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RPi 3B and TNC-Pi with Direwolf?

 

Any suggestions on using Direwolf with a RPi 3B and a TNC-Pi with a
Kenwood TM-231/331 radio? Currently there is a KPC-3 and a desktop
386 PC which is failing. I am using JNOS, but am thinking about using
Xnet (flexnet compatible).

--
Charles J. Hargrove - N2NOV
NYC-ARECS/RACES Citywide Radio Officer/Skywarn Coord.

NYC-ARECS/RACES Nets 441.100/136.5 PL
ARnewsline Broadcast Mon. @ 8:00PM
NYC-ARECS Weekly Net Mon. @ 8:30PM


NY-NBEMS Net Saturdays @ 10AM & USeast-NBEMS Net Wednesdays @ 7PM
on 7.036 Mhz USB (alt 3.536)/1500 hz waterfall spot; MFSK-16 or 32

"Information is the oxygen of the modern age. It seeps through the walls topped
by barbed wire, it wafts across the electrified borders." - Ronald Reagan

"The more corrupt the state, the more it legislates." - Tacitus

"Molann an obair an fear" - Irish Saying
(The work praises the man.)

"No matter how big and powerful government gets, and the many services it
provides, it can never take the place of volunteers." - Ronald Reagan
 

Direwolf is a software replacement for the traditional TNC.? Use one or the other but not both.

Perhaps a PowerPoint presentation will make this clear.
The difference between slides 12 and 13 in the December 2021 version illustrates the key point.
 

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Hello Charles,

What is your goal here?? Do you just want to replace the KPC3 with the TNC-Pi?? That's possible but you won't use Direwolf here as Direwolf and the TNC-Pi do the same function.? Pick one.? Next, maybe you want to replace the 386 PC?? That's also possible as Raspberry Pi 3B can do this as well and is orders of magnitude faster than a 386.? Finally, Xnet is possible (recently pointed out to me) to natively run on the Raspberry Pi but there is little documentation.?

I would recommend to join the UroNode email list ( ) to get get help there as that's far removed from anything Direwolf.

--David
KI6ZHD



On 01/01/2022 07:49 AM, Charles J. Hargrove wrote:

Any suggestions on using Direwolf with a RPi 3B and a TNC-Pi with a
Kenwood TM-231/331 radio? Currently there is a KPC-3 and a desktop
386 PC which is failing. I am using JNOS, but am thinking about using
Xnet (flexnet compatible).


 

I am replacing the old PC with the RPi and the KPC3 with the TNC-Pi.
This will be running on the local 220Mhz lan to inject connectivity
to the current flexnet group in NJ near my home (Staten Island). They
have dropped off of the flexnet destination lists because of connection
issues. That is why I am going to be running Xnet to talk "flexnet".
My current JNOS bbs is not going to be affected. I will be using this
RPi setup at my home as a bridge between NJ flexnet and N2KGC in NY
via AXIP. This is only a temporary link.

On 1/1/2022 2:19 PM, David Ranch wrote:
Hello Charles,
What is your goal here?? Do you just want to replace the KPC3 with the TNC-Pi?? That's possible but you won't use Direwolf here as Direwolf and the TNC-Pi do the same function.? Pick one.? Next, maybe you want to replace the 386 PC?? That's also possible as Raspberry Pi 3B can do this as well and is orders of magnitude faster than a 386.? Finally, Xnet is possible (recently pointed out to me) to natively run on the Raspberry Pi but there is little documentation.
I would recommend to join the UroNode email list ( ) to get get help there as that's far removed from anything Direwolf.
--David
KI6ZHD
--
Charles J. Hargrove - N2NOV
NYC-ARECS/RACES Citywide Radio Officer/Skywarn Coord.

NYC-ARECS/RACES Nets 441.100/136.5 PL
ARnewsline Broadcast Mon. @ 8:00PM
NYC-ARECS Weekly Net Mon. @ 8:30PM


NY-NBEMS Net Saturdays @ 10AM & USeast-NBEMS Net Wednesdays @ 7PM
on 7.036 Mhz USB (alt 3.536)/1500 hz waterfall spot; MFSK-16 or 32

"Information is the oxygen of the modern age. It seeps through the walls topped
by barbed wire, it wafts across the electrified borders." - Ronald Reagan

"The more corrupt the state, the more it legislates." - Tacitus

"Molann an obair an fear" - Irish Saying
(The work praises the man.)

"No matter how big and powerful government gets, and the many services it
provides, it can never take the place of volunteers." - Ronald Reagan
 

An Internet search for information on Packet Radio or APRS will produce many results.? Unfortunately most of the information is from a couple decades ago.? Newcomers are led to believe that it is necessary to spend a lot of money on special hardware called a TNC.? They are instructed to use applications abandoned long ago.?

Do you need to spend money on a modem for FLDIGI?? No, it is all done in software.

Do you need to spend money on a modem for FT-8?? No, it is all done in software.

The same is true for Packet Radio and APRS.? There are several applications that perform the TNC function all in software.? A couple of them outperform the old hardware modems when receiving less than ideal signals.



If you are already using a computer (including the Raspberry Pi) you can just add some additional software to perform the TNC function.? It provides better results and more features at a lower cost. ??

 

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Hello Charles,

Ok, thanks for clearing those points up though as John mentioned, Direwolf will outperform that TNC-Pi on weak signals by a large margin.? There isn't much point continuing the discussion here since it's outside the topic of Direwolf but I had played with the TNC-Pis some time ago and have a write up here that might help you:

??

NOTE:? That section of my documentation brings up the TNC via the I2C bus and not using the Pi's internal hardware serial UART.? That document also focuses on using the LInux AX.25 stack but since you're using JNOS's stack, you'll need to translate some of those steps into JNOS's configuration.

--David
KI6ZHD


I am replacing the old PC with the RPi and the KPC3 with the TNC-Pi.
This will be running on the local 220Mhz lan to inject connectivity
to the current flexnet group in NJ near my home (Staten Island). They
have dropped off of the flexnet destination lists because of connection
issues. That is why I am going to be running Xnet to talk "flexnet".
My current JNOS bbs is not going to be affected. I will be using this
RPi setup at my home as a bridge between NJ flexnet and N2KGC in NY
via AXIP. This is only a temporary link.

On 1/1/2022 2:19 PM, David Ranch wrote:

Hello Charles,

What is your goal here?? Do you just want to replace the KPC3 with the TNC-Pi?? That's possible but you won't use Direwolf here as Direwolf and the TNC-Pi do the same function.? Pick one.? Next, maybe you want to replace the 386 PC?? That's also possible as Raspberry Pi 3B can do this as well and is orders of magnitude faster than a 386.? Finally, Xnet is possible (recently pointed out to me) to natively run on the Raspberry Pi but there is little documentation.

I would recommend to join the UroNode email list ( ) to get get help there as that's far removed from anything Direwolf.

--David
KI6ZHD


 

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David and Charles,?
?The NinoTNC was designed to make the process of a multi-port Raspberry PI station easy to set up and maintain.?

Our local network was using 50 of the TNC-PI. ?We’d even come up with a customized PCB that Coastal Chipworks was making for us that made it a little easier than his standard PCB. ?However, with Coastal going away we created our own TNC and fixed all of the problems we’d had with the TNC-PI including implementing a modem that is almost at Direwolf levels of performance, and adding in 3 more bit-rates plus firmware based forward error correction. ?

In the middle of all of this we made a go of using Direwolf in place of the TNC-PI. ?There were three considerations (probably unique to our project) which had us go with the home-grown firmware TNC project instead of Direwolf. ? 1: The Direwolf configuration was not very easy when dealing with > 3 port systems. 2: We still had to come up with a hardware piece to interface the Raspberry PI to the radios, because we did not want a home-brew element to be a requirement for system construction. 3: we had engineers in the group who wanted to do a firmware TNC. ?

Over the past 2 years we’ve completely eliminated the TNC-PI from the network in favor of the NinoTNC because NinoTNC is so much easier to maintain and support, and?NinoTNC’s modem is much better. ?It’s also more fun to watch. ?The only rough part remaining is recognizing which USB /dev goes to which radio. ?This comes down to hooking up the USB cables in a particular order, or figuring out the arrangement after system startup. ?I’m not totally happy with that but it’s a crap-ton easier than dealing with the TNC-PI! ? ? I’m pretty sure Direwolf multi-port users have this problem as well. ?

We came up with a team of volunteer labor to produce and deliver the NinoTNC and we take no labor costs or profit to ship and support the TNC as parts. ?So $40 as a solder kit gets you a TNC-PI/KPC-3 compatible DE9 socket on a USB-KISS TNC with outstanding performance, diagnostic and configuration features against which no other hardware TNC has ever compared, at any price. ?

?
? ?
Tadd - KA2DEW -


On Jan 2, 2022, at 12:30 PM, David Ranch <direwolf-groupsio@...> wrote:


Hello Charles,

Ok, thanks for clearing those points up though as John mentioned, Direwolf will outperform that TNC-Pi on weak signals by a large margin.? There isn't much point continuing the discussion here since it's outside the topic of Direwolf but I had played with the TNC-Pis some time ago and have a write up here that might help you:

??

NOTE:? That section of my documentation brings up the TNC via the I2C bus and not using the Pi's internal hardware serial UART.? That document also focuses on using the LInux AX.25 stack but since you're using JNOS's stack, you'll need to translate some of those steps into JNOS's configuration.

--David
KI6ZHD


I am replacing the old PC with the RPi and the KPC3 with the TNC-Pi.
This will be running on the local 220Mhz lan to inject connectivity
to the current flexnet group in NJ near my home (Staten Island). They
have dropped off of the flexnet destination lists because of connection
issues. That is why I am going to be running Xnet to talk "flexnet".
My current JNOS bbs is not going to be affected. I will be using this
RPi setup at my home as a bridge between NJ flexnet and N2KGC in NY
via AXIP. This is only a temporary link.

On 1/1/2022 2:19 PM, David Ranch wrote:

Hello Charles,

What is your goal here?? Do you just want to replace the KPC3 with the TNC-Pi?? That's possible but you won't use Direwolf here as Direwolf and the TNC-Pi do the same function.? Pick one.? Next, maybe you want to replace the 386 PC?? That's also possible as Raspberry Pi 3B can do this as well and is orders of magnitude faster than a 386.? Finally, Xnet is possible (recently pointed out to me) to natively run on the Raspberry Pi but there is little documentation.

I would recommend to join the UroNode email list ( ) to get get help there as that's far removed from anything Direwolf.

--David
KI6ZHD



 

I know thus is off topic.
I find the inoTNC very interesting.? Since the device appears to use the MCP2221 by MicroChip.
Section 2.0 USB ENUMERATION PROCESS
This section explains how to set certain parameters (like S/N) which could be used in the UDEV rules to identify each device, which would be easier to identify multiple devices connected to different radios.

Have you looked into this options?

Rob KB8RCO



On Sun, Jan 2, 2022 at 12:51, Tadd KA2DEW in NC via groups.io
<tadd@...> wrote:
David and Charles,?
?The NinoTNC was designed to make the process of a multi-port Raspberry PI station easy to set up and maintain.?

Our local network was using 50 of the TNC-PI. ?We’d even come up with a customized PCB that Coastal Chipworks was making for us that made it a little easier than his standard PCB. ?However, with Coastal going away we created our own TNC and fixed all of the problems we’d had with the TNC-PI including implementing a modem that is almost at Direwolf levels of performance, and adding in 3 more bit-rates plus firmware based forward error correction. ?

In the middle of all of this we made a go of using Direwolf in place of the TNC-PI. ?There were three considerations (probably unique to our project) which had us go with the home-grown firmware TNC project instead of Direwolf. ? 1: The Direwolf configuration was not very easy when dealing with > 3 port systems. 2: We still had to come up with a hardware piece to interface the Raspberry PI to the radios, because we did not want a home-brew element to be a requirement for system construction. 3: we had engineers in the group who wanted to do a firmware TNC. ?

Over the past 2 years we’ve completely eliminated the TNC-PI from the network in favor of the NinoTNC because NinoTNC is so much easier to maintain and support, and?NinoTNC’s modem is much better. ?It’s also more fun to watch. ?The only rough part remaining is recognizing which USB /dev goes to which radio. ?This comes down to hooking up the USB cables in a particular order, or figuring out the arrangement after system startup. ?I’m not totally happy with that but it’s a crap-ton easier than dealing with the TNC-PI! ? ? I’m pretty sure Direwolf multi-port users have this problem as well. ?

We came up with a team of volunteer labor to produce and deliver the NinoTNC and we take no labor costs or profit to ship and support the TNC as parts. ?So $40 as a solder kit gets you a TNC-PI/KPC-3 compatible DE9 socket on a USB-KISS TNC with outstanding performance, diagnostic and configuration features against which no other hardware TNC has ever compared, at any price. ?

?
? ?
Tadd - KA2DEW -


 

Tadd,
uDev allows a multitude of ways to identify USB devices. See (Linux)
I have used the make/model method many times, but had to resort to the USB port method when a recent purchase of cheap USB audio cards looked identical (to Linux).
This has been working well for me using two audio cards.

Ian
VK1IAN

On 3/1/22 4:51 am, Tadd KA2DEW in NC via groups.io wrote:
David and Charles,
?The NinoTNC was designed to make the process of a multi-port Raspberry PI station easy to set up and maintain.
Our local network was using 50 of the TNC-PI. ?We’d even come up with a customized PCB that Coastal Chipworks was making for us that made it a little easier than his standard PCB. ?However, with Coastal going away we created our own TNC and fixed all of the problems we’d had with the TNC-PI including implementing a modem that is almost at Direwolf levels of performance, and adding in 3 more bit-rates plus firmware based forward error correction.
In the middle of all of this we made a go of using Direwolf in place of the TNC-PI. ?There were three considerations (probably unique to our project) which had us go with the home-grown firmware TNC project instead of Direwolf. ? 1: The Direwolf configuration was not very easy when dealing with
> 3 port systems. 2: We still had to come up with a hardware piece to interface the Raspberry PI to
the radios, because we did not want a home-brew element to be a requirement for system construction. 3: we had engineers in the group who wanted to do a firmware TNC.
Over the past 2 years we’ve completely eliminated the TNC-PI from the network in favor of the NinoTNC because NinoTNC is so much easier to maintain and support, and?NinoTNC’s modem is much better. ?It’s also more fun to watch. ?The only rough part remaining is recognizing which USB /dev goes to which radio. ?This comes down to hooking up the USB cables in a particular order, or figuring out the arrangement after system startup. ?I’m not totally happy with that but it’s a crap-ton easier than dealing with the TNC-PI! ? ? I’m pretty sure Direwolf multi-port users have this problem as well.
We came up with a team of volunteer labor to produce and deliver the NinoTNC and we take no labor costs or profit to ship and support the TNC as parts. ?So $40 as a solder kit gets you a TNC-PI/KPC-3 compatible DE9 socket on a USB-KISS TNC with outstanding performance, diagnostic and configuration features against which no other hardware TNC has ever compared, at any price.

Tadd - KA2DEW -

On Jan 2, 2022, at 12:30 PM, David Ranch <direwolf-groupsio@... <mailto:direwolf-groupsio@...>> wrote:


Hello Charles,

Ok, thanks for clearing those points up though as John mentioned, Direwolf will outperform that TNC-Pi on weak signals by a large margin.? There isn't much point continuing the discussion here since it's outside the topic of Direwolf but I had played with the TNC-Pis some time ago and have a write up here that might help you:



NOTE:? That section of my documentation brings up the TNC via the I2C bus and not using the Pi's internal hardware serial UART. That document also focuses on using the LInux AX.25 stack but since you're using JNOS's stack, you'll need to translate some of those steps into JNOS's configuration.

--David
KI6ZHD


I am replacing the old PC with the RPi and the KPC3 with the TNC-Pi.
This will be running on the local 220Mhz lan to inject connectivity
to the current flexnet group in NJ near my home (Staten Island). They
have dropped off of the flexnet destination lists because of connection
issues. That is why I am going to be running Xnet to talk "flexnet".
My current JNOS bbs is not going to be affected. I will be using this
RPi setup at my home as a bridge between NJ flexnet and N2KGC in NY
via AXIP. This is only a temporary link.

On 1/1/2022 2:19 PM, David Ranch wrote:

Hello Charles,

What is your goal here?? Do you just want to replace the KPC3 with the TNC-Pi?? That's possible but you won't use Direwolf here as Direwolf and the TNC-Pi do the same function.? Pick one. Next, maybe you want to replace the 386 PC?? That's also possible as Raspberry Pi 3B can do this as well and is orders of magnitude faster than a 386.? Finally, Xnet is possible (recently pointed out to me) to natively run on the Raspberry Pi but there is little documentation.

I would recommend to join the UroNode email list ( ) to get get help there as that's far removed from anything Direwolf.

--David
KI6ZHD
 

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Ian,
? ?Since most of the nodes use exclusively the MCP2221 and are all the same model of device, we’d have to come up with something more specific? Read on.

Rob,?
? ?I didn’t consider that we could set the Microchip’s serial #. ?That’s a new one to me. ?Cool. ?I’ll discuss it with Nino.

The solution I came up with for the TARPN node is to let G8BPQ receive traffic from the neighbor and then a support service would periodically read the MHEARD from G8BPQ. ?We identify the neighbor by callsign from the MHEARD list and then save the port to neighbor callsign association in a file in /tmp to enable other support applications. ? One of the support services connects into the G8BPQ node and sets up the ROUTES table based on the association resolved from the MHEARD list. ?That turned out to work very well, though it can take 15 minutes for the node to be fully up after G8BPQ is launched. ?This has the advantage that no operator work needs to be done to configure the TNC’s Identity, it is immune to USB cable swaps (unless they are done after the applications are started!). ?So long as the node operator/builder has labelled their radios, it all makes good sense. ? ?It is certainly slower than pulling it from the USB device serial number.
?
The USB port order method was the first method we tried. ?It failed for me because there was no visual way to show that the TNC attached to the first radio was the TNC that would be on the first port. ?I really wanted to have a label on the TNC that matched the information the software would have. ?

Our second method was to write a serial number into the FLASH in the TNC’s CPU. ?That’s implemented in the more recent firmware and uses a special KISS instruction. ?Our NinoTNC Operations guide calls it the KAUP8R code. ?KAUP8R failed for us because the Device is not accessible from two applications at once. ?G8BPQ gets the TNC and then our own code couldn’t read it. ?We actually put code into the TNC to push that serial number data, along with other info to the G8BPQ node’s “listen” stream. ?I have an application that watches the listen stream for each port and grabs that info, along with other data, for diagnostics. ?We were pondering putting a server monitoring package in every node to generate graphs of port activity. ?The data we have is pretty cool including milliseconds of DCD per period, milliseconds of TX second power-up, # of milliseconds of up time since power-up, # of messages received (with good CRC), # of FEC corrected messages, and etc. About 15 different parameters. ? The server package that the developer picked took too much of other system resources for us to run in the node, but we could come up with some other package to get the data. ?The node leaves the last recorded data in the ramdisk.?

I’ll look into the serial number option. ?That sounds like it would be ideal.

This is what the distilled data looks like, though the KAUP8R code isn’t listed here:

2022-01-02 16:28:55 -- port1? KA2DEW-3? ver:3.06? A3 ? sw=0001? config=1 ? 9600 GFSK? IL2P? uptime=317989207? mainloop=837409079? mainLoopRatePerMs=43? preamble=13? TxDelay=21 ? Tx=28103? ax25Rx=23 ? ? il2pRx=12820? il2pRx-bad=403? ? pttTime=1423500 dcdTime=955578 rxBytes=745502 txBytes=809224 rxCorrex=3107 ?
2022-01-02 16:28:55 -- port4? KM4EP-2 ? ver:3.01? A3 ? sw=0001? config=1 ? 9600 GFSK? IL2P? uptime=1500079173 mainloop=495016031? mainLoopRatePerMs=43? preamble=17? TxDelay=28 ? Tx=112936 ax25Rx=79 ? ? il2pRx=53150? il2pRx-bad=6? ? ? pttTime=6661214 dcdTime=4165220 rxBytes=3163173 txBytes=3677623 rxCorrex=84 ? ?
2022-01-02 16:29:18 -- port6? K4RGN-2 ? ver:3.01? A4r1 sw=0001? config=1 ? 9600 GFSK? IL2P? uptime=1875108212 mainloop=3333540831 mainLoopRatePerMs=42? preamble=12? TxDelay=20 ? Tx=132480 ax25Rx=140? ? il2pRx=62457? il2pRx-bad=11 ? ? pttTime=7437500 dcdTime=5529984 rxBytes=3812931 txBytes=4391723 rxCorrex=221? ?
2022-01-02 16:29:33 -- port5? KN4ORB-2? ver:3.01? A3 ? sw=0111? config=3 ? 1200 AFSK? IL2P? uptime=1194212604 mainloop=2489604553 mainLoopRatePerMs=16? preamble=9 ? TxDelay=120? Tx=87314? ax25Rx=1872 ? il2pRx=40147? il2pRx-bad=464? ? pttTime=29197172 dcdTime=85261889 rxBytes=2311435 txBytes=2961264 rxCorrex=37035?
2022-01-02 16:29:34 -- port3? N3LTV-2 ? ver:3.01? A3 ? sw=0001? config=1 ? 9600 GFSK? IL2P? uptime=888017319? mainloop=4040078584 mainLoopRatePerMs=43? preamble=10? TxDelay=16 ? Tx=66595? ax25Rx=33 ? ? il2pRx=32285? il2pRx-bad=0? ? ? pttTime=2971396 dcdTime=1976925 rxBytes=1841762 txBytes=2231087 rxCorrex=11 ? ?
A casual review of those terms will show that there is something not right either about the protocol or the data collection. ?Why do we have so many transmissions compared to receptions? ? One thing that is worth noting is that the NinoTNC clears all of its counters before the uptime wraps. ? This Linux has been up for 21+3/4 days. ?Node has been up for only a couple of days. See below.


A distilled version of the data for remote access over the packet network is in the latter half of this output. ?This is the TINFO command on our nodes.
TARPN vbullseye129?
lat/lon coordinates: 35.8897, -78.6798
TARPN Updates URL: ?
Linux UPTIME:? ? ? ? 16:38:42 up 21 days, 17:03,? 4 users,? load average: 0.17, 0.32, 0.34
Node started:? ? ? ? Fri 31 Dec 2021 07 42 53 PM EST? Node background Service is (AUTO)
Raspberry PI Reset:? 2021-12-11 23:35:08
TARPN HOME:? ? ? ? ? is running? ? ? ? ? ? ? TARPN HOME is set to START
TARPN-HOME build-utc:Dec? 8 19:07?
TARPN-HOME install:? Wed 08 Dec 2021 07:18:04 PM EST
Rasberry PI Hardware:type 4 B 2GB made in UK?
OS version:? ? ? ? ? Raspbian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye)
Ethernet MAC:? ? ? ? dc:a6:32:52:b7:d0 ? CPU temp=47.7'C ? SDcard=1638333598
TARPN Installed: ? ? Nov 30 23:40?
UpdateApps Last run: NEVER

Date? Time Port AsnNghbr FWver? Board Switch? Baud Modu? FEC ? TXD
01-02 16:15 p1? KA2DEW-3 ? 3.06? A3? ? 0001? >9600 GFSK? IL2P<? 21?
01-02 16:15 p3? N3LTV-2? ? 3.01? A3? ? 0001? >9600 GFSK? IL2P<? 16?
01-02 16:35 p4? KM4EP-2? ? 3.01? A3? ? 0001? >9600 GFSK? IL2P<? 28?
01-02 16:36 p5? KN4ORB-2 ? 3.01? A3? ? 0111? >1200 AFSK? IL2P<? 120
01-02 16:36 p6? K4RGN-2? ? 3.01? A4r1? 0001? >9600 GFSK? IL2P<? 20?

Undervoltage Events found in Log file = 0
My IP address is 10.0.0.200 fdcb:9cd6:812:2:b88c:ea0:699c:3c51?
Router info:default via 10.0.0.1 dev eth0 proto dhcp src 10.0.0.200 metric 202?


??Tadd - KA2DEW - ?

Tadd Torborg?
 

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Rob, I tried that and it worked. ? Thanks!?
I’ll move this over to the NINOTNC
? ?Tadd

Tadd Torborg?




On Jan 2, 2022, at 2:12 PM, Rob Giuliano via <kb8rco@...> wrote:

I know thus is off topic.
I find the inoTNC very interesting.? Since the device appears to use the MCP2221 by MicroChip.
Section 2.0 USB ENUMERATION PROCESS
This section explains how to set certain parameters (like S/N) which could be used in the UDEV rules to identify each device, which would be easier to identify multiple devices connected to different radios.

Have you looked into this options?

Rob KB8RCO



On Sun, Jan 2, 2022 at 12:51, Tadd KA2DEW in NC via
<tadd@...> wrote:
David and Charles,?
?The NinoTNC was designed to make the process of a multi-port Raspberry PI station easy to set up and maintain.?

Our local network was using 50 of the TNC-PI. ?We’d even come up with a customized PCB that Coastal Chipworks was making for us that made it a little easier than his standard PCB. ?However, with Coastal going away we created our own TNC and fixed all of the problems we’d had with the TNC-PI including implementing a modem that is almost at Direwolf levels of performance, and adding in 3 more bit-rates plus firmware based forward error correction. ?

In the middle of all of this we made a go of using Direwolf in place of the TNC-PI. ?There were three considerations (probably unique to our project) which had us go with the home-grown firmware TNC project instead of Direwolf. ? 1: The Direwolf configuration was not very easy when dealing with > 3 port systems. 2: We still had to come up with a hardware piece to interface the Raspberry PI to the radios, because we did not want a home-brew element to be a requirement for system construction. 3: we had engineers in the group who wanted to do a firmware TNC. ?

Over the past 2 years we’ve completely eliminated the TNC-PI from the network in favor of the NinoTNC because NinoTNC is so much easier to maintain and support, and?NinoTNC’s modem is much better. ?It’s also more fun to watch. ?The only rough part remaining is recognizing which USB /dev goes to which radio. ?This comes down to hooking up the USB cables in a particular order, or figuring out the arrangement after system startup. ?I’m not totally happy with that but it’s a crap-ton easier than dealing with the TNC-PI! ? ? I’m pretty sure Direwolf multi-port users have this problem as well. ?

We came up with a team of volunteer labor to produce and deliver the NinoTNC and we take no labor costs or profit to ship and support the TNC as parts. ?So $40 as a solder kit gets you a TNC-PI/KPC-3 compatible DE9 socket on a USB-KISS TNC with outstanding performance, diagnostic and configuration features against which no other hardware TNC has ever compared, at any price. ?

?
? ?
Tadd - KA2DEW -

<ninotnc-a4-model-for-webpage16b-x1348x1562.jpeg>

<ninotnc-a4-model-for-webpage16b-x1348x1562.jpeg>
 

Excellent!!
Glad it worked, and others will be able to benefit!

Robert Giuliano
KB8RCO



On Sunday, January 2, 2022, 05:22:28 PM EST, Tadd KA2DEW in NC via groups.io <tadd@...> wrote:


Rob, I tried that and it worked. ? Thanks!?
I’ll move this over to the NINOTNC
? ?Tadd

Tadd Torborg?
tadd@...




On Jan 2, 2022, at 2:12 PM, Rob Giuliano via <kb8rco@...> wrote:

I know thus is off topic.
I find the inoTNC very interesting.? Since the device appears to use the MCP2221 by MicroChip.
Section 2.0 USB ENUMERATION PROCESS
This section explains how to set certain parameters (like S/N) which could be used in the UDEV rules to identify each device, which would be easier to identify multiple devices connected to different radios.

Have you looked into this options?

Rob KB8RCO



On Sun, Jan 2, 2022 at 12:51, Tadd KA2DEW in NC via
<tadd@...> wrote:
David and Charles,?
?The NinoTNC was designed to make the process of a multi-port Raspberry PI station easy to set up and maintain.?

Our local network was using 50 of the TNC-PI. ?We’d even come up with a customized PCB that Coastal Chipworks was making for us that made it a little easier than his standard PCB. ?However, with Coastal going away we created our own TNC and fixed all of the problems we’d had with the TNC-PI including implementing a modem that is almost at Direwolf levels of performance, and adding in 3 more bit-rates plus firmware based forward error correction. ?

In the middle of all of this we made a go of using Direwolf in place of the TNC-PI. ?There were three considerations (probably unique to our project) which had us go with the home-grown firmware TNC project instead of Direwolf. ? 1: The Direwolf configuration was not very easy when dealing with > 3 port systems. 2: We still had to come up with a hardware piece to interface the Raspberry PI to the radios, because we did not want a home-brew element to be a requirement for system construction. 3: we had engineers in the group who wanted to do a firmware TNC. ?

Over the past 2 years we’ve completely eliminated the TNC-PI from the network in favor of the NinoTNC because NinoTNC is so much easier to maintain and support, and?NinoTNC’s modem is much better. ?It’s also more fun to watch. ?The only rough part remaining is recognizing which USB /dev goes to which radio. ?This comes down to hooking up the USB cables in a particular order, or figuring out the arrangement after system startup. ?I’m not totally happy with that but it’s a crap-ton easier than dealing with the TNC-PI! ? ? I’m pretty sure Direwolf multi-port users have this problem as well. ?

We came up with a team of volunteer labor to produce and deliver the NinoTNC and we take no labor costs or profit to ship and support the TNC as parts. ?So $40 as a solder kit gets you a TNC-PI/KPC-3 compatible DE9 socket on a USB-KISS TNC with outstanding performance, diagnostic and configuration features against which no other hardware TNC has ever compared, at any price. ?

?
? ?
Tadd - KA2DEW -

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