tampatracker
Member
- Joined
- Dec 9, 2007
- Messages
- 1,241
For a beginner looking to receive ProVoice what would I need to get started, in laypersons terms. I am very scanner savvy but not on computer software/terminology. Thanks in advance TT.
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Tampa - you need a scanner with a discriminator tap, a PC (or laptop or netbook) with some kind of Linux on it, and the dsd and mbelib software at the top of this thread's first page. I used Ubuntu Linux (Ubuntu homepage | Ubuntu) and put it on a spare netbook (actually, I managed to dual-boot config the machine to run either Win XP or Ubuntu).
Some computers are tricky to get audio working in Linux, particularly in Ubuntu - that will most likely be your biggest hurdle. There's lots of help on the net of course to assist you in that regard.
Once you get Ubuntu set up and running, you have to install dsd and mbelib. I don't recall if someone has put instructions somewhere above in this thread, but it is fairly straightforward - you run "make" commands to compile the software from its source code into executables. Come to think of it, there has to be instructions or at least a README file in the archive.
After that, all you need is to plug the discriminator tapped output of the scanner into the line in/mic in/whatever input on the computer, and run dsd. Dsd is command line software, which you run using Linux's "terminal" app (like command.com or cmd on older Windows machines, simplistically speaking). By default, dsd will take whatever discriminator audio as input and, if it recognizes an audio format, convert it and output that audio. I don't have a Provoice signal near me, but I know of others who have been successful with it. You can also have it record to .wav files if you like, which it will do at the same time as it's outputting to your speakers.
If I were setting up a permanent decoder for Provoice, what I would do is run something like Unitrunker on a Windows machine, with a compatible scanner doing the signal work (probably a USB equipped "inline" scanner, but that's just my choice), and drive a discriminator-tapped scanner as Unitrunker's voice scanner. That voice scanner I would pipe into the dsd application on the Ubuntu setup. The end result is, Unitrunker would drive the tapped scanner to tune the Provoice frequency, and that scanner would feed its tapped audio into dsd, which would output normal audio. It's hardly a portable setup - you'd need two scanners and two PCs to do that - but it would give you Provoice decoding of at least one trunk talkgroup at a time.
Some computers are tricky to get audio working in Linux, particularly in Ubuntu - that will most likely be your biggest hurdle. There's lots of help on the net of course to assist you in that regard.
Once you get Ubuntu set up and running, you have to install dsd and mbelib. I don't recall if someone has put instructions somewhere above in this thread, but it is fairly straightforward - you run "make" commands to compile the software from its source code into executables. Come to think of it, there has to be instructions or at least a README file in the archive.
After that, all you need is to plug the discriminator tapped output of the scanner into the line in/mic in/whatever input on the computer, and run dsd. Dsd is command line software, which you run using Linux's "terminal" app (like command.com or cmd on older Windows machines, simplistically speaking). By default, dsd will take whatever discriminator audio as input and, if it recognizes an audio format, convert it and output that audio. I don't have a Provoice signal near me, but I know of others who have been successful with it. You can also have it record to .wav files if you like, which it will do at the same time as it's outputting to your speakers.
If I were setting up a permanent decoder for Provoice, what I would do is run something like Unitrunker on a Windows machine, with a compatible scanner doing the signal work (probably a USB equipped "inline" scanner, but that's just my choice), and drive a discriminator-tapped scanner as Unitrunker's voice scanner. That voice scanner I would pipe into the dsd application on the Ubuntu setup. The end result is, Unitrunker would drive the tapped scanner to tune the Provoice frequency, and that scanner would feed its tapped audio into dsd, which would output normal audio. It's hardly a portable setup - you'd need two scanners and two PCs to do that - but it would give you Provoice decoding of at least one trunk talkgroup at a time.
racingfan360
Member
- Joined
- Dec 19, 2005
- Messages
- 1,190
>I'm trying to decode mototrbo but what i get is garbled audio. Please could someone upload a .mbe capture from a successful trbo decoding so i can check the output?
Have you tried inverting the signal (ie running dsd -xr) ?
Have you tried inverting the signal (ie running dsd -xr) ?
Yes, i tried to invert the signal, but my setup is not inverted. I know everything is fine, so i want to try some mbe file to check the vocoder.
It's very possible they are using Privacy then....
According to the java DMRDecoder, they don't have privacy activated.
According to the java DMRDecoder, they don't have privacy activated.
What is your input level? I have the best success with 4%-8%. Also, don't ask why this works, but if you're using a laptop with a dual boot windows/Linux, try disabling the built in microphone through windows. When it restarts in ubuntu it stays disabled and prevents the built in mic audio from interfering with the discriminator tap audio. Doing the above, and running DSD with "dsd -xr -fr" finally got me decoding DMR (trbo) successfully.
Thanks for the comments, but my audio input is ok. I tested with different levels, best demodulation results with 40%. My setup is non inverted, so using -xr results in wrong packets being decoded as voice because of the header bits inversion.
Please, could someone upload some sample .mbe files? It's easy, just type dsd -d [output dir]
Best regards,
Sycho
Please, could someone upload some sample .mbe files? It's easy, just type dsd -d [output dir]
Best regards,
Sycho
HDMechanic
Member
I have a couple of quick questions and hope someone can help me out. I have been trying to read all the info in this forum but keep running out of time so I apoligize if someone has already asked. My first question. Has anyone tried to use a uniden XT model to feed audio into the program with out having to install a discrimunator tap ?? Second question has anyone tried winradio models with this program and if so do the winradios have audio out? Im really interested in the winradio due to the fact that you can run a trunking program with the radio and if it has audio out im think you could run the audio into the computer as well and mabe run it almost like a scanner with that combo.
smason
Member
Really no need, it's dead simple to compile, don't even need to configure.
DSD Author
I was wondering if the author of DSD could contact me directly at RobertKlamp@aol.com I have some questions for you. It would be very much appreciated if could cold email me.
Thanks,
Bob
I was wondering if the author of DSD could contact me directly at RobertKlamp@aol.com I have some questions for you. It would be very much appreciated if could cold email me.
Thanks,
Bob
ilgrant
Member
I was wondering the same thing. However, after the debacle I just had going from 9.10 to 10.04 I'm not ready to try 11.04 yet. I'll let someone else play.
>> Will dsd work with the latest version of ubuntu that just came out.
>> Will dsd work with the latest version of ubuntu that just came out.
I am contemplating getting one of the new Commodore machines which purports a tri-boot Ubuntu 11.x/Windows/CommodoreOS setup, if I can manage to convince myself of my need for it 
One of the things I'm considering is if I will have reasons to use the Linux part for DSD in a non-mobile setting.
I will probably get it anyway just for the novelty of seeing a C64 running DSD while playing back a BluRay movie :lol:
One of the things I'm considering is if I will have reasons to use the Linux part for DSD in a non-mobile setting.I will probably get it anyway just for the novelty of seeing a C64 running DSD while playing back a BluRay movie :lol:
I thought I remembered reading that after Ubuntu 10.04 the newer versions of the OS handled the sound card differently so DSD wouldn't work?
Question for DSDAuthor if you still read this thread: we've had some fun using the DMRDecode program to start reverse engineering the OSWs used by mototrbo capacity plus trunking. This would be by no means a necessary add-on (you could always map out the frequency and time slot LCNs first with DMRDecode) but do you plan on adding DMR Talkgroup (or Radio ID) support to DSD?
This would be incredibly helpful to those of us with only one computer (right now I can listen to the system in DSD but have no way to correlate the channels I hear to talkgroup IDs). Alternatively, if you could figure out how to allow both programs to access the soundcard concurrently in Ubuntu, that would also solve the problem.
Thanks for your time!
Question for DSDAuthor if you still read this thread: we've had some fun using the DMRDecode program to start reverse engineering the OSWs used by mototrbo capacity plus trunking. This would be by no means a necessary add-on (you could always map out the frequency and time slot LCNs first with DMRDecode) but do you plan on adding DMR Talkgroup (or Radio ID) support to DSD?
This would be incredibly helpful to those of us with only one computer (right now I can listen to the system in DSD but have no way to correlate the channels I hear to talkgroup IDs). Alternatively, if you could figure out how to allow both programs to access the soundcard concurrently in Ubuntu, that would also solve the problem.
Thanks for your time!
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