I have made some progress in debugging. What I found is that I like to use short hang time of 5 because the transmitters that we use have built in time out timers and so it is necessary for the repeater transmitter to drop between users. If I have a 2 second hang time then the transmitter never goes off the air and the repeater transmitter built in time out timer is always expiring.

If I set hang time to 21 then the tail messages work fine, but each number less than 21 and the tail message gets increasingly flaky. With a hangtime of 5 then the tail message totally ignores that the repeater is in use and sends the initial message right on top of the first user and then seems to be always quashed after that.

the code where this happens is

i = myrpt->tailtimer;

if (myrpt->tailtimer) myrpt->tailtimer -= elap;

if (myrpt->tailtimer < 0) myrpt->tailtimer = 0;

if((i) && (myrpt->tailtimer == 0)){

myrpt->tailevent = 1;

ast_log(LOG_NOTICE,"Tail Event SET tailtimer before decrement= %d elap= %d\n", i, elap); //CAH I added this debugging line

}

if ((!myrpt->p.s[myrpt->p.sysstate_cur].totdisable) && myrpt->totimer) myrpt->totimer -= elap;

if (myrpt->totimer < 0) myrpt->totimer = 0;

if (myrpt->idtimer) myrpt->idtimer -= elap;

if (myrpt->idtimer < 0) myrpt->idtimer = 0;

if (myrpt->tmsgtimer) myrpt->tmsgtimer -= elap;

if (myrpt->tmsgtimer < 0) myrpt->tmsgtimer = 0;

if (myrpt->voxtotimer) myrpt->voxtotimer -= elap;

if (myrpt->voxtotimer < 0) myrpt->voxtotimer = 0;

Previously in code "tailtimer" is set to hangtime. In my case that is 5 for a half second hang time.

"elap" varies from 7 to 20 for each pass here.

So for every pass the "tailtimer == 0" evaluates true and sets "tailevent" true and that causes the "tailmessage" to be sent immediately on key down elsewhere in code.

If "hangtime" is 21 or more than the "tailtimer == 0" only evaluates true if the input signal is gone and the hang time has expired.

But with a value of 21, my transmitter is almost always timed out.

I am still trying to learn what causes "elap" to vary and what sets it. I think I will find it and fix it eventually, unless someone else beats me to it. :)

oksy I found that elap is set to MSWAIT which is set to 20 in the following line.

#define MSWAIT 20

and this code

ms = MSWAIT;

who = ast_waitfor_n(cs,n,&ms);

if (who == NULL) ms = 0;

elap = MSWAIT - ms;

maybe I can just change the define for MSWAIT and that might fix it, but 20ms is important in relation to the voter so maybe changing it will break everything.

Hmmmmmmmmm.

Jim, HELP!!!

Chuck, ccie2285(retired), WB9UUS

On Thu, Jan 23, 2014 at 1:59 PM, Tim Sawyer <tim.sawyer@mac.com> wrote:

I use RTCMs exclusively and tail messages work fine. I’ve never had one go off on top of a user. In fact if someone keys up the tail message stops and replays after tailsquashtime. What doesn’t work for me is a coma separated list of tail messages. If I set up "tailmessagelist=message1,message2" it won’t work, nothing ever plays. But that’s another subject.

The way tail messages work is that the message will transmit every x milliseconds just before the repeater TX (hang timer) drops. So with your setting of 60 seconds the message will occur only 60 seconds after the last tail message as the carrier drops. If the repeater is quite for longer that 60 seconds the tail message won’t be heard until something keys it and the carrier drops.

Two things for you:
1. You are putting the settings in the [node] stanza correct?
2. Don’t you want (shouldn’t) the squash time be less than the message time? I suspect this is the what causing your strange tail message behavior.

--
Tim
:wq

On Jan 22, 2014, at 11:35 PM, Chuck Henderson <rpt2@chuck.midlandsnetworking.com> wrote:

> I put these 3 lines in my rpt.conf file expecting to have a tail message on unkey every 60 seconds or more.
>
> tailmessagetime=60000
> tailsquashedtime=70000
> tailmessagelist=tailmessage
>
>
> So if someone makes a 2 minute transmission, then I expect a tail message when they unkey.
>
> If someone makes a 10 second transmission than I would not expect a tail message unless 60 seconds have passed since the last tail message.
>
> Unfortunately what I get is not what I expect.
>
> When the repeater has not been used for a long time.... the first person to key down gets the tail message right on top of the beginning of their transmission.
> The repeater can be in use with various people each making random length transmissions from 10 seconds to 2 minutes long and there is never a tail message after the first one that tromps on top of the first person talking.
>
> I remember using tailmessage long ago back when I was using the USB fob and I think it worked fine back then.
> Now I am using only RTCM's and I can not get the tailmessage feature to work properly.
>
> Has anyone else been successfully using tail messages with RTCM's or USB fobs?

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