi Mike... Did the three radios have different and unique callsigns in
them?? You didn't say. Is this an authentic ICOM D-STAR repeater?? You said no gateway...but nothing else about the repeater. Randy - W4LKS On 12/19/2022 18:31, VA3MCT wrote:
I removed the repeater from the setup and ran everything as simplex and all works fine. |
开云体育Hi WB3ILX/ RonDRATS was designed for HF. ?If you have some folks in your group that must be on 2 meters can you set several control stations to act as relay points. ?You might also investigate VarAC as you can relay through other stations using the built in Vmail function. I have not tried that on VarACFM but on HF it works very well. Ron / WB3ILX On Dec 19, 2022, at 9:57 PM, Randy-W4LKS <w4lks@...> wrote:
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Ron, I was under the impression that D-RATS came out of the D-STAR world, but maybe I need to learn more of its history. Indeed we could set up several?stations as relay points. However, we do not have that many people or available infrastructure. Our group has focused heavily on Winlink Communications using both Packet and VARA with most users also capable of VARA HF. We have Winlink pretty well setup and I have been running training courses and also our own local Winlink Wednesday. And yes, we have tested VarAC on both FM and HF. What I was hoping for was to be able to use the D-RATS capability to supplement communications, particularly since we bought into this technology a long time ago and all of our go-kits and our emcomm trailer has D-STAR radios. Just trying?to make the best of previous monies spent. What I would also like to use is the D-RATS to Winlink capability, which I have tested locally and seems to work reasonably well, but lacks the forms. So for basic messaging its great, but for emcomm forms, D-RATS is lacking at this time. 73, Mike Crabtree - VA3MCT On Mon, 19 Dec 2022 at 22:39, WB3ILX <wb3ilx@...> wrote:
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Randy, All three radios have unique callsigns in them both at the radio level and then matched in their respective copy of D-RATS running on 3 separate?Windows 10 machines. The ICOM repeater is true ICOM with the 2M Module. We have a 70CM module too, but not currently connected. And due to the location and security lockdowns of the site, it also has no?internet access. 73, Mike Crabtree - VA3MCT On Mon, 19 Dec 2022 at 21:57, Randy-W4LKS <w4lks@...> wrote:
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开云体育Ron / WB3ILX?Just to mention, DRATS can be linked to FLdigi just in case you are not aware of that capability. Ron On Dec 20, 2022, at 7:42 AM, VA3MCT <va3mct@...> wrote:
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On 12/18/2022 5:57 AM, VA3MCT wrote:
I am using "d-rats 0.3.10 beta 5 connect" all on Windows 10 withMost current is 0.3.10 beta6 dev287. At /g/d-rats/files/D-Rats/D-RATS%20pre-release. Older versions are not getting updates. However, I do not know of anything in the new version that would address the problems that you are seeing. No bug fixes or maintenance is being done on the python2 version of D-Rats. I removed the repeater from the setup and ran everything as simplex and all works fine.So that is an interesting data point. A repeater is full duplex, so not sure why that would change things as each radio is still half duplex. As it has been pointed out, the radios do not know when the repeater is transmitting so that they can wait to transmit. Each radio will start to respond as soon as any transmission specifically to them has completed. A ping all stations may cause a collision so that some transmissions are lost as has been pointed out. You can look at the logging in d-rats, and you can turn on the "sniff" function to get more data. This should let you see which transmissions were not received. Also the sniff function may tell you about partial frames received. 73, -John |
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W Paul Mills AC0HY
It did! Was used on VHF/UHF there long before being used on HF. But mainly intended for point to point and not through a repeater.
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On 12/20/22 06:40, VA3MCT wrote:
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/ * Amateur Radio Station AC0HY * * W. Paul Mills SN807 * * Assistant EC Alpha-1 ARES Shawnee/Wabaunsee, KS * * President Kaw Valley Amateur Radio Club * / |
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On 12/20/2022 1:38 PM, John E. Malmberg wrote:
On 12/19/2022 8:31 PM, VA3MCT wrote:I would avoid using "ping all" through a repeater.I removed the repeater from the setup and ran everything as simplex and all works fine.So that is an interesting data point.? A repeater is full duplex, so not sure why that would change things as each radio is still half duplex. Single pings should work, but also keep in mind not to send data while you are waiting for a response when a repeater is involved. D-Rats internally will start sending as soon as it has something to send. Currently it queues all data for sending before it looks to see if there is any incoming data. As such a ping all is going to send ping requests to all stations that it currently knows about. The receiving stations are going to start responding to the pings before the original sending station stops. In that case the capture effect will either cause a one of the sent pings or the response to the ping will be lost. I already have one ticket for to redesign the sending/receiving loop that is polling based into two loops that are event driven. It looks like after that is done, for half/duplex links like radios, the receiving loop should block the transmission of data, which should help reduce this type of issue. I am not sure when I can get started on this refactoring as it will be a bit of work. If you avoid cases were multiple d-rats systems could be transmitting at the same time, it should work. Just remind everyone that there is nothing to coordinate. 73, -John wb8tyw |
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John, OK. Now having?clarity of understanding means we can work around it with this knowledge. Thank you for the update. 73, Mike Crabtree - VA3MCT On Thu, 22 Dec 2022 at 15:50, John E. Malmberg <wb8tyw@...> wrote: On 12/20/2022 1:38 PM, John E. Malmberg wrote: |
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Our group in Eastern PA practices digital "emcomm" weekly. Mostly D-Rats, as that is, by far, the best all-around emcomm program I've found. It has become a little flaky in some areas due to what you read here? about the the version of Python it uses being depricated. It still works, however.? One thing we have absolutely positively seen is that this program is MUCH faster, much more reliable in simplex. It works over a repeater in "chat" just fine. In any of the handshaking modes it can be slow. It can be interrupted by repeater activity (will attempt to complete a message several times before giving up) and concurrent voice traffic slows it down (although voice/data are different channels, I suspect it is the data that transmits with every key-up that trips up D-Rats when someone else keys up).? We use the newer version of D-Rats but not the Python 3 beta ---yet. That one has a convoluted installation and we have enoiugh trouble teaching the FM/HT types digital stuff already.? Slow speed data is fine for everything text, we've found. If you have files like word or excel (change them to .txt and .csv to shrink a ton and come out fine in Word and Excel on the other end) or a picture then high-speed data can be useful. If someone has the Kenwood D-Star HT, that ONLY does high speed data.? We have an advance repeater stack and also a ratflector and mail server. If you have access to your repeater this is something to consider long-term----makes life much easier. D-Rats is built for message relay. Sending over a wide area is OK so long as there is a viable chain of stations and everybody can hear at least one other station. Will take longer due to relay, but it works.? Stick with D-Star data. Yeah, you can do AX25 on D-Rats and there are funky things to play with but after a couple years of doing this constantly you need to get your people very good on basics and D-Rats does everything. It can do all WinLink can do (minus the fancy forms), all VarAC FM can do (much better for emcomm and unless you have great RF station to station VarAC is not faster). With practice on the mapping area, it is much, much better than APRS.? Most of the time if D-Rats throws an error message you can just dismiss it and proceed. Something it just won't send a message for some reason. I think that usually is a chain of events involving prior activity on your computer and availabilty of the other station. Re-starting D-Rats usually gets the message to send and takes a few seconds.? Despite being a simplex program, D-Rats works on a repeater. We are still working on making it work better as in some cases it goes right through and others it fails or takes forever. I'm almost positive this is a settings thing on a user basis. A work in progress.? 2. Emcomm is still primarily tactical, and FM voice is the primary mode for that (DV voice same deal, but no everyone will have D-Star). Everything does not have to be (and will not be) digitized and on paper. Our function with D-Rats and all it can do (or any other digital mode) is supplemental to tactical voice. Push comes to shove you can use the almost-lost skill of transmitting a message by voice. In fact, I advocate this. Good practice and the stupendously cumbersome nature of this convinces some of the value of digital message transmission.? Take this from somebody who tests this all the time. I'm not an expert, just a very experienced user.? |
Glen Strecker
Randy-W4LKS