dsdplus with analog scanner

LimaZulu

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That big copper area looks the same in the R2 and are at the same spot as the R2, but I'm not 100% sure.
.....

Not quite sure it is the big one. I do own R5 (and did the mod) and the point to solder to is the little circular one with a hole in the middle.

2B93C171-E38F-4F80-8BB7-F42FAF472DD2.jpeg

Will try to take some time and post a picture of mine R5 soon.
 

Telyron

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Not quite sure it is the big one. I do own R5 (and did the mod) and the point to solder to is the little circular one with a hole in the middle.



Will try to take some time and post a picture of mine R5 soon.
Oh thank you great! Yes it would be nice to know for sure before starting to solder stuff... I will wait for your post, appreciate.
 

Ubbe

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I don't know if it would be a problem but I am using a MacBook Pro with windows on it
If you use the earphone jack on R6 you should be able to decode some data and at least get a garbled voice. If you get nothing it's probably the MacBooks fault.

I can use a mini laptop with Atom N100 processor, very slow, but can still use SDS# and DSDPlus on it, at a low sampling rate in SDS# but it uses 100% of the CPU's resources and struggles a bit, and it cost me $50 with Win7 and a SSD disk. You can probably use any laptop that has Win7 on it and at least 4GB of RAM.

/Ubbe
 

LimaZulu

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If you use the earphone jack on R6 you should be able to decode some data and at least get a garbled voice. If you get nothing it's probably the MacBooks fault.

I can use a mini laptop with Atom N100 processor, very slow, but can still use SDS# and DSDPlus on it, at a low sampling rate in SDS# but it uses 100% of the CPU's resources and struggles a bit, and it cost me $50 with Win7 and a SSD disk. You can probably use any laptop that has Win7 on it and at least 4GB of RAM.

/Ubbe

SDR# is CPU hungry. One thing you can do is to turn off spectrum analyzer, waterfall and all FFT additional screens. Or at least turn on only spectrum or waterfall if you want to see them all the time. But if you don't - tune in and turn off :) Or even better - switch to SDR++ :)
 

Ubbe

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SDR# is CPU hungry. One thing you can do is to turn off spectrum analyzer, waterfall and all FFT additional screens.
That's what I did. No point in having power hungry graphic windows open that have no use.
Or even better - switch to SDR++ :)
I use a very old SDR# but will look into SDR++ if its features can be used and what resources it needs, thanks for the tip.

/Ubbe
 

slicerwizard

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I don't know if the circuit @slicewizard suggested would work significantly better... there's not much space to solder more components inside the R6... (that resistor under the RF shield will be enough of a nightmare)
A 10k resistor will deliver a signal that is too hot (distorted/overloading) for a mic input. And for a line input, the signal will be too low (quiet) and will have degraded DC response.
 

Telyron

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Hello everyone, sorry but in these days I have been sick. I am waiting to do the mod you suggested cause of 2 reasons:
1 I don't know the right point to extract the signal, some suggest the square and others the circle contacts....
2 the main reason is that I am not sure that it is the only problem I have going on here, cause some suggested that at least I should hear garbled voice without the discriminator plug. When I turn on DSDPlus it says that the connection are made on the right ports and I see a wave on the oscilloscope window, but the log windows shows continuously the error I stated in the first post of this thread... It looks for a TCP connection and the machine refuse it. Can anyone tell me how can I set DSDPlus to hear the audio live from the microphone port and start decoding it, without entering in this error loop?
 

slicerwizard

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From the Notes.txt file:

Using DSD+ with external signal sources

DSD+ can be used with external signal sources such as a properly discriminator-tapped receiver
or SDR software such as SDR#. To use DSD+ with these sources, use the menus in DSD+ to
select Passive Digital Monitor mode and then to select the audio input device that carries
the digital audio signal. When running in this mode, DSD+ can be used to monitor conventional
analog and supported digital signals; DSD+ will not directly support trunk tracking.
 

Telyron

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sorry but there are no such options in the dsd plus file I have, neither the notes.txt file. I have the free version called DSDPlus1p101: you can find this on the main site of dsdplus.
Please if I am wrong tell me where I can find the menu you are talking about and how can I change that setting.
Thank you.
 

Telyron

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From the Notes.txt file:

Using DSD+ with external signal sources

DSD+ can be used with external signal sources such as a properly discriminator-tapped receiver
or SDR software such as SDR#. To use DSD+ with these sources, use the menus in DSD+ to
select Passive Digital Monitor mode and then to select the audio input device that carries
the digital audio signal. When running in this mode, DSD+ can be used to monitor conventional
analog and supported digital signals; DSD+ will not directly support trunk tracking.
 

Ubbe

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You are probably staring DSD by some bat file. Instead doubleclick on DSDplus.exe and it will start a couple of windows and look in the DOS window.

It will say what input and output devices you have. Look in the Changes.txt file for explanation. dsdplus.exe -i1 -o2 will start using input #1 as input and output #2 as output device.

/Ubbe
 

Telyron

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You are probably staring DSD by some bat file. Instead doubleclick on DSDplus.exe and it will start a couple of windows and look in the DOS window.

It will say what input and output devices you have. Look in the Changes.txt file for explanation. dsdplus.exe -i1 -o2 will start using input #1 as input and output #2 as output device.

/Ubbe
Yes up to that point I could get, the fact is that even though my input and output devices are set correctly, I continue to have that error message and hear no voice or sound in general in my earphones...
 

Ubbe

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What does the DOS window say about your input and output devices when you start the program? What OS do you have, it it a real OS or simulated running on a MAC or in a cloud?

The -i command are for both the audio input device and for a net connection. It should only do net if you state an full IP number and a port number, so you must have been using a bat file or have stated the start parameters in a shortcut to get a net connection. If you only start DSDPlus.exe -i1 it should only try to use an audio device and no network connection. If you start by typing only DSDPlus it could start a bat file with that name that you are not aware of. If you type DSDPlus.exe -h you get all available commands.

-i<spec> Input audio device (1-255) and channel (M/L/R) [-i1M]
-i<[addr:]port> FMP TCP link IPv4 address and port number

/Ubbe
 

Telyron

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What does the DOS window say about your input and output devices when you start the program? What OS do you have, it it a real OS or simulated running on a MAC or in a cloud?

The -i command are for both the audio input device and for a net connection. It should only do net if you state an full IP number and a port number, so you must have been using a bat file or have stated the start parameters in a shortcut to get a net connection. If you only start DSDPlus.exe -i1 it should only try to use an audio device and no network connection. If you start by typing only DSDPlus it could start a bat file with that name that you are not aware of. If you type DSDPlus.exe -h you get all available commands.

-i<spec> Input audio device (1-255) and channel (M/L/R) [-i1M]
-i<[addr:]port> FMP TCP link IPv4 address and port number

/Ubbe

Hello, I tried what you suggested but it makes no difference. I ran DSDPlus.exe from the command prompt with -i1M, but still nothing to hear, not even static, and the cc.bat shows me this error:

"DSD+ 1.101pt
Program role is control/rest channel decoder
Source audio waveform window origin set to (400,2)
Source audio waveform window dimensions set to 100x200
Event log window origin set to (0,1)
Channel window origin set to (0,445)
Event log window dimensions set to 400x520
Appending synthesized audio to file 'CC-DSDPlus.wav'
0 frequency records loaded
0 radio records loaded
0 group records loaded
0 site records loaded
0 network records loaded

Initiating TCP connection to 127.0.0.1:20001...
audio output device #1 = 'Cuffie (Cirrus Logic CS4208 (AB'
audio output device #2 = 'Audio digitale (S/PDIF) (Cirrus'
audio output device #3 = 'Altoparlanti (Cirrus Logic CS42'

audio output device #1 (Cuffie (Cirrus Logic CS4208 (AB) initialized

D-STAR decoding enabled
NXDN4800 decoding enabled
NXDN9600 decoding enabled
DMR/MotoTRBO decoding enabled
P25 Phase 1 decoding enabled
X2-TDMA decoding enabled
ProVoice decoding enabled
TCP connect error = 10061
[No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it]"

and it loops the last part... maybe I have to take other steps rather than just opening the .exe file...

I am using a macbook pro with a disk partitioner to run windows 10, so in booting its at all effects a windows intel machine.
Windows settings does recognise my input and output devices.
 

Ubbe

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Don't run the cc.bat file. don't run any bat files.

The cc.bat file contains: DSDPlus -rc -i20001 -v3 -wsl400.2 -wss100.200 -wel0.1 -wcl0.445 -wes400.520 >>CC.log
It uses your own PC internal IP adress and port 2001 as specified in the -i parameter and it will then not start the DSDPlus program, but if it would start it would dump all data to a log file.

Edit that cc.bat and put a REM before that line "REM DSDPlus -rc" and so on
On the next line write DSDPlus -i1 -o1
or whatever your proper input and output audio device are.

You should see audio in the oscilloscope window and adjust your signal level until you have noise filling up the screen fully and when receiving a data signal from your scanner it should fill up to about 75% to the top and bottom.

DSDPlus outputs the decoded audio from the DMR data to audio output device #1 and not the received audio from the scanner.

If it manage to decode anything it will be shown in the event log window. But you will need to run dsdtune.exe first to get the proper parameters that you'll need to add to the DSDPlus line. Dsdtune needs a recorded file of the data and you push the R key on the keyboard to start and stop a recording when you have DSDPlus running. A 10 sec recording are enough from a continous DMR datasignal.


Before doing anything, are windows fully working, you have sound output and can record sound succesfully?
It seems to struggle with that MacBook hardware as it doesn't say that the output are a speaker, but it could work anyhow.

/Ubbe
 
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Telyron

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I have done what you said but I still manage to decode nothing:
this is the output.
D-STAR decoding enabled
NXDN4800 decoding enabled
NXDN9600 decoding enabled
DMR/MotoTRBO decoding enabled
P25 Phase 1 decoding enabled
X2-TDMA decoding enabled
ProVoice decoding enabled

Mono audio decoding initiated; press Esc to exit...
but nothing happens and nothing is shown in the log window except for the basic messages of decodings enabled (signal on the oscilloscope window is very clean...
 

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a417

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but I am using a MacBook Pro with windows on it,
I have used MBPs (5,1 & 12,1 currently) with debian/windows/osx triple boot on them for DSD for years. Works just fine. Which version is yours?
 

Ubbe

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nothing happens and nothing is shown in the log window except for the basic messages of decodings enabled (signal on the oscilloscope window is very clean...
I couldn't find my R2 to test but took the BCD436 and I get -DMR BS DATA ERR2 DCC=9 and similar messages from the idle data burst of a cap+ channel when using the earphone jack. I started clean by
dsdplus.exe -i4 -fr as my line input are device #4 and -fr says to only decode DMR.

When you ran the dsdtune program, did you get values for all parameters or did everything result in zero?
Can you configure anything in windows for the audio input, like direct mode and DC offset ignore and sampling speed?
Try different levels both lower and higher. When I have the signal reach to both top and bottom it sometimes actually starts to decode the correct DCC which is 1 for this channel. My audio looks like this from a short data burst when I had it at a lower level.

1670972806364.png

/Ubbe
 

LimaZulu

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Oh thank you great! Yes it would be nice to know for sure before starting to solder stuff... I will wait for your post, appreciate.

@Telyron, sorry for the delay but better later than never :)
So, I took some pictures. R5 looks a bit different from R6 from inside, plus my bad soldering skills back in the days, plus the heatshrink that I put covers most of the internals but I hope it helps you at least a bit.
Now that I opened my scanner again, I do remember that QUAD point is marked as seen on the photos
20221216_230826.jpg 20221216_230938.jpg
 

Telyron

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Hello guys, sorry for the absence but I had to study for a physics exam that I had, but now I am ready to close this question cause frankly i's becoming very frustrating: in the meantime I bought a DMR radio, to make sure that the signal that I am trying to decode is actually DMR, and sure enough, it does not make any difference, DSDPlus is still not able to decode a damn thing.

I think that the only thing to do now would be to install a bypass for the discriminator as many of you suggested, the issue? I don't know which of the soldering taps that are on the motherboard is where I am supposed to attach the positive terminal...
LimaZulu I don't understand from your picture if you soledered on the square one ore the circle one equivalents on my R6 (cause they are pretty different but the components should be similar.... right?)
 
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