Jumbospot WiFi issue

Help setting up WiFi
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4S7EF
Posts: 48
Joined: Wed Aug 14, 2019 2:50 am
Location: Sri Lanka

Jumbospot WiFi issue

Post by 4S7EF »

Good day!

I have two jumbospots (one for C4FM and one for DMR) both of which are rather temperamental. There are times that both will connect to my PC via WiFi and there are times when they will not. When they do not, they work in the background (I can communicate on C4FM and DMR with my radios), however I am unable to connect the jumbospots with my PC using the respective IP addresses. So the only option that is left is to re-flash the SD card to get in.

I have the wpa_supplicant.conf files on the root directories of both jumbospots and I always shut down through the software.

I wonder if there is some inherent issue with these Chinese made jumbospots or is there something else I can do to connect the jumbospots to my PC?

73 de 4S7EF
AF6VN
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Joined: Fri Jul 20, 2018 1:15 am

Re: Jumbospot WiFi issue

Post by AF6VN »

4S7EF wrote: Tue Feb 04, 2020 10:46 am There are times that both will connect to my PC via WiFi and there are times when they will not. When they do not, they work in the background (I can communicate on C4FM and DMR with my radios), however I am unable to connect the jumbospots with my PC using the respective IP addresses.
This is a confusing description. If the hotspots are working "in the background" it implies that they ARE connected to SOME network (Jumbospot should be irrelevant -- the WiFi connection is handled by the SBC [Raspberry-Pi] running the Pi-Star software, not the radio interface module on top of it). But "both will connect to my PC" implies you are using Internet Connection Sharing through the computer rather than having the hotspots connect to some common router -- which your computer is also connecting through.

If you do have a router in the system, my advice would be to log into the router admin pages and examine them for a list of WiFi clients that are connected to it, and what IP address has been provided to them.

--
AF6VN
Dennis L Bieber
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KE0FHS
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Re: Jumbospot WiFi issue

Post by KE0FHS »

4S7EF wrote: Tue Feb 04, 2020 10:46 am There are times that both will connect to my PC via WiFi and there are times when they will not. When they do not, they work in the background (I can communicate on C4FM and DMR with my radios), however I am unable to connect the jumbospots with my PC using the respective IP addresses.
To me, this sounds like the difference between Auto AP (Auto Access Point, when the hotspot is connected directly to the PC, but not the internet) and regular a wireless connection (when the hotspot is connected to the internet).

Auto AP is meant only as a preliminary connection to enable you to connect to the Pi-Star dashboard and configure your regular wireless network connection. When Auto AP is active, the hotspot should show up in the list of wireless networks available to your computer's WiFi settings as Pi-Star-Setup (default name) with the password raspberry. When you connect your computer to the Pi-Star dashboard via Auto AP, you are making a direct connection between your computer and the hotspot; in that case, your regular wireless network and the internet and not connected.

Once you configure your wireless network and reboot the hotspot, it should connect to your wireless network (your router). At that point, you should be able to connect to the Pi-Star dashboard via your computer's browser using either http://pi-star.local/ or http://pi-star/. The fact that it is working indicates that it is connecting correctly to your wireless network, so the only thing you need to solve is connecting to the Pi-Star dashboard via your browser. Once you solve that, the default user name is pi-star, and the default password is still raspberry (highly recommended that you change that something more secure).

When the hotspot is running normally and connected to your wireless network, you will not be able to connect to it via your computer's WiFi settings; you must connect via the browser (or via an SSH app).
73, Toshen, KE0FHS
Playing with Pi-Star (unofficial notes about setting up and using Pi-Star):
https://amateurradionotes.com/pi-star.htm
4S7EF
Posts: 48
Joined: Wed Aug 14, 2019 2:50 am
Location: Sri Lanka

Re: Jumbospot WiFi issue

Post by 4S7EF »

Thank you for your responses.

The problem was solved after I assigned STATIC IP addresses to each of the hotspots

4S7EF
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