I am using ver 0803 with no issues here in Nixa, MO. I believe for me this is the most stable, audio is also great! I have used it on a Lenovo windows 10 laptop and currently running in my automobile with the line out provision on the P25RX.
P25RX Firmware Updates / Testing
- Thread starter btt
- Start date
- Status
On 20210430-0922 for several hours now, and stable.
Hey Todd,
I've been out of the loop lately as far as the recent versions released over the past couple weeks.
Today I installed the 2021-04-30_0922 version and immediately noticed bad audio drops or missing or poorly decoded voice packets. Some conversations heard on my several Uniden scanners were never decoded on the P25RX at all.
This is on a P25 Phase I VHF NON-Simulcast system.
The system does use both control and voice channels in the 152.xxx MHz range which is also used here by some very nearby paging transmitters.
You worked on this and fixed these issues with the VHF paging interference ages ago now but it seems
The VHF site I'm monitoring shows a -70 dBm signal level and the BLKS P/S average between 25 and 37 or so. That seems about average from when I did not have any poor or missing audio decodes.
I reverted back to version 2021-04-10_0908 for now and it seems okay for the most part. I do notice some slight chopping off of the first maybe 100ms or less of audio when it switches to a voice channel. Going way back to version 2021-03-10_0709 seems to help with the slight missing beginning audio I see with 4-10_0908. 0908 is still not bad though and that's were I'm staying for now.
The missing first 100ms or less of audio does not seem consistent when running 2021-04-10_0908 so it could just be a fluke.
All tested versions show the same signal level around -70dBm and the same BLKS P/S rate so I don't think the signal is an issue.
On a P25 800 MHz simulcast system here, I do not see the issues I'm seeing above with the VHF system with today's BTConfig version.
I wish I could have tested all the recent versions over the past week or two and possibly caught when this started but I was tied up with other projects so sorry for not being able to help in that regard.
Hopefully it's something you will recognize easily!
@kruser, thank you for all the details! I'm thinking the issues with VHF are likely related to the packet structure for voice grants. There were some changes to get a couple of obscure voice grant types working during that time period for two different users on two different systems. These issues might be related. With all the details you provided, I will dig into that aspect of things soon.
I reverted back to 04-10_0908 after 0922 froze after about 90 minutes. So far so good.
This is entirely subjective, but I had no issues with freezing on 04_10_0922 after a good 5 hours, but tried 04-10_0908 and immediately noticed a drop in call quality, and some decodes for which there are TG entries logged as "unknown". I have switched back.
I don't think the issue with freezing is USB code on version 04-10_0922. I'm not sure why it would be freezing. Was the audio ok for you with _0922?
Vermonster
Member
Data point on _0922:
Running 12 hours on a DMR Con+ system with no freeze.
Running 12 hours on a DMR Con+ system with no freeze.
Can you put 2021-04-10_0922 back up for a bit? Was that version a typo or did it really exist? Or PM me a link to get it if it does exist? I always try and download each version regardless if I have time to test them or not but if I miss a day or two and can't check, several versions have been posted and already taken down by the time I do log back in and read the latest posts!
I'd like to see if I can duplicate any of the issues turnpike61 reports between 04-10_0908 and 04-10_0922.
If turnpike61 made a typo and meant 04-30_0922 then I do indeed have the audio drops or bad decodes with that version on the VHF system.
One thing I note is others seem fine with the newer versions while I have issues with audio drops or decode issues with the newer versions when monitoring a VHF NON Simulcast system. Are those with no audio drops or decode issues only monitoring 7/800 MHz systems?
I don't have 04-10_0922 for testing but would like to try it if available.
I'm not sure how many users monitor VHF P25 systems that share the 152 MHz part of the spectrum with nearby powerful paging transmitters but I suspect that is still possibly part of the problem when using the P25RX in the VHF band. Not just paging but other strong VHF signals from the EOC tower very near me. A lot of strong VHF transmitters on the towers at the EOC near me. I don't have the capability to monitor it all and see what is transmitting in my immediate area when my P25RX has the decode issues or audio drops with the newer firmware versions.
We did have these issues fixed in versions around 04-10_0908 and much earlier but something sure changed sometime after that version when I was not able to keep up with all the newer test versions.
I do have several of the later versions after 04-10_0908 including several from the past week alone. If time permits, I'll try and test them one at a time and see if I can determine when the VHF P25 Phase 1 non-simulcast system started having decode issues or audio drops.
On another note, I've not experienced any lockups or freezes with any of the versions back to the beginning of the year and probably much earlier up to and including any of the newer versions.
I suspect those issues are USB related again like I'd found way back when using the USB 3.1 ASMedia chipset based ports available on my motherboard. The Intel USB 3.0 chipset ports worked just fine and always have on the same motherboard.
I also have similar issues when using a RTL-SDR tuner stick with ADSB programs. The comms between the RTL-SDR stick will freeze up when I try and use the ASMedia USB 3.1 ports but not the Intel based 3.0 ports.
I'm not sure if it was mentioned here but a Unitrunker user has found that some modern fast computers have issues with USB devices like the typical USB tuner sticks when used on machines with only USB 3.1 ports and high speed processors. I think they found some solutions involved loading the processor with another program to keep it running at a higher speed helped solve some of the problems they were seeing with the USB based tuner sticks. I wonder if that is related to some of the freezing issues some users are reporting with BTConfig lately. I did not follow the Unitrunker thread much further but the findings were interesting and showed the USB tuner sticks dropping packets of data at a pretty high percentage when used on fast processors and particularly so on machines that only have USB 3.1 speed USB ports.
That was a typo on my part. I meant 04-30_0922. I will contact you directly regarding recent versions.
TomTN
Member
0922 seems to be working well.
Would it be possible to place an audio mute button at the top in the white area of the screen? That way audio can be turned off and on while in monitor mode. Helps when the phone rings.
Thanks.
Would it be possible to place an audio mute button at the top in the white area of the screen? That way audio can be turned off and on while in monitor mode. Helps when the phone rings.
Thanks.
Yes, version 2021-05-02_1343
TomTN
Member
Perfect. Thank you!
- Joined
- Jan 9, 2018
- Messages
- 637
Todd its looking great so far!
Hey Todd,
On the non-simulcast VHF system here, 2021-05-02_1850 is still dropping audio or having decode issues.
No worse or better than most versions I've tested from April 2021 releases.
Watching the console while also monitoring this system on any Uniden, the P25RX is not even seeing some of the voice channel requests on the console screen. The console just keeps scrolling the control channel info like there was never a voice channel request.
When it does see a voice channel in use, it will switch to it but of course you then have an unknown amount of missed audio.
I'm back to my thinking this is caused by the high RF levels from nearby sources such as paging and other high power VHF transmitters nearby.
When I started testing 1850 this morning, the paging transmitters were not being used much nor where the other local stuff.
As daylight approached and various radio traffic started picking up on the paging systems and other VHF stuff seems to be when the P25RX also started missing voice channel requests. It's possible that's just coincidence but it sure seems like part of the trouble I'm seeing with the VHF systems.
I have two VHF sites that both give me similar signal strengths of right at -69 to -70 dBm so not a bad signal at all.
Both of these VHF sites experience the same missing voice channel requests and resulting missing or broken audio on the P25RX.
I tried 2021-04-10-0908 later this morning and the problem remains with that version as well.
When I monitor slightly weaker signal 700 or 800 MHz P25 systems, the audio is perfect and the console display for the P25RX does not show any missed voice channel requests.
One other thing is the BLKS P/S display in BTConfig is always bouncing between just below 20 to the mid or even upper 30's range for the VHF sites. That seems to be a contributing factor and may be why it's missing voice channel request packets.
There's a distant 800 MHz site here that has a rather poor -110 dBm signal. For some reason, that site will always show a perfect BLKS P/S of 52 even though it has issues receiving the signal.
I also notice with my problem VHF sites that as soon as a voice channel is dropped and the P25RX goes back to the Control Channel, the BTConfig Console will display a perfect BLKS P/S of 52 on the VHF control channel for the first two seconds or so before it drops to it's lower values between <20 to >30 BLKS P/S.
My next test will be to go back to a March 10th 0709 version and see how it behaves on the VHF sites while the local analog VHF paging and other systems are running near peak.
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