[arm-allstar] Many Thanks from N3FPZ

[John Baxter]

Hello,

With very kind and patient help from Doug WA3DSP, we now have an AllStar Node up and running in Glenside, PA:

Node 45506, 446.050 MHz  PL 88.5

Right now we are only running 10 watts, and have a range of about 2.5 miles or so (better on hilltops).

I just want to sincerely thank everybody involved with this great new release!  Installation was very easy - I would like to go back and document the steps for downloading the image on my MacBook Air, unZipping it, and burning the disk image to a microUSB card.  The MacBook Air has an SD card slot, so all you need is an adapter.

Got everything set up and the image running on the Raspberry Pi 3.  Then at just the right time, Doug WA3DSP appeared to guide me through setting parameters.  I think the main things were the polarity of the PTT signal, and audio levels.  I was sufficiently excited that I did not document well!!!  And in a former life I was a test engineer…  yikes!

Once everything was up and running, I was getting occasional packet loss, and a kind of “flutter” in the audio sometimes.  I’m currently connected by WiFi until I get a chance to hard-wire the Raspberry Pi to my Comcast router.  Doug recommended moving the Ethernet connection from my Airport Extreme to my Comcast router so that it wasn’t (Comcast) LAN to (Apple Airport Extreme) LAN, not (Comcast) LAN to (Apple Airport Extreme) WAN.   This seemed to help a lot.

But I was still getting bassy, mushy audio from my HT to the node and out over VOIP.

Long story short, it looks like the fix was to ENABLE PRE-Emphasis.   Using the Echo function in simpleusb, I was able to hear my own audio coming back.  As soon as I ENABLED PRE-EMPHASIS, the audio became as crisp and clear as it is when you monitor on another rig right off-the-air.

So my Yaesu FT-60 HT seems to be fine - my problem was the audio going from my (Yaesu FT7900) node radio to the DMK URI interface.  Once Pre-Emphasis is turned to ENABLED, the audio I hear echoed back sounds fine.

I also wanted to mention how cool the System Update function is.   I was AMAZED how easy it is to keep the system up-to-date.

MANY thanks to the team for all the hard work (and fun) implementing this!!!!!!
Special thanks to Doug WA3DSP and John WA3EZT for all their kind help, and for putting up with my bizarre sense of humor!!!

Best 73,
-John  N3FPZ
Allstar Node 45506
446.050  PL 88.5
Glenside, PA


John William Baxter	
jwilliambaxter at me.com <mailto:jwilliambaxter at me.com>
215-460-9128			iPhone/text/FaceTime
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N3FPZ					amateur radio callsign
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