Interest in a pre-configured low power streamer?

Okay, after a lot of experimenting, swearing, and tool throwing, I have finally made a breakthrough. I have come up with a scanner feed computer that is arguably the perfect standalone streamer. It draws slightly more power than a Raspberry Pi, and is more expensive, but being Windows based, it allows you to do alpha tags - something currently not possible on a Pi (the reason I decided not to use it) and Linux is a little intimidating if you are used to using Windows.

It is a Dell Optiplex FX170 "Thin Client". Basically these little guys are Atom processor based, with a little SSD drive and 2GB RAM. They run off a 12V adapter (it originally comes with a 3A supply, but it only draws about 12 watts. It works fine with any 1A wall wart you have laying around). I am currently testing a Belkin BU3DC001-12V (a 12V UPS designed for VOIP modems, can be had on ebay for about $25) to see how long it can power the unit on battery (once it's fully charged I'll unplug it). The best part is running 24/7, these only cost about $2 a month to run - compare that with your average tower/desktop, which costs $15-20 a month, or a laptop at about $10 a month.

They originally come with Windows Embedded, which unfortunately is awful - the factory image is designed for connecting to terminal servers, not installing/running programs natively. I ran into all kinds of problems trying to install RadioFeed, and it even complained about low disk space when installing the driver for the scanner's USB adapter which made me almost throw it at the wall. And unfortunately their limited hard drive space also causes issues when trying to install full versions of Windows. However I have created a custom install of WinXP that fits within the tiny hard drive and still has room to spare - and it has none of the quirks or limitations of Embedded.

They will come with RadioFeed software preinstalled and configured to autostart. All you will have to do is input your RadioReference credentials and start streaming. The drivers for the most common USB/serial converters will also be preinstalled. They will also have the free version of Teamviewer 10 installed and configured for unattended access. All you will have to do is create an account with them and register the computer, and then you will be able to administer your stream from anywhere - including smartphones! You don't even need to have a monitor/keyboard/mouse hooked up after you do the initial setup!

How many of you would be interested in buying one of these all ready to go? I'd ask $150 shipped to your door (it would pay for itself in as little as 7 months with the power savings alone over a tower).

KD0TAZ said:

And unfortunately their limited hard drive space also causes issues when trying to install full versions of Windows. However I have created a custom install of WinXP that fits within the tiny hard drive and still has room to spare - and it has none of the quirks or limitations of Embedded.

Click to expand...

These thin clients are fantastic for streaming - quiet with low power consumption. I have an HP T5730 thin client streaming two feeds.

I solved the drive space problem in my client by replacing the 1 GB SSD drive with a used 2.5" IDE laptop drive I had laying around. The T5730 has a 44-pin IDE interface, so I bought a 44-pin female-to-female IDE converter cable:

Amazon.com: Micro SATA Cables - 2.5 Inch 44-Pin Female to Female IDE Converter Cable - 6 Inch: Computers & Accessories

connected the drive, installed Windows XP from a thumb drive, installed RadioFeed & the FTDI driver (for alpha tags), and away we went. The drive was a tight fit in the client, but it did fit.

Yeah the thought crossed my mind to increase the storage, but I didn't want to put more money into it. Besides that, the only company that makes the larger capacity IDE DOM (Disk On Module) boards is some chinese company with a shaky reputation, and trust me, there is NO room inside the one I picked to put a laptop drive inside - this thing is actually SMALLER than the scanner it's connected to!

KD0TAZ said:

Besides that, the only company that makes the larger capacity IDE DOM (Disk On Module) boards is some chinese company with a shaky reputation, and trust me, there is NO room inside the one I picked to put a laptop drive inside - this thing is actually SMALLER than the scanner it's connected to!

Click to expand...

Wow, that's small! Thank you for sharing it ... I was wondering how small the Dell clients were; sounds like they're a good bit smaller than the HP clients.

Yeah I've seen the HP TC's before, and I was shocked at the size of the Dell when I opened the box.. It's literally half the size of the HP! It's seriously not much bigger than a regular 3.5" hard drive.

KD0TAZ, In your post pic your Pro-197 has it's squelch knob all the way counter-clockwise (wide open).
I don't know if your only scanning a P25 TSYS and or any conventional objects with tones set obviously
however, it's still best to set the squelch knob to about 11 o'clock ("S" then pulses, not steady on, etc)
All the best to you.

The P25 system is the only thing it's scanning. There is no analog in the list at all. In this scenario, the squelch control does nothing because the squelch is opened and closed by activity on the control channel. The S doesn't disappear even with the squelch at Max.

Michael-SATX said:

KD0TAZ, In your post pic your Pro-197 has it's squelch knob all the way counter-clockwise (wide open).
I don't know if your only scanning a P25 TSYS and or any conventional objects with tones set obviously
however, it's still best to set the squelch knob to about 11 o'clock ("S" then pulses, not steady on, etc)
All the best to you.

Click to expand...

MMmkay so an hour after you read my reply (I had the thread open on another computer so your original post was still there), you changed your post to include all the things I mentioned, and it's still wrong.. The squelch control has no effect when scanning only digital.

This was the original post:

Michael-SATX said:

KD0TAZ, In your post pic your Pro-197 has it's squelch knob all the way counter-clockwise (wide open). I know your scanning a TSYS however, it's still best to set the squelch knob to about 11 o'clock ("S" disappears).
All the best to you.

Click to expand...

KD0TAZ,

Have you tried multiple feeds from one of these units, if so how many?

I thought about offering the same thing, a preconfigured streaming Thin-Client PC.... I'd say for someone who wants a plug AND play set-up $150 is a good deal....

I have been using a Thin Client for a few years now to run my stream as well as run an instance of Two-Tone Detect and it runs great. IMO Windows embedded works great for this application. It uses a flash drive rather than a hard drive and I think this is one of its biggest virtues. Once you set it up to run Pro Scan, Two-Tone Detect, you lock the flash drive and everything is write-protected and secure. This means you can just pull the plug or loose power and when it's re-powered it will boot back up and auto-restart everything and there is no worries of data corruption. It is also relatively secure.....

I have 4 different TC' two of the Dells and two HPs and I'm presently running the HP. The Dell worked really well I just went with the HP as it had 4 GB of memory and my Dells only had 2 which makes a big difference in performance. The size of the flash drive is something else to consider. Most of these have very small flash drives 2GB? which leaves little to no room for additional software.

Tom, I would say you probably could handle at least a couple instances of ProScan providing you get a unit with 4GB Flash and 4GB or more of memory.... You would just have to add additional usb sound cards which as you are probably aware, are sometimes a challenge to set up.....If you buy a beefier TC you could do more.....

Thread moved as this is not a Broadcastify Administration issue.

tbendick said:

KD0TAZ,

Have you tried multiple feeds from one of these units, if so how many?

Click to expand...

I stream a single stereo feed. I have not gotten to the point of multiple instances of RadioFeed yet. However I don't think it would be an issue. Even though these clients only have 2GB of RAM, RadioFeed does not consume a lot. In the screengrabs below, it's actually the TeamViewer session that's chewing up the most CPU cycles. RadioFeed is sitting comfortably at 14%. I don't think it would have any issues with two instances. Three might be pushing it as far as having TeamViewer connected as well, but if you have a monitor hooked up and didn't use the remote access I don't think there'd be any problem there either. As was already mentioned, these only have one usable input jack (it's a selectable line/mic jack). So multiple instances would require USB sound cards, but since it's running full XP (versus Embedded), it should install like any other USB device.

As you can see the feed has been up for almost 6 days without a hiccup. And also notice there are only 19 processes running (a standard XP Home install runs approximately 50 processes just idling). I created a modified slim version of XP that has only what it needs to be a streamer and nothing more. Even with the one instance of RadioFeed and the TeamViewer session it's only using 300MB out of the 2GB of RAM. It doesn't even take that long to boot up.

The whole issue with thin clients is the storage space. You can't put full windows installs on them (without increasing the storage), and the Embedded versions don't like installing drivers or third party apps that weren't "baked in" when the image was originally assembled.. This particular TC can come with either a 2GB or 4GB SSD. The image I created is 1.3GB, so there's plenty of room for the software/drivers in either scenario. I banked on this particular machine because of its uber-low power consumption. As I said it was a nightmare getting everything to play nicely, but that's why I'm offering to sell them preconfigured - because now that I've done all the work for you and got it all figured out, it works like a charm.

My experience

I realize that you have ruled out the Raspberry Pi as it doesn't fit your needs. But i thought that i would add my experience with them. I have been running two Model B pi's each running TwoToneDetect and a darkice stream to Broadcastify for about two years without issue. Two others that i helped others set up have been running for six months and over a year respectively without being touched. All reboot daily and auto restart on power restoration.

This year i purchased a Pi2. On that one i have two instances of TTD running concurrently with two darkice streams and all seem to work well. CPU usage remains low (python is the TTD program, darkice is the feed.). When i feed audio in, the python programs go up to 10-12%, but darkice remains at around 3%. My hope is to replace the two Model B pi's with the pi2 after i finish testing. Oh, yeah, this is all running wifi.

I would think that i could run four feeds on the pi2 if i could keep the sound cards straight.

I haven't tried it but i believe that the pi can do alpha tags if connected to a Uniden scanner.

I agree that Linux probably isn't for Mainstream America!

Good luck with your project.

I don't have a Uniden.

Can this setup run Audacity, or some type of audio recording software and does it have the power to record in real time? I need a small client that can record to at least .mp3, not really interested in feeding though.

If it's a trunked system monitored with unitrunker, check trunk recorder.

Sent from my SGH-I337M using Tapatalk

upstatesc said:

Can this setup run Audacity, or some type of audio recording software and does it have the power to record in real time? I need a small client that can record to at least .mp3, not really interested in feeding though.

Click to expand...

Have you read this?

https://sites.google.com/site/glyman3home/radiosave

Sorry for some reason I didn't get notifications on your replies..

Yeah it will run Audacity.. However as I said it has very limited storage - most of which is already occupied by Windows, so you will need to plug in a thumb drive or external hard drive, or set up a network share for it to record to.

And just for clarification, this is NOT doing any kind of SDR. It is hooked up to a PRO-197, and all it's doing is streaming the audio (from line in) and metadata (from USB). I honestly do not know at this point if the processor is powerful enough to handle SDR, it's something I'm going to play with down the road.