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
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@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 _______________________________________________ App_rpt-users mailing list App_rpt-users@ohnosec.org http://ohnosec.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/app_rpt-users
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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@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@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 _______________________________________________ App_rpt-users mailing list App_rpt-users@ohnosec.org http://ohnosec.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/app_rpt-users
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_______________________________________________ App_rpt-users mailing list App_rpt-users@ohnosec.org http://ohnosec.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/app_rpt-users
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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@mac.com Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2014 21:40:42 -0700 CC: app_rpt-users@ohnosec.org To: doug@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@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@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_______________________________________________ App_rpt-users mailing list App_rpt-users@ohnosec.org http://ohnosec.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/app_rpt-users To unsubscribe from this list please visit http://ohnosec.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/app_rpt-users and scroll down to the bottom of the page. Enter your email address and press the "Unsubscribe or edit options button" You do not need a password to unsubscribe, you can do it via email confirmation. If you have trouble unsubscribing, please send a message to the list detailing the problem. _______________________________________________ App_rpt-users mailing list App_rpt-users@ohnosec.org http://ohnosec.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/app_rpt-users To unsubscribe from this list please visit http://ohnosec.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/app_rpt-users and scroll down to the bottom of the page. Enter your email address and press the "Unsubscribe or edit options button" You do not need a password to unsubscribe, you can do it via email confirmation. If you have trouble unsubscribing, please send a message to the list detailing the problem.
I appreciate all of the feedback. I almost feel like there are situations that a RTCM will be perfect and others I'd rather use a BBB
BBB has one problem, I get complaints about a squelch crash I'm about to install an audio delay board... JK -------------------------------------------- On Sun, 9/28/14, k5tra <k5tra@austin.rr.com> wrote: Subject: Re: [App_rpt-users] Multiple nodes To: app_rpt-users@ohnosec.org Date: Sunday, September 28, 2014, 9:21 PM 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 -----Inline Attachment Follows----- _______________________________________________ App_rpt-users mailing list App_rpt-users@ohnosec.org http://ohnosec.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/app_rpt-users To unsubscribe from this list please visit http://ohnosec.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/app_rpt-users and scroll down to the bottom of the page. Enter your email address and press the "Unsubscribe or edit options button" You do not need a password to unsubscribe, you can do it via email confirmation. If you have trouble unsubscribing, please send a message to the list detailing the problem.
Johnny, Well this is not a BBB problem but rather the fact that when using simpleusb you don't have the SW capability to eliminate it. I would say that someone is just too picky but if the tail is longer than normal then it can be a problem. The squelch tail source is the fault of the RX at the particular node it is coming from. Sometimes even with PL you need to adjust the squelch up because of PL shutdown delays and also local noise problems. It is more of a problem with some radios than others. We use the Alincos quites a bit and with them the squelch setting norm is anywhere from 4 to 7 and not the default 2. 73 Doug WA3DSP http://www.crompton.com/hamradio
Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2014 08:11:15 -0700 From: cypresstower@yahoo.com To: app_rpt-users@ohnosec.org; k5tra@austin.rr.com Subject: Re: [App_rpt-users] Multiple nodes
BBB has one problem, I get complaints about a squelch crash I'm about to install an audio delay board... JK -------------------------------------------- On Sun, 9/28/14, k5tra <k5tra@austin.rr.com> wrote:
Subject: Re: [App_rpt-users] Multiple nodes To: app_rpt-users@ohnosec.org Date: Sunday, September 28, 2014, 9:21 PM
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
-----Inline Attachment Follows-----
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participants (5)
-
Doug Crompton -
Johnny Keeker -
k5tra -
Robert Newberry -
Tim Sawyer