P25RX Firmware Updates / Testing

[btt]

Todd: would you like me to record some Phase 2 P25 audio as a baseband file in SDR Sharp? I can then drop that (about 1 MHz of spectrum including P25 V1 and V2) into a dropbox of your choosing so you can have some P2 to test with. Let me know.

Thank you for the offer! I already have a couple of good P2 files to work with. This is how I was able to get it all working here. It is cumbersome to go back and get it all set up for decoding on the PC though. It is much easier to get feedback from people testing. So far, it sounds like the new priority interrupt code is working good for P2 as well.

Hey Todd, 1516 did this weird thing where the audio over USB just started repeating, like a record skip BTW.

Ah, that is a Windows issue with Java playback that is back due to the changes with _1516. I will revert back to version _1306 for now. That should fix that issue.

 

[btt]

All the firmware updates after 4/2/0803 have had choppy audio on phase 1 transmissions. It's not always choppy though. The blks per second will drop off abrubtly then go back up. It doesn't do that with the 4/2 firmware.

The majority of feedback I've had recently is that the audio is working great, but I realize that sometimes there are individual cases that might still be a firmware/software issue. Looking through changes since 4/2, it is hard to see what might be causing you issues. Give 2021-04-27_0719 a try. It has an extra check to see if there is a USB transmission in-progress before calling a new send (and possibly having to wait) for data like the IQ plot.

Also, a note for those that report audio issues: Please report how you are listening to the audio. Is it via Java playback with the BTConfig software? Is it line-out or Bluetooth? or both? Also, it would be great to hear a sample of the issue.

I need to get back to building some hardware in order to be able to bring in some income to pay for the stockpile of financed parts. I may not be as responsive via email or the forum today, but I will be checking periodically.

 

[Cheeseburgers]

Todd thank you so much for your help!

What am I looking at on the IQ plot? Should it look a certain way or... ? Just curious.

 

[boy7777777777]

Can you let me know the first version after 4/2/0803 that had issues for you? There have been a lot of changes since 4/2.

The majority of feedback I've had recently is that the audio is working great, but I realize that sometimes there are individual cases that might still be a firmware/software issue. Looking through changes since 4/2, it is hard to see what might be causing you issues. Give 2021-04-27_0719 a try. It has an extra check to see if there is a USB transmission in-progress before calling a new send (and possibly having to wait) for data like the IQ plot.

Also, a note for those that report audio issues: Please report how you are listening to the audio. Is it via Java playback with the BTConfig software? Is it line-out or Bluetooth? or both? Also, it would be great to hear a sample of the issue.

I need to get back to building some hardware in order to be able to bring in some income to pay for the stockpile of financed parts. I may not be as responsive via email or the forum today, but I will be checking periodically.

I'm sorry. I've not been around the computer to test it since last night. I will when I get back home. I'm listening via the bt software.

 

[btt]

Todd thank you so much for your help!

What am I looking at on the IQ plot? Should it look a certain way or... ? Just curious.

The plots you posted yesterday for the two systems look good. The first one that you posted with the constant amplitude for the symbols looks like a C4FM system and the second system with tight phase, but varying amplitude looks like a LSM (linear simulcast modulation) system with differential QPSK or what the P25 guys call CQPSK. The 'C' in C4FM and CQPSK is for "compatible". Both plots show clusters of symbols in all 4 quadrants with sufficient "eye-opening" between the symbols. I will go into much more detail on this at a later time since it would likely be useful to everyone.

 

[Cheeseburgers]

Sounds good to me!

 

[btt]

New version 2021-04-27_1615 available. Added an option for "Allow Talk Group Priority Interrupt" to the advanced tab. Although the default value for this is "enabled", it will be disabled after you update initially because this firmware update does not reset the configuration. It occurred to me that the priority interrupt option may be perceived as causing audio issues in some cases. Lets say you have a few high priority talk groups and you are listening to a voice channel. Then, a higher priority talk group keys up and then down quickly without saying anything. This will be perceived as missing audio of the conversation that was interrupted. If you aren't paying attention to what is happening or if it happens so fast that the BTConfig software doesn't display it, you will think that there is something wrong with reception.

 

[turnpike61]

The Good is that this appears to have better audio quality than other recent releases. Still some choppiness on occassion, but not all my monitored CC's are close by.

But, I was able to observe a TG Pri interrupt (as logged on the TG Log) while the new checkbox in Advanced was unchecked and written to config.

FYI.

 

[btt]

The Good is that this appears to have better audio quality than other recent releases. Still some choppiness on occassion, but not all my monitored CC's are close by.

But, I was able to observe a TG Pri interrupt (as logged on the TG Log) while the new checkbox in Advanced was unchecked and written to config.

FYI.

I just found that issue. It would show that it was detected and that it was handling it, but it would just ignore it if the option was disabled. Should be fixed now in _1724. Thank you.

 

[kinglou0]

I need to get back to building some hardware in order to be able to bring in some income to pay for the stockpile of financed parts. I may not be as responsive via email or the forum today, but I will be checking periodically.

Speaking for myself, I’ve always admired your commitment to squashing bugs and tweaking things to accommodate requests but please keep your business healthy.

More units is more money and more exposure for your business. I’d like to see the P25RX stick around.

 

[btt]

Speaking for myself, I’ve always admired your commitment to squashing bugs and tweaking things to accommodate requests but please keep your business healthy.

More units is more money and more exposure for your business. I’d like to see the P25RX stick around.

Yes, I would like to see it stick around too! Some things are just not in our control. I've tried my best to buy what inventory I could, but some parts that I didn't dream would disappear, did. I don't know who is buying them all, but some of the parts are showing that they will not be in stock until next year and others don't even have a date yet. Hopefully it will all get straightened out sooner than that. I know some of it is probably due to silicon pipeline outages earlier from covid, but I'm not sure what is causing the rest of the issues. I'm guessing that the huge ship that got stuck recently probably won't help things.

 

[boy7777777777]

Disregard

 

[btt]

Disregard

Can you give _2106 a try. I haven't tested this on Windows yet, but this version doesn't up-sample the audio to 48kHz. This assumes that the audio driver is capable of 8 kHz playback. Does this solve the audio issues?

 

[boy7777777777]

I'll give it a try tonight. Yeah it is when using bt software on windows 10. And yes, line out audio is fine. I got a chance last night to mess with it for a while and it may not be your software. It may be because I have a crappy computer. I noticed that often it would max out to 100% on cpu usage. I noticed several times that's when there was choppy audio. So I wouldn't waste too much time on me. You do an awesome job of trying to resolve people's issues. I haven't installed any new programs to make it use more cpu so I'm not sure why it's doing it.

 

[Cheeseburgers]

Working good this AM Todd!

 

[Cheeseburgers]

Going back to 2222, seems not to skip over USB... 0712 was very skippy audio-wise over USB, just letting you know Todd

 

[btt]

Going back to 2222, seems not to skip over USB... 0712 was very skippy audio-wise over USB, just letting you know Todd

Got it, thanks for testing. I reverted the link back to _2222 on the web site. At least that gives a hint where the issue is. I'll plan on adding an option to disable some of the graphics on the Signal Insights tab and see if that helps those with audio issues. I'll wait to hear back from more people on version _2222 before doing anything.

 

[btt]

I'll give it a try tonight. Yeah it is when using bt software on windows 10. And yes, line out audio is fine. I got a chance last night to mess with it for a while and it may not be your software. It may be because I have a crappy computer. I noticed that often it would max out to 100% on cpu usage. I noticed several times that's when there was choppy audio. So I wouldn't waste too much time on me. You do an awesome job of trying to resolve people's issues. I haven't installed any new programs to make it use more cpu so I'm not sure why it's doing it.

I doubt the issue is your computer, but the 100% CPU thing is interesting. Give 2021-04-28_1421 a try. There is a new option on the advanced tab to disable visuals on the signal insights tab. See if that makes a difference.

 

[Cheeseburgers]

Testing now!

 

[Cheeseburgers]

Todd new version is stellar, running 3 hours, nice clear audio.