[arm-allstar] RPi GPIO COS/PTT

[Josh W4ZZK]

Just a note about the Behringer UCA222
I'm an Audio Engineer and Production Manager in AL/MS/TN market, and
have "played" with these little boxes for several years.  The newer
222's are quite better in manufacturing than the older ones.  Hard to
believe, but since Behringer had been bought up by Music Group, their
QC has went up some in this device's pro-sumer market... even by leaps
and bounds in the commercial/professional sector.

Do note that these 222 boxes are VERY susceptible to RFI. For example,
I attempted to use it as a "receiving" sound card for a few Online
Streams at a local EMA office.... typical install scenario....
computer, radios, and this box all were in a rather active RF
environment. (HF VHF and UHF).  I don't know if I simply had a unique
scenario on my hands, but there would be some times where it would
"lose sync" with the computer, like I had disconnected the USB cable.
That meant restarting the streaming app to regain sync.  Remoting in
to the PC again and again to resync the device got old pretty quickly.
Perhaps there were more RFI choking and eliminating I could have done,
but I exhausted all feasible, and "affordable" options before going
with individual $3 CM108 Cards, which work GREAT.  Maybe some way to
bleed off transient voltage from active RF environments would work...
I don't know.  But, in their normal operation, the little 222 boxes
are halfway decent. Very simple audio interface. Would love to see a
schematic of it, and know how we could go in the future with using
that box.

Josh Hatton W4ZZK
Muscle Shoals, AL
w4zzkjosh at gmail.com


On Mon, Jan 23, 2017 at 11:16 AM, "Doug Crompton via arm-allstar"
<arm-allstar at hamvoip.org> wrote:
> Jim,
>
>   The Raspberry Pi has no direct audio input, no A/D so anything direct
> would not be possible. The USB works fine on the Pi with thousands of nodes
> out there using it.
>
> The two approaches I mentioned (FOB mod and Nano) are both good choices.
> The Nano gives you the option of using unmodified FOBS, like the ones you
> have with blobs, for audio so don't throw them out. It also gives the
> future option of using better, albeit more expensive, sound devices like
> the Behringer UCA222. Devices like this give two channel input and output
> which opens up a lot of new possibilities.
>
>
>
> *73 Doug*
>
> *WA3DSP*
>
> *http://www.crompton.com/hamradio <http://www.crompton.com/hamradio>*
>
> On Mon, Jan 23, 2017 at 9:29 AM, "Jim Kinter Jr. via arm-allstar" <
> arm-allstar at hamvoip.org> wrote:
>
>> Thanks David, and my condolences.
>>
>> I have been curious for a while now why no one uses the built in audio
>> system (not just this project)? Is it that buggy?
>> A while back, I built a Pi Echolink (svxlink) link node (it used a USB fob
>> as well), using VOX for COS and a GPIO for PTT.
>> It worked for the most part, but sometimes the PTT would get stuck
>> (Murphy's law- at the worst possible moment, like when still 1.5 hours away
>> coming back from a hamfest in north Texas & it is deadkeying the local
>> repeater--called the house and had daughter unplug the powerpole connection
>> feeding the whole thing). That might have been an RFI thing causing it, as
>> I had it in a plastic box, so I wonder if a metal enclosure/ferrites might
>> have helped....
>>
>> I just think, why did they include such things (sound and GPIO) if they
>> dont work? :-)
>>
>> thanks again, and Ill have a look at the Nano solution.
>>
>> 73
>> Jim
>>
>>
>> At 12:13 AM 1/23/2017, David Lang wrote:
>>
>>> On Sun, 22 Jan 2017, "Jim Kinter Jr. via arm-allstar" wrote:
>>>
>>> Greetings,
>>>> I have been searching over the info on the site and mail list, and cant
>>>> seem to find if any instructions are available for using the Pi's GPIO for
>>>> COS/PTT yet.
>>>> I have found where it said it will be included in a future release, and
>>>> some other instructions with config settings, but nothing more definitive
>>>> (which pins to use for what, config settings for those pins, etc).
>>>>
>>>> I friend of mine is using this setup on his repeater with URI, and Id
>>>> like to use what I already have without spending $100 a pop on URIs per
>>>> setup (I already have a few Pi's at my disposal)
>>>> I had bought a half dozen USB sound FOBs, but all were blobbed (they
>>>> were cheap, so I even attempted to mine down into one blob to see what I
>>>> could see, probably effectively destroying the one FOB/losing $2).
>>>>
>>>> So is this capability available yet, and if so, where might I find more
>>>> info?
>>>>
>>>
>>> It is not yet available, they have decided to not use the GPIO pins
>>> directly, but to run things through an arduino nano, so it's a $20 option
>>> instead of a $100 option.
>>>
>>> hardware details are available at:
>>>
>>> https://sites.google.com/site/radiofarmprojects/home/hamvoip
>>> -nano-interface
>>>
>>> https://hamvoip.org/hamradio/Nano_Allstar_Interface/
>>>
>>> support for this is not yet in any release of the allstar software, but
>>> they were planning a release in December that was postponed due to a death
>>> in the community. They were planning to have this support either in that
>>> release or within a couple of weeks after.
>>>
>>> David Lang
>>>
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