RF Issues

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KC5SII
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Apr 05, 2020 4:55 pm

RF Issues

Post by KC5SII »

I'm having a heck of a time getting the RF side of my JumboStar working. I can hear the Mototurbo on my analog radio when the Star transmits. But nothing on my Baofeng DM-1701. When transmitting from the HT, nothing shows up in the Local RF activity monitor. I'm not sure if its the radio or the Pi-Star setup. If I had a second Digital Radio, it might be easier to track it down.

Which forum would be bes to look through and ask for assistance?

73,
Dave, KC5SII
AF6VN
Posts: 821
Joined: Fri Jul 20, 2018 1:15 am

Re: RF Issues

Post by AF6VN »

Since the radio is a DMR/analog model (display looks identical to my Tyt MD-2017), the DMR group might be a candidate.

Which DMR host are you using? Brandmeister, some other? If BM, have you set up hotspot security via the Brandmeister self-help pages, and after that have you obtained the API key and loaded that into Pi-Star (expert) settings.

What channel settings have you made in the radio (for US Brandmeister, since US disabled reflectors, you WILL need a channel for each talk group you intend to make use of. The channels will look identical except for the "contact" (you will need to set those up with BM name, GROUP [not Private], and group #]) and the channel name. You'll then add these channels to one (or more) zones. I recommend you also add the contacts (talk groups) to a Receive Group List, and put that list into each channel (yes, this begins to sound circular).

With the BM API installed, you could use Pi-Star to make a talk group "static" (always active in BM) -- pick one of the busier ones... TG3100 perhaps. That may give you some receive activity to ensure the radio receives traffic. If you receive, but can't transmit, you may have to fiddle the expert menu MMDVM rxoffset/txoffset values (normally you tweak to reduce BER, but I suppose a really bad transmitter might not even show up without tweaking).

OH -- if you have the node type set Private, make sure you have the matching DMR ID in Pi-Star and the radio!

--
AF6VN
Dennis L Bieber
dh3ybe
Posts: 84
Joined: Sun Aug 26, 2018 9:02 pm
Location: Germany

Re: RF Issues

Post by dh3ybe »

Hello,

you should try to receive dmr signals from a local repeater. If that works, you know that your receiver is working.

Quite often a misconfigration of the trx as described before might be the reason.

MAybe you have to shift rx and tx freqiency of the hotspot. But 1st try to receive dmr signals from your hotspot.

Best Regards and keep save
KAi
dh3ybe
G1EKW
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Mar 30, 2021 10:33 am

Re: RF Issues

Post by G1EKW »

I realise that this thread is a year old, but felt that my experience may be worth recording for any future readers with this problem.

When I first set up my MMDVM/RasPiZW in conjunction with my GD-77 in DMR mode on Brandmeister, it had been so long since I had used this radio that I had forgotten where I put the programming cable. GD-77 front-panel configuration options are limited, so I could modify an existing digital channel to change Rx freq, Tx freq and colour code, but there appeared to be no way to change TG. This situation led to exactly the same situation as the OP had. in analogue mode the "MotoTrbo" buzz was heard, but nothing on digital as the contact (TG) didn't match.

As a temporary measure, all I did was login to the Brandmeister dashboard, add TG91 as a static then put the GD-77 into monitor ("promiscuous") mode. Perfect for testing reception until I found the programming cable to do it properly.

As for transmission, I was able to use direct keyboard entry for private calls so I could place a call to 9990 (parrot). Again, with this configuration te parrot's reply was only audible with the GD-77 in monitor mode.

I hope this helps someone.

Regards,
Julian.
dh3ybe
Posts: 84
Joined: Sun Aug 26, 2018 9:02 pm
Location: Germany

Re: RF Issues

Post by dh3ybe »

Hello Julian,

It is good to distribute or spread experience :D.
I had Problems programing PD365 die to wrong cable. The usb cable from the Power Supplies did not work. After is used the correct programing cable everything was Fine.

Thanks for bringing your experience to us.

73
Kai
Dh3ybe
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