Cannot connect to Brandmeister network

Help with DMR issues
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G8SEZ
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Re: Cannot connect to Brandmeister network

Post by G8SEZ »

KE7FNS wrote: Mon Jul 27, 2020 6:59 pm
G8SEZ wrote: Mon Jul 27, 2020 1:18 pm
I found with my very first Jumbospot board 2 or 3 years ago that this modem selection didn't work, and I had the same symptoms with the "couldn't read firmware version after 6 attempts" error.
That information I posted came from the official Jumbospot documentation, its also in the PDF docs on banggood.
http://jumbospot17.blogspot.com/2018/01 ... anual.html

There are a number of slight differences to each of the selections where multiple selections would function correctly for a given board.
I remember it well, my first board came with a photocopy of a print-out of the web page. I used the settings it suggested, it just sat there and did very little. After a day or so I found the fix, which was to use the modem selection setting I mentioned. I don't know why it didn't work at the time, might have been a combination of firmware and the PiStar of the time. I did find that the initial fw version was 1.3.3 which was earlier than I thought.

I don't remember when the generic fw for GPIO radios came along, ah it was with 1.3.7. A quick look says that the difference is a few #define statements, LIBRE_KIT_ADF7021 instead of MMDVM_HS_HAT_REV12 , SEND_RSSI_DATA and USE_ALTERNATE_POCSAG_LEDS disabled in the header files. Didn't look how much the first one affects communication with the ADF7021. The latter is probably not very relevant, RSSI data is also nice to have but not essential.
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Brian G8SEZ
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Re: Cannot connect to Brandmeister network

Post by M1DNS »


AF6VN wrote:
M1DNS wrote: Mon Jul 27, 2020 10:23 am ID 1234567 has been blacklisted <SNIP> But this same ID could possibly be accepted to work over a DSTAR
To my knowledge, D-STAR doesn't use DMR-style ID numbers; as an amateur-only protocol, it was designed from the start to use actual call-signs.
Im not surprised you have little knowledge of this as the DCS and xlx networks are mostly unknown to U.S. hams, instead your dstar users are fixacted mostly on the dplus reflectors.

The DCS dstar networks required you to register for a ccs7 ID to be identified over their networks. It was also used as a way of routing a call to a particular users via his ID and tracking them as they worked through differing repeaters. The ID like a dmr id was registered against ur ham callsign and followed the same 7digit format used by the dmr registration process. DCS (whilst still in use) formed the basis of the XLX networks we see all over use in europe and the rest of the world. Their use in Europe far outweigh the dplus network used by U.S. hams and the id nos are still used. XLX have now grown to accept links via DSTAR DMR & YSF, but as said most of you in the U.S. are obvious to them. so your reply doesnt come as a surprise.

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Andrew M1DNS.
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Re: Cannot connect to Brandmeister network

Post by G4TVP »

If there is anything I can do to assist with dev/testing, then please let me know. 😁
AF6VN
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Re: Cannot connect to Brandmeister network

Post by AF6VN »

M1DNS wrote: Tue Jul 28, 2020 12:00 am The DCS dstar networks required you to register for a ccs7 ID to be identified over their networks. It was also used as a way of routing a call to a particular users via his ID and tracking them as they worked through differing repeaters. The ID like a dmr id was registered against ur ham callsign and followed the same 7digit format used by the dmr registration process. DCS (whilst still in use) formed the basis of the XLX networks we see all over use in europe and the rest of the world. Their use in Europe far outweigh the dplus network used by U.S. hams and the id nos are still used. XLX have now grown to accept links via DSTAR DMR & YSF, but as said most of you in the U.S. are obvious to them. so your reply doesnt come as a surprise.
Then let me just state that my D-STAR /radio/ has no provision for a CCS7 ID. Any usage of such an ID is being done external to the D-STAR protocol itself.

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Dennis L Bieber
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Re: Cannot connect to Brandmeister network

Post by G4TVP »

Thankyou so much for your assistance in this matter.

I did try YSF, just out of interest last night, but no joy with that either. Perhaps someone can point me at the GitHub for the MMDVM and I can try building/expirementing with that. Maybe with a "defective" setup to hand, I can pinpoint the issue. It's all learning!

As me mentioned in a previous post, Flo has given me the nod on a v2 of their HAT, so I will go with that option for now.
G4TVP
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Re: Cannot connect to Brandmeister network

Post by G4TVP »

If it's any use :

If I use the "pistar-findmodem" command, that initially gives me back this response. "Detected MMDVM_HS (GPIO): /dev/ttyAMA0 (MMDVM_HS_Hat-v1.4.17 20190529 14.7456MHz ADF7021 FW by CA6JAU GitID #cc451c4)"

However, after a couple of minutes, the MMDVM locks up and I get no response from that command at all. I can press the reset button on the HAT or reboot to restore it back to life.

Does the MMDVM hat write any kind of debug, that I can capture?
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G8SEZ
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Re: Cannot connect to Brandmeister network

Post by G8SEZ »

G4TVP wrote: Wed Jul 29, 2020 3:26 pm If it's any use :

If I use the "pistar-findmodem" command, that initially gives me back this response. "Detected MMDVM_HS (GPIO): /dev/ttyAMA0 (MMDVM_HS_Hat-v1.4.17 20190529 14.7456MHz ADF7021 FW by CA6JAU GitID #cc451c4)"

However, after a couple of minutes, the MMDVM locks up and I get no response from that command at all. I can press the reset button on the HAT or reboot to restore it back to life.

Does the MMDVM hat write any kind of debug, that I can capture?
That does make me suspicious that there is a dry joint or a cracked component on the HAT board somewhere, the most obvious place I can think of is around the 8MHz crystal that the STM32F103 CPU uses or something else in that area. If you have the means, a bit of careful reflowing of joints might help you here. A careful visual inspection is probably worth a few minutes of your time too.
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Brian G8SEZ
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G8SEZ
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Re: Cannot connect to Brandmeister network

Post by G8SEZ »

KE7FNS wrote: Wed Jul 29, 2020 7:19 pm
G8SEZ wrote: Wed Jul 29, 2020 3:41 pm That does make me suspicious that there is a dry joint or a cracked component on the HAT board somewhere, the most obvious place I can think of is around the 8MHz crystal that the STM32F103 CPU uses or something else in that area. If you have the means, a bit of careful reflowing of joints might help you here. A careful visual inspection is probably worth a few minutes of your time too.
I'm not convinced it is a bad solder joint, oscillator or hardware related. That doesn't explain why it works correctly when he turns the DMR mode off and only runs DStar. It must be in the MMDVMHost code since it is being detected and logged.
I have seen a fault like this before when a slightly higher CPU load than normal caused a crash due to the temperature increase flexing the PCB mechanically.

Something to consider.
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Brian G8SEZ
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G8SEZ
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Re: Cannot connect to Brandmeister network

Post by G8SEZ »

KE7FNS wrote: Wed Jul 29, 2020 11:17 pm
G8SEZ wrote: Wed Jul 29, 2020 8:40 pm I have seen a fault like this before when a slightly higher CPU load than normal caused a crash due to the temperature increase flexing the PCB mechanically.
What crashed? The STM32, MMDVMHost, or the communications?

Whats that oscillator used for? I can't find any reference to it in the source code. I only find the TCXO.

If temperature is the issue he could provide some external heat from a hair dryer or heat gun and see if he observes a communications failure.

If he had an identical hat to swap out that would also help to confirm a hardware issue with his board.

How much of a difference is the CPU utilization on a RPi zero W when you run both DStar and DMR simultaneously? and is it really enough to cause a temperature increase like that?
I was referring to something different, a completely different system. Increasing the CPU load by a few percent triggered a problem that was subsequently discovered to be due to a cracked component. The only common point was that this also used an ST CPU. Yes we used a hot air gun to prove it. The 'cracked' component was not obviously damaged even under a microscope, it was probably a manufacturing defect.

The 8MHz crystal is the clock oscillator for the STM32F103 CPU, if there is a problem with that the CPU stops executing code because it has no clock. That definitely can cause a communications failure!

I have a Pi Zero that has both DMR and YSF enabled, it runs a couple of degrees hotter than the DMR-only ones. Doesn't seem much, but such things can occasionally cause a problem.

Mike has ordered another HAT and no doubt will report whether it helps.

If you look at the HS_HAT that the Jumbospot boards were based on you can see that some 3v3 supply filtering was added to them somewhere between v1.2 and the later v1.6 layout. I modified my 3 boards to add this, I don't know how much difference it made but I do know that with my first board the PiStar it was in was quite flaky when I first used it. I made the supply modification as it seemed sensible, but there were a lot of firmware and mmdvmhost changes around this time so I can't be sure what cleaned it up and I didn't keep notes. I do notice that the dual HS_HAT uses a 3v3 regulator supplied from the 5v rail, the 3v3 rail coming up from the Pi board has all of the noise on it generated by the Pi circuitry so this is another sensible change to improve the noise immunity of the whole system. I see that the HS_HAT is being updated to a v2.0 release, it will be interesting to see what has been done to improve it further.

I will be interested to see what Mike finds when he eventually solves this problem.
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Brian G8SEZ
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G8SEZ
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Re: Cannot connect to Brandmeister network

Post by G8SEZ »

Interesting, I had not read that bit in detail before. I don't know what the effect of switching clocks would be on the mmdvmhost, it might not like it. a sudden clock frequency/phase jump might upset the UART on the RPi. If you look at the HSI frequency accuracy on page 56 you will see it can vary up to 2% or a little more. No idea if the user calibration register is in use, but even with that it could be 1% in error.

There's no doubt that the STM32F10x CPUs are clever little beasts, I had not appreciated how much flexibility they offer.
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Brian G8SEZ
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