NXDN Information

Help with NXDN issues
Post Reply
W1RHS
Posts: 12
Joined: Sun Apr 29, 2018 11:24 pm

NXDN Information

Post by W1RHS »

I have a friend with a local NXDN repeater connected to NXCore. I have a handheld Kenwood NXDN radio. I recently got a DMR radio and started building hotspots. When I saw NXDN support evolving and available in Pi-Star I tried to use it through the hotspot. While my hotspot was showing NXDN activity on the display my radio was not hearing it and the hotspot was not hearing the radio. That was because I was using DVMega radios in the hotspots. DVMega does not support NXDN. I picked up an MMDVM_HS_HAT_DUPLEX for the Pi which was supposed to support NXDN. It came with FW 1.3.3. Now I can hear the NXDN signals showing on the display but the hotspot was ignoring my radio.

Edit: Update - This is not accurate [This is where it gets interesting. About a year ago I changed my call to a new vanity call. I never updated the callsign associated with my NXDN userid. My hotspot was configured with my new vanity call but the NXDN lookup was returning my old call. I had to change the setting in Expert Mode-MMDVMHost-NXDN SelfOnly from 1 to 0 to allow the radio to respond to the old call.]

Update - correction: The hotspot was not ignoring me because of the disparity between my old call and my new vanity call. I simply did not enter my NXDN ID on the Config page below my DMR ID. What a dope! Of course changing the SelfOnly to 0 would seem to fix that.

So after I get this all working I still can't hear myself coming back to my friend's repeater on 65000 nor can his repeater hear me. It turns out that not all the NXDN gateways are connected together. Just because your repeater is on 65000 does not mean you can talk to the rest of the world on 65000. The Pi-Star default NXDN reflector on 65000 in Germany is not connected to NXCore.

And remember you may have to initially key up the repeater to start the repeater listening on the talk group.

I believe also that there some differences between Kenwood NXDN and ICOM NXDN where both are not always fully supported together.

A lot of people are working on NXDN and it's exciting to see it evolving.
Last edited by W1RHS on Mon May 14, 2018 5:53 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Rick, W1RHS
User avatar
MW0MWZ
Site Admin
Posts: 1505
Joined: Wed Apr 04, 2018 9:15 pm
Location: Wales, UK
Contact:

Re: NXDN Information

Post by MW0MWZ »

Glad you got it working - you can get your NXDN ID updated and that will solve the need for the public mode setting, although its not going to hurt like it is.

It is a good time to be playing with NXDN.
Andy

73 de MW0MWZ
http://pistar.uk
User avatar
VK7HSE
Posts: 229
Joined: Sun Apr 15, 2018 6:35 pm
Contact:

Re: NXDN Information

Post by VK7HSE »

ct1dvm wrote:
W1RHS wrote: Sun May 13, 2018 3:18 pm I have a friend with a local NXDN repeater connected to NXCore. I have a handheld Kenwood NXDN radio. I recently got a DMR radio and started building hotspots. When I saw NXDN support evolving and available in Pi-Star I tried to use it through the hotspot. While my hotspot was showing NXDN activity on the display my radio was not hearing it and the hotspot was not hearing the radio. That was because I was using DVMega radios in the hotspots. DVMega does not support NXDN. I picked up an MMDVM_HS_HAT_DUPLEX for the Pi which was supposed to support NXDN. It came with FW 1.3.3. Now I can hear the NXDN signals showing on the display but the hotspot was ignoring my radio.

Edit: Update - This is not accurate [This is where it gets interesting. About a year ago I changed my call to a new vanity call. I never updated the callsign associated with my NXDN userid. My hotspot was configured with my new vanity call but the NXDN lookup was returning my old call. I had to change the setting in Expert Mode-MMDVMHost-NXDN SelfOnly from 1 to 0 to allow the radio to respond to the old call.]

Update - correction: The hotspot was not ignoring me because of the disparity between my old call and my new vanity call. I simply did not enter my NXDN ID on the Config page below my DMR ID. What a dope! Of course changing the SelfOnly to 0 would seem to fix that.

So after I get this all working I still can't hear myself coming back to my friend's repeater on 65000 nor can his repeater hear me. It turns out that not all the NXDN gateways are connected together. Just because your repeater is on 65000 does not mean you can talk to the rest of the world on 65000. The Pi-Star default NXDN reflector on 65000 in Germany is not connected to NXCore.

And remember you may have to initially key up the repeater to start the repeater listening on the talk group.

I believe also that there some differences between Kenwood NXDN and ICOM NXDN where both are not always fully supported together.

A lot of people are working on NXDN and it's exciting to see it evolving.
I saw a post on mmdvm this morning and there is a 65000 reflector that does connect to NXCore here ;

# 65000


65000 45.62.251.179 41465

You will have to edit your /usr/local/etc/NXDNHosts.txt & add a iptables rule for 41465 udp
Not quite right, but almost! You need to add to the /root/NXDNHosts.txt as this gets rewritten as /usr/local/etc/NXDNHostsLocal.txt The previous behaviour was to just append to /usr/local/etc/NXDNHosts.txt

So once you have added your required information you'll need to restart the service or just reboot the raspberry pi.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

User avatar
VK7HSE
Posts: 229
Joined: Sun Apr 15, 2018 6:35 pm
Contact:

Re: NXDN Information

Post by VK7HSE »

ct1dvm wrote:But then you have 2 x 65000 entries in the list, the existing needs to be edited, and updates disabled.
I haven't checked, but I wonder if the hosts are read sequentially so any duplicates are just overwritten so just the last entry for the duplicate would be the one applied?

I'll have to check on that...

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

User avatar
W1KMC
Posts: 133
Joined: Wed May 02, 2018 8:34 pm
Location: Bangor, ME USA
Contact:

Re: NXDN Information

Post by W1KMC »

The way I read how the host files are read (and I will have to check this, my STAR is not on right now) is that you put the 'custom' stuff into /root/NXDNHOSTS.txt (to do this you must be root, I do not think using sudo nano /root/NXDNHOSTS.txt will work as this is the folder for the root user, so you may have to

sudo su -

first then nano /root/NXDNHOSTS.txt -- make your custom stuff in the same exact format as in the /usr/local/etc/NXDNHOSTS.txt file, when done [ctrl]+O (the capital letter Oh) then [ctrl]+X -- Now type exit [enter] to put it back to pi-star user the way it should be.

Now for the change to take place you need to run sudo pistar-update (or do it from the dashboard) but this is the script that checks for the custom files for the chages in the /root/ folder (does this for XLXHOSTS.txt also (pi-star defaults to Module D (4004), but the 925 has its busiest on module A (4001), so I changed mine and just have not looked at the 'real file'.

But my understanding is that the 'customs are read and compared to the 'master' and if a match is found replaces the line with the custom. If I am incorrect, then it MAY just append to the bottom of the file but the file take lhe lines in order and as with CSS the lowest one takes precidence.

I do not have a 'straight' NXDN byt use the DMR2NXDN (and it does work) just prefix with a 7 eg 765000 in the codeplug 'caveat' FloridaLink is TG 1200 -- well that is too short so use 701200 and it will work.

Hope this helps you out in some way.
I am no developer, guru, expert, nor do I claim to be or want to be. All advice I give is purely from experience and my efforts to help others.

W1KMC - Kevin M Carman
Bangor, ME
Jumbospot on a Pi0W
DMR 3123142 & 3123143
HHUS Trunk Ext 4329
User avatar
KE0FHS
Posts: 1122
Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2018 8:40 pm
Location: Colorado, USA
Contact:

Re: NXDN Information

Post by KE0FHS »

It's important that you get the capitalization and any underscores exactly right; otherwise, you'll end up creating a new override file with a slightly different name that the Pi-Star Update will ignore. The override files available are:
DCS_Hosts.txt
DMR_Hosts.txt
NXDNHosts.txt
XLXHosts.txt
DExtra_Hosts.txt
DPlus_Hosts.txt
P25Hosts.txt
Last edited by KE0FHS on Wed Aug 22, 2018 1:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
73, Toshen, KE0FHS
Playing with Pi-Star (unofficial notes about setting up and using Pi-Star):
https://amateurradionotes.com/pi-star.htm
User avatar
KE0FHS
Posts: 1122
Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2018 8:40 pm
Location: Colorado, USA
Contact:

Re: NXDN Information

Post by KE0FHS »

You are getting mixed up with dstar host files regarding the 'L' which is a ircDDBGateway feature, not pistar.
Thanks for letting me know. I'll correct my original post.
Tom ON4TOP was the person that originally released the dvmega wire gpio bootloader reset method not Tony.
Can you point me to the original reference? I've never come across it.
73, Toshen, KE0FHS
Playing with Pi-Star (unofficial notes about setting up and using Pi-Star):
https://amateurradionotes.com/pi-star.htm
User avatar
KE0FHS
Posts: 1122
Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2018 8:40 pm
Location: Colorado, USA
Contact:

Re: NXDN Information

Post by KE0FHS »

Thanks. I have added the credit to my personal note about this on my site. I left Yahoo Groups permanently after their disgraceful security fiasco.
73, Toshen, KE0FHS
Playing with Pi-Star (unofficial notes about setting up and using Pi-Star):
https://amateurradionotes.com/pi-star.htm
Post Reply