K6BPM
I have spent hours on this and am completely frustrated. I simply want to bridge my Yaesu FTM-400's and FT2D to a specific DMR TG. The OS2 works fine as a straight DMR hotspot and I don't generally use YSF.
I had everything set up on Friday 2-20-19. 5 days later C4FM to DMR doesn't work at all. I didn't change a thing.Fortunately, my $35 Chinese JumboSpot running Pi-star (that took 60 seconds to set up) works like a champ!
Why would it stop working? This is not why I paid over $200 for an OpenSpot2.
HA2NON
Can you please explain the issue? What's the status on the status page, what LED color do you see?
Have you used Quick Setup to set up the connection?
K6BPM
When I xmit,the led is flashing green. Then it briefly flashes red. Nothing is sent to BM.
I have 2 profiles. One is straight BM DMR. The other is YSF to DMR. If I switch the profile to the DMR profile, DMR works fine. If I switch to the TSF to DMR profile, the LED blinks appropriately but zero DMR activity. It was working fine a few days ago. I have set up dozens of hotspots for myself and club members and own 3 original OpenSpots. This is the most difficult one I have ever worked with. I have several hours work into this now.
K6BPM
To add a little to this, it seems that I can receive okay. When a call comes in through DMR is is properly sent to my radio over C4FM. If I transmit, nothing is sent to the BM network.
HA2NON
As you can see on the call log entry (top right corner) your call is sent to DMR ID 1 as a private call.
Please set the Route cross mode calls to ID setting to the desired talkgroup ID with a group call (Connectors page, Homebrew connector settings), or use the Quick Setup to set up the connection again.
K6BPM
Thanks. Yes I discovered this yesterday and fixed it. I had this set correctly originally. Somehow those settings got erased and reverted back to defaults. I know you probably hear this a lot, but it wasn't my doing. I had not even logged into the OS2 until it stopped working. In fact, it was sitting there unused for several days. It was powered on and connected to the internet, but idle.
In trying to duplicate the problem I switched between my DMR profile (profile 1) and my C4FM profile (profile 2) using the special commands. I suspected that this might have something to do with the settings getting erased. I switched first from C4FM to DMR. No problems. Then I switched back to C4FM by sending a private call to TG9002. It switched back to C4FM, but it was in an unstable state. When I keyed up it took about 3 seconds to connect. I did a cold restart and then it worked fine. I did this 2 times and the results were the same.
I appreciate the considerable amount of work and testing that SharkRF puts into their products. But something is going on here. If the settings got erased in the field and there was no device available to log into the OS2, it would render it inoperable, and thus undependable.
HA2NON
Please note that you can also change the Route cross mode calls to ID setting with DTMF codes entered on your radio. Probably you have entered *1 previously which means private call to DMR ID 1.
K6BPM
It depends on which direction I am going. If I am going from the DMR profile to the C4FM profile, then I make a private call to TG9002 from the DMR radio. If I am going from the C4FM profile to the DMR profile, I press *A1 from the Yaesu YSF radio. It works, it just leaves the OS2 in an unstable condition and a cold restart is necessary.
HA2NON
What do you mean by "unstable condition"? Which direction causes this?
K6BPM
It means that it took 5 seconds to respond when I keyed up. It was having problems. A cold restart fixed it.
Well today I was going to take it with me when I went out, and now it is transmitting garbage on C4FM. No call call signs, no intelligible audio.
I had to switch the profile to straight DMR and then back again to CF4FM cross mode to get it to work.
Look, I get it. I have been a professional programmer for almost 30 years for Windows, Linux and embedded systems. This is hard. But this is not a stable, dependable device. I have 2 OS1's and they *always* work. This is what I expected with the OS2. I haven't really been able to use it yet, even after 8-10 hours of working on it. I set up whatever-spot/Pi-star devices all the time for club members, and they literally take 5 minutes or less set-up, another couple of minutes to get the offset right, and I'm done.
I am happy to help figure out what the problem is, but there IS a problem with this.
K6BPM
Update to above... I have a ZumSpot running across the room also cross mode from DMR to C4FM. I have the OS2 running cross mode from DMR to C4FM, so I can easily switch freq's and compare. The OS2 has a lot of digital artifacts and the ZumSpot has none. Both have an equal quality WiFi connection and I have a 300Mbps internet connection.
The units are 20 feet apart, and about 20 feet from the Yaesu antenna. Their frequencies are 5Mhz different.
All things are equal, and the OS2 has much worse audio.
HA2NON
Can you please tell us which direction causes this? We could not reproduce the issue.
Please send us your exported configuration profile file to
info@sharkrf.com
of both the profile which you switch from and to. Please refer to this forum thread in your email and we'll check your settings on Monday.
HA5OGR
I didn't experience what you described. There are 3 hotspots working at me 20 cm apart the frequency difference is at least 1-2 Mhz between the hotspots. Now I listen to the YSF America-Link traffic on my Hytera PD-785 radio. The audio is also good. My Openspot 2 is set to WiFI channel 1 with no interference. I checked your hotspot settings. I suggest you set a higher frequency difference between hotspots. I also recommend updating your Openpot 1 firmware to the latest which is v141 now. What radio do you have? Have you tried auto calibration?
K6BPM
Let me answer some of these questions to give you a better understanding.
The closest neighbor is about 1200 feet away. There are no other WiFi access points within range, so I have the entire band to myself. So the channel used is not an issue.
Our frequency coordinator here only gives us a small area for hotspot use. I need to stay within that range. I cannot space them 1-2 Mhz between devices.
I build and configure simplex and duplex hotspots for members of our local club. I frequently have as many as 10 going at one time. I space the different hotspots 12.5 KHz apart and have never had a problem with any of the boards I have used. The OS2 needs to be as solid as the cheap Chinese boards.
I act as an informal coordinator in this area and try to keep hotspots from interfering with each other when users use them mobile.
I have not tried auto-cal. I use various radios and it needs to work with all of them.
I don't update either of my Openspot 1's because they have worked solid for 2 years. I know they haven't even been rebooted for over a year. They work every time, all the time, so I leave them alone. But I did try turning them off yesterday to make sure there wasn't a problem with my Openspot2 tests.
The screenshot of my hotspots is misleading. I have 2 locations, home and work. They are mirror images of each other. I have the same exact equipment at both locations.
As I write this, my OS2 has disconnected from the network 2 times. It is in straight DMR mode. Make that 3 times. It just did it again. All three times it started blinking green, but it is not connecting to the Brandmeister network. I am not doing ANYTHING to it and there are no problems with the local network or internet access. It doesn't work at all now.
I'm sorry guys, this thing is a what we call a POS. I can't even keep up with all the problems.
Thanks for the help though.
K6BPM
It disconnected again and flashed all the colors. But it did work for about an hour.
Maybe I just got a bad one, because it is certainly not useable.