[hfsig] WsprryPi sends tone only for a few seconds

Thu Apr 19 02:29:34 EDT 2018

John Peterson, i will soon try PiCW again. I never was able to get it to
work before.

Actually i may have to wait till i get another Pi, since two of mine are
dedicated to fixed tasks.

A year ago my Pi2 and the 20m tapr hat burned out, and i discovered that
the RG-174 cable i had built had shorted out. From now on i will buy, not
build, cables. That Pi2 still functions for many tasks, but the RF output
is close to zero, so i won't be using it for beaconing.

Orrin wn1z

On Wed, Apr 18, 2018, 00:10 John C. Peterson <jcp at eskimo.com> wrote:

>
> I had problems trying to use PiCW about a year ago. You didn't describe
> what happened *after* transmission stopped, but in my case, the R-Pi froze
> completely and required a cold reboot.
>
> I had some spare time to look into it, and discovered some non-trivial
> software related problems with PiCW that I was able to fix after some
> lengthy detective work. (I don't think these problems were James' fault,
> but appeared to have come from the new "mailbox" code for the Broadcom
> PWM chip that came from another project).  My fork of PiCW with the
> fixes is here;
>
> https://github.com/jcp-sd/PiCW
>
> The "plot thickens" is apropos at this point. One of the things the bad
> code did was to *DELETE* the PWM device node and try to re-create it
> (which it didn't do correctly among other problems).  I can't fathom
> what the intended purpose of that was, but that's what was there!!! So
> the bottom line is if you have ever (even once) run a version of PiCW
> with this issue, your PWM device node has been trashed and you need a
> fresh OS install to get back on track.
>
> I posted a pull request to James' project page for my PiCW fork, but just
> guessing he got busy (as I am now) and didn't see it. His version of PiCW
> still has this issue that mangles your PWM device node, so caveat emptor!
>
> At that time, I was using an older version of WsprryPi that was working
> fine, but later discovered James' newest version had the same issues as
> PiCW. I created a fork of WsprryPi with the same fixes that James has
> since merged into his master branch. So his latest WsprryPi should be
> good to go...
>
> I'm guessing that James' latest WsprryPi will work fine on a *fresh*
> install of the OS (just don't use his PiCW!).  You mentioned you were
> using a Stretch (Debian 9) based distro, and I have not tested that. So
> if that does not work, it's possible there has been some new regression
> with the PWM mailbox driver in the Stretch distros. In that case,
> I would try an older Jessie or Wheezy based distro for your R-Pi...
>
> P.S. Your TAPR Wspr-Pi shield is probably just fine. The shield isn't even
> required to run WsprryPi (a suitable BP filter is ...) I experimented
> with it for a close to a year using my own filters before the shield
> was even available.
>
> On Tue, Apr 17, 2018 at 04:32:47PM -0500, John wrote:
> > Simon,
> > I assume you're aware of the github page:
> https://github.com/JamesP6000/PiCW
> >
> > You might try contacting James direct.  I don't think he monitors
> > this mailing list.
> >
> > Zoltan, do you think HA7ILM would be able to help?  He seems to have
> > contributed to the project.
> >
> > On 4/17/2018 4:14 PM, Simon Quellen Field wrote:
> > > > Have you tried running PiCW without the WSPR board connected?
> > >>HA7DCD
> > >???> ???
> > >Zoltan
> > >
> > >It did not occur to me until you suggested it.
> > >I attached a wire to GPIO04 (GPIO_GCLK) Pin 7, and ran PiCW.
> > >
> > >I got the same results -- the first few characters were sent, then
> nothing.
> > >
> > >I then broke up my test message, so I could call PiCW with one
> > >latter at a time, with a sleep 1 between calls.
> > >Many of the letters got through, but perhaps a quarter of them were
> silent.
> > >
> > >These test seem to rule out problems with the card itself, and
> > >seem also to rule out problems with the PiCW program.
> > >
> > >Suspecting the NTP corrections might be short-circuiting some
> > >code, I tried PiCW with the -n option, which is supposed to
> > >turn off NTP self-calibration. The program returned an error
> > >message, saying that there was no -n option.
> > >
> > > ?? ??root at wsprpi:/home/pi/PiCW# PiCW -n -w 20 -f 14097000
> > > ?? ??Detected Raspberry Pi version 2/3
> > > ?? ??PiCW: invalid option -- 'n'
> > > ?? ??root at wsprpi:/home/pi/PiCW#
> > >
> > >I found the problem in the code (the call to getopt_long did not
> > >have an 'n' in the character string) and fixed that bug,
> > >but using the -n option did not fix my original problem.
> > > ?? ?? root at wsprpi:/home/pi/PiCW# PiCW -n -w 20 -f 14097000 "AB6NY
> > >TESTING MY NEW RASPERRY PI CW TRANSMITTER ON ?? ?? ?? 14.097 MHZ"
> > > ?? ?? Detected Raspberry Pi version 2/3
> > > ?? ?? PiCW parsed command line options:
> > > ?? ?? ?? TX frequency: 14.097000 MHz
> > > ?? ?? ?? WPM: 20
> > > ?? ?? Message to be sent:
> > > ?? ?? "AB6NY TESTING MY NEW RASPERRY PI CW TRANSMITTER ON 14.097 MHZ"
> > > ?? ?? ??AB6NY TESTING MY NEW RASPERRY PI CW TRANSMITTER ON 14.097 MHZ
> > >
> > >
> > >Then I tried "dit mode" where the -d option is supposed to send an
> > >endless string of dits.
> > > ?? ?? PiCW -d -w 20 -f 14097000
> > >I was encouraged when I heard a good 20 seconds or so of dits, but
> > >then it went silent again.
> > >
> > >Then I tried the test-tone option.
> > > ?? ?? root at wsprpi:/home/pi/PiCW# PiCW -t -f 14097000
> > > ?? ?? Detected Raspberry Pi version 2/3
> > > ?? ?? PiCW parsed command line options:
> > > ?? ?? ?? TX frequency: 14.097000 MHz
> > > ?? ?? ?? NTP will be used to periodically calibrate the transmission
> frequency
> > > ?? ?? Will transmit continuous tone on requested frequency. CTRL-C to
> exit.
> > > ?? ?? ??Exiting with error; caught signal: 2
> > > ?? ?? Exiting with error; caught signal: 11
> > > ?? ?? ^Croot at wsprpi:/home/pi/PiCW#
> > >
> > >Whether I use the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ or the new Raspberry Pi
> > >3 Model B v1.2, I get similar
> > >results. The timing of the length of the transmissions seem to be
> > >random. One time the -t option
> > >emitted a tone for over 10 seconds. The very next time I tried it
> > >the tone lasted only 4 seconds. The
> > >third time I got no tone at all. The fourth time the tone lasted 7
> seconds.
> > >
> > >All of these last tests were done without the card in place, just
> > >with a 3 foot wire antenna on pin 7.
> > >
> > >Has anyone tested PiCW or WsprryPi on the latest Raspian NOOBS?
> > >
> > >I've tried it with WiFi turned off -- same result.
> > >
> > >Could the Pi be trying to use the clock for sounds at random times?
> > >I am not hearing any sounds, but I don't know how to ensure that
> > >they don't happen.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >-----
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> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >_______________________________________________
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> > >hfsig at tapr.org
> > >http://www.tapr.org/mailman/listinfo/hfsig
> > >
> >
> > --
> > Sarcasm, just one of the many services I offer.
> > John, W9DDD
> > _______________________________________________
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> > hfsig at tapr.org
> > http://www.tapr.org/mailman/listinfo/hfsig
>
> --
> John C. Peterson, KD6EKQ DM12ju
> mailto:jcp at eskimo.com
> San Diego, CA U.S.A
>
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