OP25 OP25 Setup with Ubuntu

[kg6nlw]

If you want to run Osmocom OP25, you will have to uninstall boatbod. They cannot easily coexist.

Gotcha. Is it as easy/easier to install?

Regards,

-Frank C.

 

[wgbecks]

Frank,

I am willing to help you get op25 running if you want to PM me with your email contact info. I will in turn respond with my contact that we can arrange to work together by phone and share screens is necessary.

Bill

 

[kg6nlw]

@lwvmobile I changed it to fsk4 and got results! @wgbecks it looks like I might've got it finally! Thank you for the offer and if I need it in the future I will reach out!

I will say this, it is skipping to various frequencies and back in GNUPlot but I do not see anything in the console window.

Regards,

-Frank C.

 

[Outerdog]

Gotcha. Is it as easy/easier to install?

About the same. Couple of extra steps for the sql logging stuff (optional).

 

[lwvmobile]

If you want to run Osmocom OP25, you will have to uninstall boatbod. They cannot easily coexist.

Or just clone or make a new 2nd VM. No reason you can't have your cake and eat it too!

I will say this, it is skipping to various frequencies and back in GNUPlot but I do not see anything in the console window.

Not sure, what's the stderr.2 log say while its roaming frequencies. Anything about control channel signal loss? Or maybe its trying to tune voice channels?

Also, speaking of web interfaces, if you append a -l http:0.0.0.0:8080 to your command, you can open up firefox to localhost:8080 and get a nice neat little display instead of the curses terminal. As others have already pointed out, seems the main draw to OSMOCOM OP25 is the new web interface. Again, if you want to experiment with both versions, don't just throw out the hard work you've done so far. If it were me, just make another VM, or clone the one you already have and try out both versions!

 

[kg6nlw]

@lwvmobile thanks! I was thinking about doing that second VM...Could I run Firefox from another computer and watch it knowing the IP as if it was an external website or am I limited to Firefox within Linux?

Regards,

-Frank C.

 

[lwvmobile]

Could I run Firefox from another computer and watch it knowing the IP

Yes, if you go under the settings for the VM and to the Network tab, you can change the Attched to: from NAT to Bridged Adapter, this will allow the VM access to your local area network. Then, you can either just check the IP address from inside of Ubuntu, or assign it a static IP address for your local area network, and point a web browser to that, for example, 192.168.1.10:8080 and pull the web interface up on another machine or on your host, or anywhere on the same network.



Manual IP configuration may vary slightly between distros/DE, but I think this will look similar enough.

 

[kg6nlw]

Yes, if you go under the settings for the VM and to the Network tab, you can change the Attched to: from NAT to Bridged Adapter, this will allow the VM access to your local area network. Then, you can either just check the IP address from inside of Ubuntu, or assign it a static IP address for your local area network, and point a web browser to that, for example, 192.168.1.10:8080 and pull the web interface up on another machine or on your host, or anywhere on the same network.

Thanks. I already had the attached section to Bridged Adapter because that works better for me anyway! I just wanted to make sure the server wasn't restricted to "in Linux" only. I know Apache isn't but I'm not dealing with normal Apache here...

Regards,

-Frank C.

 

[lwvmobile]

make sure the server wasn't restricted to "in Linux" only

Oh, no, not in this case. Since we used the -l http://0.0.0.0:8080, we literally bound the listening address to prettty much everything, so its not bound to local host only.

 

[kg6nlw]

Oh, no, not in this case. Since we used the -l http://0.0.0.0:8080, we literally bound the listening address to prettty much everything, so its not bound to local host only.

I figured. I've setup my fair share of web servers of sorts over the years with plenty of port forwarding! That I can do in my sleep...Now to figure out why VM won't clone with things turned off....Maybe the OP is sleepy!

Regards,

-Frank C.

 

[kg6nlw]

@lwvmobile I'm sending you a PM...

Regards,

-Frank C.

 

[Reconrider]

There are two versions. You appear to be working with the boatbod fork of OP25.

The Osmocom version (original) is the one with the improved Web UI:

op25 - Osmocom OP25

git.osmocom.org

If you want to run Osmocom OP25, you will have to uninstall boatbod. They cannot easily coexist.

Isn’t boatbod the most up to date though?

 

[boatbod]

@boatbod thanks for the correction! @lwvmobile looks like with boatbod's correction above I'm able to get *something* running. Doesn't look like what @Outerdog has but I'll get there...One step at a time!

See screenshot and I did include the systems in post #3.

Regards,

-Frank C.

Looking at your latest screenshot it appears you have a signal spike in roughly the right place, but we need to drill down some more to see if the PPM setting is anywhere close to correct. There does not appear to be any system information showing in the terminal yet, so I would assume it is not decoding the CC yet. Could you open plot #4 (datascope) and post a picture of it please. Same with plot #5 (mixer).
Thanks.

 

[Outerdog]

Isn’t boatbod the most up to date though?

Both are "up to date". Although there is much in common between the two, they have some different features.

 

[Reconrider]

Both are "up to date". Although there is much in common between the two, they have some different features.

I haven't used OP25 in a long time. I think last time I used boatbod.

Which version would you say is more feature rich?

 

[kg6nlw]

Looking at your latest screenshot it appears you have a signal spike in roughly the right place, but we need to drill down some more to see if the PPM setting is anywhere close to correct. There does not appear to be any system information showing in the terminal yet, so I would assume it is not decoding the CC yet. Could you open plot #4 (datascope) and post a picture of it please. Same with plot #5 (mixer).
Thanks.

It's actually a pretty quiet system that I'm testing this on as it's a newer system still being installed. The real test for me is on Monday when I can get to an active system. @lwvmobile also mentioned in our PM that I need to adjust my console logging options which I'm about to boot into VM-Linux and do.

Regards,

-Frank C.

 

[boatbod]

I haven't used OP25 in a long time. I think last time I used boatbod.

Which version would you say is more feature rich?

Each has strengths & weaknesses so it depends what you deem important. Speaking solely about the Boatbod version:

rx.py capabilities
P25 Conventional (single frequency)
P25 Trunking Phase 1, Phase 2 and TDMA Control Channel
P25 Phase 2 tone synthesis
Single SDR (dongle) tuning regardless of bandwidth
TGID Blacklist, Whitelist with dynamic reloading
TGID Priority with mid-call preemption
Multi-system scanning (switches between multiple systems sequentially)
TGID text tagging and metadata upload to Icecast server for streaming
Dynamically controllable real-time plots: FFT, Constellation, Symbol, Datascope, Mixer, Tuning
Dynamically controllable log level
Curses or HTTP based terminal
Demodulator symbol capture and replay
Voice Encryption detection and skipping (configurable behavior)
Automatic fine tune tracking for CQPSK demodulator (-X command-line parameter)

multi_rx.py capabilities
P25 Conventional (multiple frequencies)
P25 Trunking Phase 1, Phase 2 and TDMA Control Channel
P25 Phase 2 tone synthesis
Motorola Smartzone Trunking (requires two dongles)
Motorola Connect+ TRBO DMR Trunking (experimental, requires two dongles)
DMR BS Mode (non-trunked)
NBFM analog (conventional or Smartzone trunked)
Multi-system/multi-channel concurrent operation (full time, not sequential)
Single, Multiple and Shared SDR devices (e.g. wideband devices such as Airspy etc)
TGID Blacklist, Whitelist with dynamic reloading
TGID Priority with mid-call preemption
TGID text tagging and metadata upload to Icecast server for streaming
RID text tagging
Dynamically controllable real-time plots: FFT, Constellation, Symbol, Datascope, Mixer, Tuning
Dynamically controllable log level
Curses or HTTP based terminal
JSON based configuration
DSD .wav and .iq file replay
Dynamic demodulator symbol capture and replay (commanded through terminal)
Voice Encryption detection and skipping (configurable behavior)
Automatic fine tune tracking/caching for CQPSK demodulator (cqpsk_tracking parameter)

The boatbod version also handles the compile-time decisions for python2/gnuradio-3.7 vs python3/gnuradio-3.8 automatically. I believe at this time osmocom still requires you to manually apply the patch. Neither version presently work with gnuradio-3.9, but I think Max is working on it. I've not started looking at that yet.

 

[Reconrider]

Each has strengths & weaknesses so it depends what you deem important. Speaking solely about the Boatbod version:

rx.py capabilities
P25 Conventional (single frequency)
P25 Trunking Phase 1, Phase 2 and TDMA Control Channel
P25 Phase 2 tone synthesis
Single SDR (dongle) tuning regardless of bandwidth
TGID Blacklist, Whitelist with dynamic reloading
TGID Priority with mid-call preemption
Multi-system scanning (switches between multiple systems sequentially)
TGID text tagging and metadata upload to Icecast server for streaming
Dynamically controllable real-time plots: FFT, Constellation, Symbol, Datascope, Mixer, Tuning
Dynamically controllable log level
Curses or HTTP based terminal
Demodulator symbol capture and replay
Voice Encryption detection and skipping (configurable behavior)
Automatic fine tune tracking for CQPSK demodulator (-X command-line parameter)

multi_rx.py capabilities
P25 Conventional (multiple frequencies)
P25 Trunking Phase 1, Phase 2 and TDMA Control Channel
P25 Phase 2 tone synthesis
Motorola Smartzone Trunking (requires two dongles)
Motorola Connect+ TRBO DMR Trunking (experimental, requires two dongles)
DMR BS Mode (non-trunked)
NBFM analog (conventional or Smartzone trunked)
Multi-system/multi-channel concurrent operation (full time, not sequential)
Single, Multiple and Shared SDR devices (e.g. wideband devices such as Airspy etc)
TGID Blacklist, Whitelist with dynamic reloading
TGID Priority with mid-call preemption
TGID text tagging and metadata upload to Icecast server for streaming
RID text tagging
Dynamically controllable real-time plots: FFT, Constellation, Symbol, Datascope, Mixer, Tuning
Dynamically controllable log level
Curses or HTTP based terminal
JSON based configuration
DSD .wav and .iq file replay
Dynamic demodulator symbol capture and replay (commanded through terminal)
Voice Encryption detection and skipping (configurable behavior)
Automatic fine tune tracking/caching for CQPSK demodulator (cqpsk_tracking parameter)

The boatbod version also handles the compile-time decisions for python2/gnuradio-3.7 vs python3/gnuradio-3.8 automatically. I believe at this time osmocom still requires you to manually apply the patch. Neither version presently work with gnuradio-3.9, but I think Max is working on it. I've not started looking at that yet.

Thanks for the direct reply Boatbod. I'm going to setup a copy of your OP25 again and see if I can get it going better than I had it before.

 

[maus92]

I prefer the Boatbod version; seems to be easier to get running for those of us who are Linux noobs.

 

[boatbod]

I prefer the Boatbod version; seems to be easier to get running for those of us who are Linux noobs.

Thanks. It's not got the prettiest UI but is relatively easy to install (as linux apps go) and has proven very good for headless streaming.