[arm-allstar] Echolink, Repeater Duplex and Newsline Questions

[Kyle Krieg]

All,

I have an Echolink, Newsline and node to repeater question that I think
someone here probably knows the answer to as I probably have a setting
incorrect.  :)

I have two nodes (V1.5 and up to date) connected to one of our local
repeaters in series.  One public (40105) and one private (1085).  Both
running on Raspberry Pi 3B+.

Private Note 1085 is connected to port 2 on a CAT800 repeater controller
via a DMK URI.  We have this node private because I want to do some
internal linking within our ARDEN network this summer.

Public Node 40105 is a stand alone node, connected full time to node 1085
via a startup script, is internet facing and provides Echolink and AllStar
services to the internet, which then is connected to 1085 which provides
those services to our 146.850 repeater.  Node 40105 also plays Newsline
during our weekly nets via a DTMF tones that we pass through the 146.850
repeater to 1085 then to 40105.

Private Node 1085 has the following parameters set in rpt.conf that are
probably of interest.  On the CAT800 port 2 is set to half duplex.
duplex=0
holdofftelem=1
telemdefault=2

Public Node 40105 has the following parameters set in rpt.conf
duplex=1
eannmode=2 ; echolink announces call sign only on connect
remote_dtmf_allowed=1 ; allows us to pass DTMF tones to 40105
holdofftelem=1
telemdefault=2


Question #1 - On private node 1085, I'm assuming best practices is to set
duplex=0 to interface half duplex with a repeater with no telemetry as the
CAT800 owns the courtesy beeps and ID announcements to be sent out via RF.

Question #2 - Is it good practice on node 40105 to have duplex=1 if this is
a "permanent" node connected to the private 1085 node that is connected
directly to a repeater controller?  This question might change once reading
question #3 and possibly #4 below.

Question #3 - If I'm reading the man page right, on node 40105 if I change
telemdefault to 1 (voice telemetry on) and and keep duplex=1, that should
announce any AllStar nodes or Echolink nodes connecting to the 40105 node,
therefore it should pass it on to the 1085 node which then passes it to the
repeater controller via RF?

Question #4 - Playing Newsline on the public node has been working for us,
but Echolink stations connected to 40105 (the node Newsline is playing on)
has not be hearing the Newsline audio.  I'm not seeing anything in
echolink.conf that would prevent this.  We call newsline via DTMF tone with
this command /usr/bin/asterisk -rx "rpt playback 40105 /home/newsline"

73
Kyle
AA0Z