New phone, can't get OS3 working

Peter W2IRT

Guys, I'm at my wits' end trying to make my OS3 function with my new Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra phone. It worked pretty much OK with my old Galaxy S20+ for years--a few glitches but good for the most part. I have mobile hotspot configured, enabled, and working. I was able to use sharkrf.link to connect to it, but no longer. Even when I was connected to it it, the connection was unstable and despite a week of trying I only managed to make one single QSO.

There are several things at play.

How can I get the OS3 to reliably connect to my phone's mobile hotspot?
How can I ensure it stays connected when I switch away from my mobile browser?
Is there a way to use the SharkRF app to control the OS3 using the Android SharkRF Line App? When I put the OS3 into AP mode the SharkRF app finds the unit, but that's where it dead-ends. If I hit the plus button it says "Error Can't get device information from the online database: timeout."
Where can I find a complete list of the LED colour codes the OS3 uses?

When I did (briefly) get the phone and OS3 to work, I was able to hear announcements on Local TG9, and Disconnect 4000.

Is there anybody who could please work with me (preferably offline so as not to waste reflector bandwidth). I'm more than willing to pay someone to configure this for me without hesitation. I will need to set the OS3 to work with both a YSF radio (FTM-400xdr) in one profile, and a DMR radio (UV878+) in another profile. I'm completely stumped and I just can't go any further on my own. Please and thanks.

HA2NON

You can find the instructions on how to setup the openSPOT3 for both home and phone Wi-Fi connections in the openSPOT4's user manual (the instructions are similar for both the openSPOT3 and openSPOT4) at https://manuals.sharkrf.com/openspot4/en/home-and-phone-wifi.html#page-top

Make sure your openSPOT3 is updated to the latest firmware version. You can also use the https://sharkrf.link/ site to open the OS3 web interface.

You can find the description of OS3 LED Status colors in the user manual: https://manuals.sharkrf.com/openspot3/en/led-states.html#page-top

Peter W2IRT

HA2NON
I have followed these instructions as best as I could however nothing's working as it should. I can very briefly connect to the OS3 in AP mode but after that nothing happens. If I do this at home, in AP mode it wants me to connect to my home wifi, which does me no good. I need it to connect to my cell phone's hotspot and it does not give me that option. My phone's hotspot is enabled, and my laptop and tablet are able to connect through it without a problem. The OpenSpot is not (for the most part).

The few times it has connected the connection drops very quickly, essentially as soon my phone moves to a different app or after a few minutes. When I attempt to reconnect using the URL sharkrf.link it says the connection is unavailable and from that point there is nothing I can do to get it back short of starting the whole pairing process again.

I am using Google Chrome browser and the light colours do not appear when I visit the site showing the colours.

I cannot figure out how to update the firmware. I cannot maintain a connection long enough to do anything. As stated, I intend to only use the OS3 paired to my mobile phone for vehicle use. Pairing it to my home wifi makes zero sense.

Tyrbiter

If you read this page then you will find out how to ensure that the firmware is at the latest version which is v68

https://manuals.sharkrf.com/openspot3/en/troubleshooting.html#page-top

There is also advice about the Home WiFi vs phone hotspot setup process.

HTH

Peter W2IRT

Tyrbiter
My firmware is the latest (v68) and the contact list was updated a few days ago.

As of Sunday night there is NO WAY AT ALL to connect the OS3 to any network. When I connect using AP mode, on every device I own, after I enter the UID or if it finds it on its own, I get the message that 192.168.203.173 is unavailable and that's as far as I can get now. I don't know what happened to cause this (it had been working briefly this afternoon, to a very limited degree), but since 3pm I can't do anything with the OS3 at all. It's basically a brick at this point.

Peter W2IRT

Still massive problems despite going through the setup time after time. I will get things running at home on my workbench, but within a few minutes of getting on the road the phone and the OS3 lose communications and there's absolutely no way to get them to reconnect. This is 100% repeatable. The message "Openspot trying to connect WIFI network" is coming through the radio on Local TG9 but that's it. The only solution is to put the OS3 into AP mode and restart the connection from the ground up. when I attempt to access "sharkrf.link" on my phone, I get the message "This site can't be reached. http://192.168.203.173 is unavailable."

My phone will NOT work with the OS3 for more than a few minutes. I'm beyond frustrated and don't know what I need to do. I've been screwing around for 10+ days and I can't make it work for more than a few minutes. The problem always happens after the phone's screen shuts off and I start driving. The phone's 2.4 GHz hotspot is active, and I've tested it with a wifi tablet and it's able to connect every time. But the OS3 is just showing a slow-flashing blue LED. I'm stuck and can't make this work. Can someone PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE help me get this working?

The other issue is trying to get the TGIF network running. I did have it briefly up this afternoon, but I've never once made a contact through it. I did hear some traffic on one TG, but after getting in the car everything shut down on me again.

Peter W2IRT

Just so I'm 100% clear about what I'm doing, my flow is always like this.

1) put the OS3 in AP mode by holding the wifi button for 3 seconds.
2) On my phone select the OpenSpot 3 AP
3) Select my language (English, obviously)
4) Select the wifi network from my phone's 5g hotspot
5) Enter my wifi password for that sharing hotspot

Sometimes it works. Usually it doesn't. I have the wifi SSID and password stored in the NETWORK tab of the OpenSpot. At the moment it's been 6 hours since it last connected to my phone successfully. I am getting "This site can't be reached" after putting in my phone's wifi credentials. Again, I CAN connect other devices to it 100% reliably.

It WILL connect to my home wifi every time, but that is useless since this is intended to live in my vehicle for long road trips exclusively.

HA2NON

Use the AP mode to connect the openSPOT3 to your home Wi-Fi network, then open its web interface. Follow the instructions described in the OS4 user manual: https://manuals.sharkrf.com/openspot4/en/home-and-phone-wifi.html#page-top (the same apply for the OS3)

Open the Network page, scroll to the Wireless settings section.
Make sure Advanced mode is turned on to see all 5 Wi-Fi slots. There's a checkbox for enabling it at the bottom right of the web interface).
Set your home Wi-Fi as SSID #1 (and key) and your phone's Wi-Fi as SSID #2 (and key).
Click on the Save button.

If your home Wi-Fi (SSID #1) is not reachable then the openSPOT3 will automatically try to connect to your phone's Wi-Fi (SSID #2).

If you use an iPhone then read the iPhone notes section on the mentioned user manual page.

Peter W2IRT

HA2NON
I am using an Android (Samsung Galaxy S24). This is the Mobile Hotspot on my phone's setup page. The hotspot is turned on, the modem is set to 2.4 GHz, and the SSID and (blurred out) password are entered correctly in my OpenSpot 3.

I have managed to connect it to the home wifi, but it is still unable to connect to my phone's wifi reliably, and since the OS3 will only ever be used while driving, that's still a major issue. With both connections set in this page, the OpenSpot 3 will never even attempt to connect to the phone. I have no need for it to ever connect with my home.

Tyrbiter

On the hotspot page on the S24 tap on the network/password/band area and open the Config page, under Advanced there's a setting for turning off when no device connected, that can be set to disabled. You could also try prioritise real-time traffic, which should help with VoIP UDP packets.

I don't know if you can specify WiFi channels, but the recommendation is 1, 6 or 11 only for 2.4GHz.

Peter W2IRT

Tyrbiter
There's no place to input a channel, but I believe the OS3 is saying I'm on channel 6. My home Wifi uses channels 1 and 11 so 6 should be more or less ideal.

The setting for Turn off if no device is connected is set to Never Timeout.
There is no setting on my that page in my phone for prioritizing real-time traffic.
Wifi 6 standard is turned off, protected management frames is turned off, power saving mode is turned off, and wifi sharing is turned on.

I saw somewhere than apostrophes and spaces in the SSID might mess things up so I changed my hotspot's SSID to Peter-S24 instead of Peter's S24. Let's see if that helps.

At the moment I am connected to TGIF America Link and it does seem to work, but I'm deathly afraid of changing configurations. Unfortunately there are some talkgroups that are only available to me on Brandmeister, and some that are only on TGIF, and switching between them is...unreliable in the extreme. I will go for a drive far from my home network and see if there's maybe a bit more stability now than there has been for the last ₁₂ days with the new SSID.

Tyrbiter

Have a look on the Mobile Hotspot page below Auto Hotspot and One-time password, my S23 has Prioritise real-time traffic as the last option, this is not on the Configure Mobile Hotspot page, it's one back from there.

FWIW I have the May 2024 software patch installed, not sure if the US versions of the Samsung phones all have that yet.

Peter W2IRT

Tyrbiter Found it, and it was already turned on.

Tyrbiter

Well, all I can say is that I hope it works for you, but I don't immediately have any other ideas.

I have not tried my OS3 with my S23, perhaps I should do that and report back.

Peter W2IRT

Tyrbiter It's all just extremely frustrating. Even on my S20+ it was always a hit-or-miss situation. The SharkRF app on my phone has never worked properly, and I have to use a flaky mobile browser to see the dashboard. The problem always seems to be whenever the phone's screen is turned off/times out and I'm guessing something goes to sleep. I will hear a TG just fine at first, but once I'm away from home and driving along the whole thing just flakes out and I get the destination-unreachable message on my phone's browser when I try reconnecting.

My PiStar at home has never given me a whiff of trouble since I bought it four years ago, but with the fixed antennas and large form factor it's not really suitable for permanently installing it in a Jeep.

Tyrbiter

Might this be something to do with the cellular operator? There seem to be some that don't like continuous UDP traffic because they are trying to discourage VoIP instead of cellular voice calls.

Peter W2IRT

Tyrbiter A long shot, but who knows. I'm on Verizon and they've always worked 100% reliably with my old WiFi-only tablet.

What I really want is a mobile hotspot that works on 5.8 GHz, since my vehicle has a build-in hotspot on that frequency, so no tethering to my phone. But it's only 5GHz, no option for 2.4 so I'm kinda screwed in that department.

Tyrbiter

I hope you can resolve it, but experience tells me that you may need to use something like Wireshark to sniff the packets between phone and OS3 and try to work out what happens just before it stops working. That's not a trivial thing to do I'm afraid.

If I get a chance to try this out myself I will report back here.