Pi-Star hotspot does not receive from FT1D

[M7YTH]

My hotspot seems to be unable to receive from my Yaesu FT1D radio. The hotspot is a board from eBay and configured for YSF only. I am using a HD44780 display connected via I2C. The hotspot is able to receive from the YSF reflector and transmit the data. I can confirm the digital signal being transmitted on the hotspot frequency using a scanner. If I select a busy YSF reflector, then I get clear audio coming through on the FT1D and can listen in to the conversations. However, nothing seems to happen when I transmit. Parrot does not replay anything back.

This is what I have observed:

- my callsign does not appear in local RF activity, but will appear in Gateway Activity if I change reflector
- Trx is "Listening..." shown in green
- nothing appears in the live log when I transmit

I can confirm that:
- radio is correctly tuned to the hotspot frequency
- radio is transmitting and the digital noise can be heard on another radio tuned to the same frequency
- the hotspot is transmitting as evidenced by bursts of digital noise and decoded audio on the FT1D when receiving from a reflector
- the offset on the radio is set to zero, radio confirmed to be transmitting on the hotspot frequency

The hotspot previously worked fine with an FT-70D radio but has been in storage for a few weeks. I just dug it out to work with the FT1D and it seems that the hotspot is deaf.

I also tried going into Wires-X mode. There is a brief transmission but Wires-X does not find the local hostpot. Probably not surprising since it doesn't work in normal transmit mode. Since the radio is new and unfamiliar it is possible I am missing something. Any help would be appreciated.

UPDATE: just did a test with an SDR running on the PC and using DSDplus to decode. This also confirmed that the hotspot can transmit and data from it could be received and decoded into audio. It was also confirmed that YSF digital data can be received and decoded from the FT1D even on the lowest power setting (100mW). This would seem to confirm that the radio is transmitting YSF digital mode correctly.

Also ran pistar-mmdvmcal in BER test mode (option J "BER Test Mode (FEC) for YSF") on the Pi. This does not show anything at all when the radio is keyed.

Is there a diagnostic tool that can test the radio hardware on the pistar?
Although its looking like a radio hardware issue, I would like to confirm at least whether this is actually hardware or software (e.g. driver) issue.

The attachment shows initial traffic from a busy reflector and the last entry shows my callsign after I switched to Parrot. Nothing ever shows in the Local RF Activity. Is this a receiver failure?

[N4NQY]

I suspect the TXOffset and RXOffset are the culprit. Every radio I have ever used had different values for these. Although an offset 0f "0" worked for the FT70DR, the FT1 would probably need a different one. The is a MMDVMCal program will allow you to transmit a tone from the Hotspot from say offset -2000 to +2000. You can observe the offset when you begin to hear the tone and the offset when you stop hearing it. Divide by 2 and this is the optimum offset for the DR1. Google MMDVMCal and you can get instructions.

jb N4NQY

[M7YTH]

I suspect the TXOffset and RXOffset are the culprit. Every radio I have ever used had different values for these. Although an offset 0f "0" worked for the FT70DR, the FT1 would probably need a different one. The is a MMDVMCal program will allow you to transmit a tone from the Hotspot from say offset -2000 to +2000. You can observe the offset when you begin to hear the tone and the offset when you stop hearing it. Divide by 2 and this is the optimum offset for the DR1. Google MMDVMCal and you can get instructions.

jb N4NQY

Thank you for the reply. I agree that the TXOffset and RXOffset would be the usual obvious culprits, but in this case the radio board seems completely deaf. I tried the MMDVMcal program transmit tuning and this is perfectly fine. I can hear audio from the reflector perfectly fine. The problem is receive which seems completely deaf, so for example the YSF BER calibration mode (option J) in MMDVMcal produces no results at all, not even with errors.

I there are no other tools then after trying everything with MMDVMcal I have to conclude that the receiver is dead so have now ordered another board. Lets hope the replacement works!

[M7YTH]

Those are all good points.

Unfortunately I do not have another radio I could try although I might have tried FM mode if it were possible. Although its there and experimental, it does not work on Hotspots apparently.

With regards to VW vs DN, you are correct. VW is a wide mode and will not work. I have tried both (just in case) but generally sticking to DN mode.

I have also now replaced the MMDVM board, but am still having the same problem. This must mean that its not the hardware. It must be a software issue or a radio issue of some kind. I have seen a handful of videos including one using the FT2D and the process looks quite simple and should just work so I'm baffled. I have also sen a forum thread where someone got one working so it ought to be possible.

Someone also suggested to make sure the radio is in repeater mode. Its apparently important for D-Star. Not sure whether it has a bearing on YSF, nevertheless I explored the options including making sure that ARS was on and setting the offset mode from OFF to +RPT or -RPT while maintaining the offset at 0. Still nothing.

I am going to post in the YSF section as it may be a Fusion or radio issue.

[M7YTH]

No, it is BOTH of your boards. Its in the MMDVM_HS firmware or the ADF7021 chip. Another user reported the same problem like I said and opened up an issue report, nobody has responded to his issue request. He mentioned something about trying different power output, but was unable to get it successful 100% of the time.

Oh! That was unexpected. I did do a bit of searching but didn't find anything. Do you have a link to the report please?
One of the things I did try, although haven't mentioned, is different power levels on the FT1D. If the issue is with the firmware or ADF7021 chip itself, then perhaps I should buy a different Hotspot that doesn't use the same firmware or radio chip. There are a number of more expensive options about but the question is how do I know for sure what's inside the box...

The major problem is people with the ability to test and diagnose issues don't always have access to every brand, make and model of radio that the rest of the world is using. If I had access to that model radio I'd look into the issue and see if it could be solved, but I don't.

I take your point here. I would be happy to use my radio for testing but would need a little guidance on where to start with the code. If what you say is true, there must be something different about the FT1D because I have had it confirmed by various amateurs that the FT2D, FT3D and FT70D all work fine. Another option would be for me to sell the FT1D and get and FT2D. I avoided the later models because of the touch screen and reviews suggesting the FT1D was the better radio....

[G8SEZ]

What fw version does the FT1D have?

[M7YTH]

Maybe you can contact him by PM through the forum or github and discuss each others tests and results.

I have logged an issue on GitHub.

It would have to be a hotspot that doesn't use the MMDVM_HS firmware. I wonder if the original MMDVM is affected also, it would be interesting to test it too. It is possible there was a modification to the MMDVM code that didn't get added to the MMDVM_HS, since MMDVM is a parent of MMDVM_HS but they diverged and were worked on separately.

Yes I read about the fork in the other thread. It seems that it happened some time ago though certainly well before I originally built the Hotspot which was a couple of months ago.

There is no easy way to explain how to get started with the code and there really isn't any documentation. What I know about it I learned by myself, but I have never attempted to capture and decode YSF packets, mostly because I don't have any new Yaesu equipment with digital capabilites.

That's a fair point. I have been looking at both the pi-star and MMDVM_HS code to try and get a handle on it myself.

Maybe theres an issue with that specific model radio, maybe it needs a firmware update since newer models seem to work fine. It would be interesting to see packet captures of your radio in both VW and DN modes and ones from a FT2D in both modes.

That's the sort of thing I had in mind and was hoping for some way to dump raw data from the ADF7021. The FT1D is at the latest available firmware version and is never going to get any further firmware updates according to Yaesu. They were not particularly forthcoming about how compatible it is with the current models, only that all models support C4FM and are compatible with each other. From what I have found with the FT1D and FT70D, they do both work with YSF repeaters out there.

My theory is that the header is somehow different and the MMDVM_HS firmware just ignores it because it thinks its invalid, but thats just an assumption and would have to be tested and proven. I could be completely wrong too.

Indeed, I was thinking along similar lines. There could be some subtle difference that is preventing the ADF7021 radio chip or the firmware running on the STM32 from recognizing the data stream as YSF. More likely to be the MMDVM_HS firmware than the radio chip but at this point its only a speculation. The author of the YSF part of pi-star said he used an FT1D to develop the YSF modules, but, I have no idea what Hotpsot hardware he was using.

[M7YTH]

What fw version does the FT1D have?

To answer your question specifically:

Firmware version: FTD 3.01
DSP version: 4.15

[M7YTH]

It was G4KLX. He has now replied to me on the issue I raised on the GitHub. Its here for reference:

https://github.com/juribeparada/MMDVM_HS/issues/127

It seems he is using the same hardware, i.e. FT1D with same firmware, pi-star and MMDVM_HS hat. I downgraded the firmware on my to the same version he is using and was hoping that would solve it but still no result unfortunately.

[M7YTH]

Further discussion has revealed that the hat hardware that myself and G4KLX are using is not the same. Apparently the MMDVM board I am using is " cheap unsupported hotspot hardware". This is something I was unaware of, but apparently all those £20 boards on eBay, Aliexpress and the like are cloned knockoffs. While its no real surprise to find eBay flooded with cheap clones, a lot of people I have talked with use these "JumbSpot" boards with no difficulty. Just so happens that in this case there is a problem and its unsupported.

Now that I have been made aware of this, I am looking at buying an "officially supported" MMDVM hat. We will see how we go with that.