TwoToneDetect New TwoToneDetect in the works - Python based

[danielsexton]

We've been using two-tone detect for a number of years without any issue. We were using our own email domain and account to send the MMS messages as well as emails.

A few months ago all cell phone users across all carriers stopped receiving the MMS messages. Email users were still receiving them. I assumed this was some type of "spam" blocking feature by the carriers and setup a iCloud account with an app password from iCloud for the config file. MMS users were once again able to receive the messages for about 2 days as well as email users.

After the initial 2 days no messages are being are received MMS or email. I logged into to iCloud account and it seems to be working fine. I am able to send test MMS messages and emails from the iCloud account no problem.



Two-Tone Detect shows its receiving the page, but it appears that its never sent. I know the computer is online be because I am able to remote into it. This computer is dedicated to two-tone detect and only runs two-tone detect and teamviewer.

Note: I've tried v70 with the same results.

I'm lost as to what to do.......

 

[DC31]

In your TTD directory there should be a logfiles subdirectory. Find the logfile that has the above SSFR tone decode. Based on the above screenshot, I would expect there to be some error messages since it never sent out the emails. Post that information here.

 

[danielsexton]

In your TTD directory there should be a logfiles subdirectory. Find the logfile that has the above SSFR tone decode. Based on the above screenshot, I would expect there to be some error messages since it never sent out the emails. Post that information here.

I couldn't figure out how to post them here, so I have uploaded log files to: Index of /logs

The last 2 calls show as sent (in the attached) and they only arrived to email addresses but not MMS addresses. We have probably 20 MMS addresses in our file.

 

[DC31]

That helps a lot. It appears that you have a couple issues:

1. Ffmpeg not found. You need to install ffmpeg or move the one you have to the TTD directory. A common problem. See Andy’s website fo4 details. Www.twotonedetect.net

2. It looks like you have noise in your audio feed. In the log file, see all the 537.0 entries? That is noise. After TTD decodes a tone set, it records until it hears silence, then processes the recording. Yours is not hearing silence so records out to the limit of 90 sec. This creates a huge file that the mms gateways are rejecting, thus no texts to phones. Either eliminate the noise or set your audio threshold higher. It looks like you have plenty of room to set the threshold higher. The only time you should see a frequency number displayed is when there is an active radio transmission.

Try correcting these two items and see if it helps.

Jim

 

[danielsexton]

Thank you Jim! I can't tell you how much I appreciate your help. After a couple of years of this working with no problem, I've been banging my head on the wall the last few months. I've made some adjustments this morning will see how it goes today.

Do you think the background audio could be coming from a bad cable? This is a dedicated VHF base station (Kenwood TK7360) its in "pager mode" so it only opens when we have a call for 60 seconds. So, when we get a call dispatch sets off the tones twice, once opens the radio, second one starts the recording. So when its just generally sitting there and a call is not in progress it should not be getting sound, thats why i was thinking maybe a bad cable linking the radio to the computer?



Thank you so much

 

[danielsexton]

Update: Still no MMS messages.

Email is working fine. Files are now in MP3 format to ffmpeg. file size is 120kb. recording is 30 seconds long. 20 seconds of talk 10 seconds of dead air.

 

[DC31]

Bad audio can come from a multitude of sources. How does your audio sound in one of the attachments to an email? If it sounds good or good enough, just set your threshold up.

Try the simple things first, like unplugging and replugging the cable connections and wiggle them some. Make sure jacks are well seated.

 

[DC31]

Update: Still no MMS messages.

Email is working fine. Files are now in MP3 format to ffmpeg. file size is 120kb. recording is 30 seconds long. 20 seconds of talk 10 seconds of dead air.

It looks like you are making progress. The program looks like it is working properly now. The only thing that I see now is possible mistakes in your tones.cfg file. At the very bottom of the log file it says mp3 emails sent... this should be a list of entries separated by commas. Right after the first entry it says “Separate with commas”. It is looking for an email address and that isn’t one. You also have at least one other entry @att.net which is incorrect.

Take a close look at your tones.cfg file to see if you can find where the “Separated with commas” is coming from

 

[danielsexton]

It looks like you are making progress. The program looks like it is working properly now. The only thing that I see now is possible mistakes in your tones.cfg file. At the very bottom of the log file it says mp3 emails sent... this should be a list of entries separated by commas. Right after the first entry it says “Separate with commas”. It is looking for an email address and that isn’t one. You also have at least one other entry @att.net which is incorrect.

Take a close look at your tones.cfg file to see if you can find where the “Separated with commas” is coming from

So today out of the blue 1 (out of many) cam through to the phones at 09:31:28 -- none before, none after, I haven't changed anything since Saturday. I still can't explain it.

 

[DC31]

Try sending them as .amr attachments rather than .mp3. You may be bumping up against a file size limit. The amr are considerably smaller. Just open your tones.cfg with a text editor and change mp3_emails to amr_emails

I would also adjust your atone length and btone length in your tones.cfg. Set both to 0.6. With the btone length set to 3 the program will look for 15 consecutive samples of that tone. Miss just one sample and you miss the decode.

 

[danielsexton]

Try sending them as .amr attachments rather than .mp3. You may be bumping up against a file size limit. The amr are considerably smaller. Just open your tones.cfg with a text editor and change mp3_emails to amr_emails

I would also adjust your atone length and btone length in your tones.cfg. Set both to 0.6. With the btone length set to 3 the program will look for 15 consecutive samples of that tone. Miss just one sample and you miss the decode.

Thank you, again!

I changed to AMR and changes the tone length as suggested, although it wasn't missing pages/decodes. The email addresses that were in the tones.cfg file ALWAYS got the messages, just the phones don't get them - other than the random one this morning.

again, thanks, I'll report back once we've had a couple calls to see if these changes make any difference.

 

[DC31]

Thank you, again!

I changed to AMR and changes the tone length as suggested, although it wasn't missing pages/decodes. The email addresses that were in the tones.cfg file ALWAYS got the messages, just the phones don't get them - other than the random one this morning.

again, thanks, I'll report back once we've had a couple calls to see if these changes make any difference.

Remember, you need to restart TTD for those changes to get loaded.

 

[danielsexton]

Remember, you need to restart TTD for those changes to get loaded.

I made the changes and did the restart. Same problem. All email based address get the file, none of the MMS addresses get the text.

I decided to do some testing to try and figure out why the MMS messages weren't getting to the phones but the email addresses were getting the pages, heres what I've found manually sending emails to my cell_phone_number@vzwpix.com

from: @gmail.com: both plain text message & message with mp3 attached are delivered to my phone can play mp3

from: @icloud.com: plan text message is delivered BUT message with EXACT same mp3 file attached as above the attachement is removed

from: @private_domain_gsuite_hosted_email_.gov_domain: NEITHER message is delivered

from: @private_domain_dream_host_email: both plain text message & message with mp3 attached are delivered to my phone can play mp3

from: @att.net: both plain text message & message with mp3 attached are delivered to my phone can play mp3

from: @outlook.com: both plain text message & message with mp3 attached are delivered to my phone can play mp3

@private_domain_gsuite_hosted_email_.us_domain: both plain text message & message with mp3 attached are delivered to my phone can play mp3

So I've adjusted my settings to send emails using a private domain with email hosting by dreamhost, I've closed TT and restarted. After a few calls I'll report back.

 

[DC31]

pushover and pushbullet deliver 100%. Texts are only going to continue to get more troublesome.

 

[firemedicmcse]

DC31
You suggest using pushover or pushbullet. Can you help me set that up? i have 1 member that is on FirstNet that is not getting the .amr file, but I am on FirstNet and my phone gets it just fine. Have another member that is on regular ATT and is not getting it, but I have other ATT folks that do.....very very very strange.

 

[firemedicmcse]

DC31
You suggest using pushover or pushbullet. Can you help me set that up? i have 1 member that is on FirstNet that is not getting the .amr file, but I am on FirstNet and my phone gets it just fine. Have another member that is on regular ATT and is not getting it, but I have other ATT folks that do.....very very very strange.

WOW, just found what the most likely cause of the problem was. Editing the wrong tone file....

would still like to get the pushover setup

 

[DC31]

WOW, just found what the most likely cause of the problem was. Editing the wrong tone file....

would still like to get the pushover setup

Some initial steps to get you started:

1. Make sure that you are running either v70 or v71 of TTD.

2. Go to pushover.net and create an account (free). This will give you a user key.

3. In your pushover account, create an app. An app is specific to a tone set that you have in TTD. Eventually, you will create an app for each tone set. This will give you an app token.

4. Open your tones editor in TTD. Enter your app token. Put your user key in the group key box.




5. Install the pushover app on your phone. In the app, sign in to your account.

6. Restart TTD.

7. Wait for a dispatch.

This will send a push only to you (you put in your user key). Once you get it set up and working then you will want to create a delivery group for each app and get the subscription code so that your users can sign themselves up (this gets you out of the middle of it!) but get the single push just going to your user key working first, then we will work on the subscriptions.

For an example of how I manage it http://ttd.nfshost.com/tristatealerts

Oh, yeah, almost forgot. You need to upload your audio to a server. If using v71, Andy has included uploading the file to his twotonedetect.net audio hosting service. Https://www.twotonedetect.net/audio/. If you don’t already have a server set up for this purpose, I would suggest using his as that simplifies this process considerably.

 

[jhsands]

For anyone having issues with SMS (not MMS), if you are a government entity or a non-profit recognized by the state as a fire department, you can use Verizon EMAG for free. A government entity includes the sheriff's office, dispatch, city police, marshalls, etc. I am not sure about the county judge/administrator.

Contact your Verizon government account rep to get EMAG setup. You must have an email server that sends e-mail using a static IP. A phone number that receives texts is all that is required for the end user. Straight Talk, Boost, Tracfone, Google Voice, Textfree, etc... they have phone numbers and can receive texts.

Andy might be interested in sending the email and charging a small fee. I might do something if he is not interested. It would be SMTP outbound only and no saving of those messages. Possibly, blind inbound forwarding of that one e-mail address. I'll have to think about it.

See attached image for EMAG screenshot.

 

[yoseffby]

Hi All, I've been working on setting up TTD for our Volunteer Fire Dept and the local EMS department as well. I've got everything running on a Rasberry Pi using the DSYJ Channel USB External Sound Card Audio Adapter. I've got my basic set up and the tones all working with a number of successful tests under my belt but the issue I am encountering is on base audio levels. I am noticing that when the system boots up the level is relatively low, once any audio comes through the radio it goes up to the expected level and then I'm also noticing that sometimes the audio level is reading way higher with no traffic on the radio. I also noticed that during a page if the dispatcher takes a pause of a couple seconds before repeating the information there is a drop in the audio level and then it comes back up to normal. Is there some kind of "auto level" setting that I need to turn off? Thank you!

 

[DC31]

Hi All, I've been working on setting up TTD for our Volunteer Fire Dept and the local EMS department as well. I've got everything running on a Rasberry Pi using the DSYJ Channel USB External Sound Card Audio Adapter. I've got my basic set up and the tones all working with a number of successful tests under my belt but the issue I am encountering is on base audio levels. I am noticing that when the system boots up the level is relatively low, once any audio comes through the radio it goes up to the expected level and then I'm also noticing that sometimes the audio level is reading way higher with no traffic on the radio. I also noticed that during a page if the dispatcher takes a pause of a couple seconds before repeating the information there is a drop in the audio level and then it comes back up to normal. Is there some kind of "auto level" setting that I need to turn off? Thank you!

What you are describing sounds basically normal. The audio level should be low when no one is talking and high when there is an active transmission on the frequency being monitored. You want the squelch slider adjusted slightly above the base level