Have nultiple pi-star hotspots, however, none work on ISP now

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N4RTD
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Mar 09, 2021 4:49 am

Have nultiple pi-star hotspots, however, none work on ISP now

Post by N4RTD »

To start, I have three pi-stars, two of which I keep running on my home network, one I use mobile. One is configured as DMR with DMR2YSF, the other to go from Fusion to DMR, and the last mobile one just for simple DMR. I have been using these for a year.

A few days ago, suddenly, I noticed I could not get on DMR. I checked the pi-star dashboard and all was green. On parrot, transmitting all seemed normal, but nothing returned. I noticed in trying to get on a talkgroup that I was not on the heard list and could hear no one. I even brought out the one I use if I travel, and it too had the same issue. However, everything else on my network worked fine.

The pi-star dashboards are all green, however, on Brandmeister hotspot section on their site, they are red. Connectivity though is enough though to allow me to change static talkgroups on the hotspot and see the change on Brandmeister (and vice-versa). However, my outgoing radio transmissions never make the network/talkgroup.

Although I thought unusual that issues could happen with multiple pi-stars, I did completely re-image one and reconfigure with the same results. Even though nothing had changed on my network for some time, I changed out routers, checked configurations, etc., nothing worked.

It was at this time that I took my phone off my home network, just left connected to the telco, set it up as a WiFi hotspot, and connected the pi-star(s) that way and all worked great.

Another thing I did was configure my Windows 10 computer as a hotspot, using a VPN to tunnel out, and had my pi-star connect to that. It worked.

What this tells me is that Spectrum (ISP) is blocking some portion of the traffic not allowing a full connection to take place. I will contact them, but not sure I'll be able to get ahold of anyone who can tell me what is going on.

Has anyone else ever run into this situation where suddenly their pi-star has been shut out?

Thanks in advance.


Russ N4RTD
AF6VN
Posts: 821
Joined: Fri Jul 20, 2018 1:15 am

Re: Have nultiple pi-star hotspots, however, none work on ISP now

Post by AF6VN »

N4RTD wrote: Sat Aug 14, 2021 9:03 pm To start, I have three pi-stars, two of which I keep running on my home network, one I use mobile. One is configured as DMR with DMR2YSF, the other to go from Fusion to DMR, and the last mobile one just for simple DMR. I have been using these for a year.
And in that time period, Brandmeister retired one server node, and added another server node on a different IP. If you were configured for 3101, it is no longer available, change to 3104 server.

They also require individual hotspot passwords to have been configured; have you done that?

Lastly, are you using separate SSIDs on each hotspot so Brandmeister can track them separately?
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AF6VN
Dennis L Bieber
N4RTD
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Mar 09, 2021 4:49 am

Re: Have nultiple pi-star hotspots, however, none work on ISP now

Post by N4RTD »

Thanks for the reply Dennis. I am aware of the the server retirement, security requirements, and SSID's on each hotspot. I have them aptly named pi-star0 (no SSID), pi-star1 (SSID 01), and pi-star2 (SSID 02).

As noted, the hotspots will work when on a phone hotspot (different network), or if I let them piggyback on my VPN connection shared by my Windows 10 computer and all three will be green on Brandmeister then. On my Spectrum Internet connection, all show green, but won't let the voice side get out, stay red on Brandmeister, but still connected enough to let the API work and add or remove static talkgroups and show that change on both sides.

-Russ N4RTD
KG6RUT
Posts: 105
Joined: Thu Dec 24, 2020 7:28 pm

Re: Have nultiple pi-star hotspots, however, none work on ISP now

Post by KG6RUT »

I am on Spectrum and BM TGIF DMR+ work....last time I did DMR2YSF it was working....dont think that really helps you but dont think your being blocked by Spectrum necessarily
N4RTD
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Mar 09, 2021 4:49 am

Re: Have nultiple pi-star hotspots, however, none work on ISP now

Post by N4RTD »

Jason, this is outstanding information, and I appreciate the detail you provided, all very good to know. Learning is a great aspect of this hobby, and all of your information is a great help.

I am not operating two of the hotspots right now and have focused my attention on my main hotspot "pi-star0" this morning and it has morning, after a number of days of not functioning properly, is working today.

Interesting about the key ups when I was testing, not known at the time, but great info on that, which is helpful to me and perhaps others in the future. I’m no sure about the 0 second duration on the parrot group, may have been an accident.

My main pi-star0 is a duplex hotspot and there are some things I like about it, and some that I do not. The other duplex one I have, pi-star2, I use in the car and had replaced a simplex one I had there with a duplex, so running it simplex was a quick and easy replacement. What I was not aware of was that you could not operate a dual hotspot simplex, which is good to know as well, and will make the appropriate changes on that. Your feedback is the first I have ever read that specified that. Good info for me and for anyone I happen to run across as well who may run into this in the future.

My simplex pi-star1 is the one I use for my FT-991a, operates YSF2DMR.

Your detailed feedback has helped greatly and affirms this forum as a great place to come to when you are having issues.

Thanks again Jason for your great feedback, I truly appreciate it!

-Russ
N4RTD
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Mar 09, 2021 4:49 am

Re: Have nultiple pi-star hotspots, however, none work on ISP now

Post by N4RTD »

And thanks for sharing that as well, I'll bookmark it. One question, I noticed when using the cross-mode YSF2DMR on the FT-991, when using the Wires-X feature on the radio to switch rooms, each time it does there is a short duration transmission and I see it shows you on the heard list for the talkgroup. I would imagine, with that in mind, you wouldn't want to hop talk groups quickly, based on the short duration transmission information you passed on originally. Would that be a correct assumption? Thanks again. -Russ
NQ4T
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Joined: Mon Aug 06, 2018 11:48 pm

Re: Have nultiple pi-star hotspots, however, none work on ISP now

Post by NQ4T »

It's been a while since I've actually used a YSF radio with Pi-Star; I know a lot of improvements were made in regards to the WIRES-X interface emulation....when I first tried it none of it really worked. It was easier for me to do it all by console. But I do seem to remember playing with it when 4 was in beta and found it worked well.

Is the short TX on the talkgroup you're leaving or the talkgroup you're changing to? Dynamic groups on BM are brought up by basically kerchunking the talkgroup; it could be the software doing that to add it as a dynamic group. If it's the one you're leaving....my guess is there's a faction of a second between where the MMDVM indicates TX and whatever drives the WIRES-X emulation picks up it's a UI transmission. There could be an initial key-up on the TG before it's interrupted by not being audio data.

If I can remember...I'll play around with my YSF radio while I have it down here in the shack and see how it behaves.
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