[App_rpt-users] Multiple nodes

Mon Sep 29 06:02:26 UTC 2014

Thanks Tim for your comments. It is a labor of love. We do it not to make any money but rather to improve the Allstar system both for us and everyone involved.

As you mentioned the upcoming 1.2 release due out later this week has some rather substantial changes the biggest one being a tremendous increase in USB (and simpleusb) reliability. Hubs work well and so does WIFI and USB sticks for backup. There are also many other enhancements like backup and restore scripts that will be documented on the web page and in the announcement.

As for the audio cape that is something we thought about but with the tremendous increase in USB reliability it is being put on the back burner for now. As a tease of future releases a complete rewrite of the USB channel driver is in the works getting away from the obsolete OSS model and using ALSA. That is only a part of the story though as the current code is really rather inefficient. This is maybe acceptable on a fast PC but on a slower processor it can be a real problem.
Unfortunately the GPIO code will have to wait also as it is an integral part of the channel driver. Hopefully we will be able to begin testing on this in a month or two.

USB has gotten a bad rap and in many cases it is not the HW's fault. The latest kernel has fixed many of the Linux/BBB USB problems and thanks to Dave, KB4FXC some bugs in both the simpleusb and usbradio code have been found that also caused severe USB issues. USB sound hardware is out there in abundance and once the code is optimized and GPIO added the unmodified cheap sound FOBS will work just fine. A user will be able to put together a complete system minus the radio for far less than $100.   

Judging from the number of downloads of the code there are many hundreds of new BBB systems out there already.

73 Doug
WA3DSP
http://www.crompton.com/hamradio

Subject: Re: [App_rpt-users] Multiple nodes
From: tim.sawyer at mac.com
Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2014 21:40:42 -0700
CC: app_rpt-users at ohnosec.org
To: doug at crompton.com

Doug,
I just want to add to this that I think what you guys are doing with the BBB is absolutely fantastic. You, David and possibly others are doing a ton of work behind the scenes to make not only the BBB better but also AllStar. People don’t know the amount of work the BBB team has contributed. While I’m not going to recommend the BBB for every application it’s certainly a fine solution in many cases and it's only getting better. I look forward to your future efforts and the next release and the one after that, and the one after… How about an audio cape so we can ditch USB all together?
--
Tim
:wq

On Sep 28, 2014, at 9:01 PM, Tim Sawyer <tim.sawyer at mac.com> wrote:I didn't mean to mis-repsrent the cost of a BBB or dis it in any way. I have a BBB and it’s a fine node. Here’s why I recommend RTCMs over any type of USB node in general and specifically in response to Robert’s question:
Permanent connections are no where near as reliable as RTCMs in mixminus mode. Startup macros are very annoying when restarting and troubleshooting a node. Repeater ID, hangtime, courtesy tones, touch tone commands, cron jobs, tail messages etc, etc, are all set just once. Less is better: RTCMs are absolutely the least amount of hardware you can deploy.Entire solution comes from a single source.Easy to install by non Linux knowledgeable radio techs.No CF or SD to burn or CD to load. Just a few settings including audio. RX levels set with LED indicators.Lots of TX audio drive.Proven to work in harsh environments.No problematic and unpredictable USB issues.Have the capability to fail over to a backup server.Have ZERO repeat audio delay in duplex mode 3.If you might ever want to set up a voter or simulcast system you can.Squelch is the best there is, as good as or better than MICOR squelch. Firmware remotely upgradeable.Runs over a wide input voltage. On board RC pre and deemphasis filters.
In all fairness there are a couple of drawbacks:
Repeater duplex mode 3 has no TT muting. Other full duplex modes do not have this issue.This is somewhat subjective but my sense is the network needs to have lower loss and latency than with IAX.
Yes, there are cheaper solutions but for my money, time and effort the RTCM is the best trade off. 
--
Tim
:wq

On Sep 28, 2014, at 6:21 PM, k5tra <k5tra at austin.rr.com> wrote:Chuck,Actually, BBB for $55, uSD 16GB for $8 and  USB FOB (modified) for $12 is well under $100 for a very good node.Tom / K5TRA_______________________________________________
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