ST. Clair County VFD's going MotoTRBO?

[codeplug]

Thanks for all of the info

[bob-the-scanner-man]

Just out of curiosity I tried to get DSD running earlier using Ubuntu 10.04. I've got to say, DSD is probably one of the most non user-friendly programs I've ever tried to use. There's supposed to be a "how-to" on the RR wiki but I couldn't ever find one.

I messed with it for a while and finally gave up on getting it installed on Ubuntu.

[scannerfreak]

Everything you need to know is here:

DSD 1.4 and mbelib 1.2.3 released

DSD 1.4 and mbelib 1.2.3 released - This post explains how to install

Happy reading

[bob-the-scanner-man]

Originally Posted by scannerfreak

Everything you need to know is here:

DSD 1.4 and mbelib 1.2.3 released

DSD 1.4 and mbelib 1.2.3 released - This post explains how to install

Happy reading

Thanks!

That should do the trick. I'll give it another try sometime tomorrow. Of course, I'm kind of jumping the gun since I still haven't added a discriminator tap to any of my radios.

[medic9351301]

any pics on how to tap it i read the wikki page and it tells nothing

[bob-the-scanner-man]

You've got to search for instructions for your particular model of scanner. I'm thinking I may do this to a BC246T, so I just search for "BC246T discriminator tap" on Google. RR.com may or may not have the instructions.

[bob-the-scanner-man]

This program seems to have something against me. I followed those instructions and made sure that I typed the version numbers of my downloaded programs. I kept getting an error message along the lines of "File does not exist".

Is it possible to run DSD off a Ubuntu boot disk? I can access my drives on the computer so it seems as if I should be able to compile this program and then just save it to my hard drive. That way I don't have to actually install Ubuntu but I'll still have DSD readily available. I'm just having trouble actually compiling the program.

[KJ4TND]

Step 1: install Ubuntu 10.04 on your computer(its free). This may be done as either a standalone install or as a second operating system on a windoze system.

Step 2: using the firefox web browser included in Ubuntu (aplications/internet/firefox) download the mbelib and deb files. They will be stored in the downloades folder (places/downloads)

Step 3: open the downloads folder (places/downloads). Select the DSD... file. Right click on it and select "extract here". A second folder will appear (it wont have the .tar extension in the name). Open that folder and select the .gz sub folder. Right click on it and select extract here.
A new folder will appear DSD...., right click on this and select rename. rename the folder "d". Now select the "d" folder and drag it over the first folder under the "Places" on the left side of the browser pane. This will put the "d" folder in your home folder.

Step 4: repeat step 3 but select the mbelib folder, also rename the final folder "m" once done you can close the browser pane.

Step 5: select the terminal program (aplications/accessories/terminal). Upon selecting you should see a pane open up and a command prompt with something like this in it "mine@mine-Laptop:-$". The names are not important the ":-$" is. Type "cd m" you should get "mine@mine-Laptop:~/m$" .
next type "sudo make" hit enter, you will be prompted for your password (its the one you made up when you installed Ubuntu), type it in NOTE that the curser does not indicate the letters being typed but they are being typed, once done hit enter. You should see a pile of lines starting with "gcc" appear and the curser displaying the "mine@mine-Laptop:~/m$" again. Now type in "sudo make install" and hit enter. once again there will be a pile of lines with the curser at the bottom displaying "mine@mine-Laptop:~/m$". You have successfully installed the first half of the program. Keep the terminal program open and go to the next step.

Step 6: Still in the terminal program type in "cd" the curser should now say "mine@mine-Laptop:-$" again. Type "cd d" you should get "mine@mine-Laptop:~/d$" next type "sudo make" hit enter, you will be prompted for your password (its the one you made up when you installed Ubuntu), type it in NOTE that the curser does not indicate the letters being typed but they are being typed, once done hit enter. You should see a pile of lines starting with "gcc" appear and the curser displaying the "mine@mine-Laptop:~/d$" again. Now type in "sudo make install" and hit enter. once again there will be a pile of lines with the curser at the bottom displaying "mine@mine-Laptop:~/d$" . thats it the program is installed. keep

Step 7: to run the routine connect your scanner to the mike input of the computer and type "dsd". if there is no current input the prompt will say sync:no sync once there is input you will see lots of lines of info. To get the input correct you will have to play with the line or mic input level setting.

Step 8: there is no step 8 you are finished.

[b5bartender]

Bob, you can indeed install and run DSD from only the LiveCD without having to do a permanent install... just follow the directions KJ4TND posted, and DSD will be installed to the temporary RAM drive created by the boot CD. The only caveat to doing it this way is that everything is lost when the computer is powered off, and you'll have to go through each of those steps again the next time.

also, if you get it successfully installed, run "dsd -s" at the command line, and you'll get a basic display scope of the signal too... this is helpful to determine whether or not you're receiving anything.

[bob-the-scanner-man]

Thanks for the help, both of you! I'll give it another shot tomorrow.

The main thing for me is just seeing if I can get Ubuntu and DSD up and running. Once I've done that I'll set up something that's a little more permanent and add a tap to a scanner. I figure this way when I've got everything ready to go, I won't have to worry about getting DSD running since I'll already know how

Thanks again!

[scannerfreak]

Originally Posted by b5bartender

Bob, you can indeed install and run DSD from only the LiveCD without having to do a permanent install... just follow the directions KJ4TND posted, and DSD will be installed to the temporary RAM drive created by the boot CD. The only caveat to doing it this way is that everything is lost when the computer is powered off, and you'll have to go through each of those steps again the next time.

also, if you get it successfully installed, run "dsd -s" at the command line, and you'll get a basic display scope of the signal too... this is helpful to determine whether or not you're receiving anything.

Yeah, I think those instructions above are the best. I've got it running on a WIN7 machine using dual boot and it works great using the GRE PSR 800's built in IF out feature.

[bob-the-scanner-man]

Used that set of instructions and got the program up and running from the LiveCD.

Now I just need to add a discriminator tap. I'm thinking now I'll probably start out with adding a tap to my Radioshack Pro-2050. It's an earlier analog trunking scanner but it will trunktrack Jefferson County's system, it just won't decode the P25. I figure it will have more room to work with than the BC246T would.

[wwhitby]

Originally Posted by b5bartender

Bob, you can indeed install and run DSD from only the LiveCD without having to do a permanent install... just follow the directions KJ4TND posted, and DSD will be installed to the temporary RAM drive created by the boot CD. The only caveat to doing it this way is that everything is lost when the computer is powered off, and you'll have to go through each of those steps again the next time.

You can also use a USB thumb drive to create a persistant Ubuntu boot disk. Instructions on how to do that are here on rr.com. I've run DSD on a Dell netbook to monitor the Montgomery ProVoice system using a persistant thumb drive.

And, it did take a good bit of tinkering with DSD and Ubuntu to get it working. I really wish their was a Windows OS version, and that's coming from someone who used to work with Unix back in the early 90s.

Warren

[kkn50]

Heard tonight, 12/17/2012, on 154.010, "digital radio switchover will not occur tomorrow as planned, further testing is needed".

Sounds like monitoring St. Clair fire may be near the end for the average scanner user.

[codeplug]

Great info about DSD.
Has anyone actually been able to decode the TRBO audio on the St. Clair County VFD's or any of the other St. Clair County TRBO systems? Pell City, Moody Etc.