P25RX Firmware Updates / Testing

[btt]

Hi Todd: I am testing also. Are you saying that despite any settings for P1/P2, the CC's will all use whatever the P1 channel BW is set for?

Yes. Control channels are always P1. Voice (traffic channels) can be either P1 or P2. When you see "P25 Control Channel BLKS_PER_SEC xx" at the bottom of the window, that is a P1 channel.

 

[btt]

Hi Todd: I am testing also. Are you saying that despite any settings for P1/P2, the CC's will all use whatever the P1 channel BW is set for?

@turnpike61, while you are testing, please be sure to try the P1 14.2 kHz setting when monitoring your VHF site as one of your tests. That exact setting allows me to monitor a weak VHF signal here that is very marginal otherwise.

 

[turnpike61]

Running 05/16 15:46 here. So far, I like both the default filter bandwidths, but am getting occassional clipped audio on one VHF STARS channel. I am going to increase the BW to see if it smooths out. This may have nothing to do with this change and just be signal levels.

 

[turnpike61]

@turnpike61, while you are testing, please be sure to try the P1 14.2 kHz setting when monitoring your VHF site as one of your tests. That exact setting allows me to monitor a weak VHF signal here that is very marginal otherwise.

So funny - our posts crossed. A great suggestion. I'll see how it sounds with this over the next day. This time of night, the calls are less frequent.

 

[turnpike61]

Not empirical at all - just monitoring - but I definitely like the differences in audio on P1 channels, and the VHF channels that were weaker are defintely better at 14.2 KHz BW. So we can have some real empiricism here - what were the default BWs for both before you implemented this functionality?

Thanks.

 

[turnpike61]

BTW, TG Pri may have broken in this change. I found it disabled on the advanced tab, and turned it back on, but so far haven't seen any interrupts. Could be just the traffic lightness this time of the evening.

 

[btt]

Not empirical at all - just monitoring - but I definitely like the differences in audio on P1 channels, and the VHF channels that were weaker are defintely better at 14.2 KHz BW. So we can have some real empiricism here - what were the default BWs for both before you implemented this functionality?

Thanks.

I mentioned it earlier, but I'm glad you asked because I want to clarify on that point. They have both (P1 and P2) been on the 18.2 kHz setting for most of the P25RX lifetime. Originally, the P1 setting was 14.2 kHz before P2 was implemented. These settings do affect more than just the final channel bw. There is analog IF filtering, ADC sample rate, and thus samples per symbol being affected by changing this setting. I'm not sure why I ended up with the wider setting for P1. I'm sure I tested other settings. I have a feeling that other things were changing back then and that setting worked. I lost track of it until now. In hindsight, it probably should have been made user programmable from the beginning.

BTW, TG Pri may have broken in this change. I found it disabled on the advanced tab, and turned it back on, but so far haven't seen any interrupts. Could be just the traffic lightness this time of the evening.

I don't think anything related to that changed, but I will check it out.

 

[kruser]

Running 05/16 15:46 here. So far, I like both the default filter bandwidths, but am getting occassional clipped audio on one VHF STARS channel. I am going to increase the BW to see if it smooths out. This may have nothing to do with this change and just be signal levels.

On just one of our states VHF P25 sites within range, I had to increase the P1 bandwidth to the 15.6 kHz setting. I was getting some broken audio from that site with the BW set to 14.2. The change to 15.6 seemed to fix the broken audio in my case. At first I thought it was the mobile users radio not hitting the repeater that was the cause of the broken audio but the dispatcher did not comment on it like she normally would so it probably was some type of decode issue on my end.
So far, my testing of the VHF sites within range have all worked very well even with the P1 bandwidth set at 15.6 instead of 14.2.
All in all, these newer versions with the bw adjustment are working very well!

I also tested two 800 MHz sites, a strong and a weak signal level P1 simulcast sites and the audio was not broken or didn't show any signs of decoding errors with the bandwidth set at 15.6 on either site.
I don't have any P2 traffic here so I can't test that.

 

[goldmyne99]

I don't think anything related to that changed, but I will check it out.
-edit: briefly looked at TG priority interrupt. It appears to be working ok here.

P1 and P2 default BW settings and TG Priority Int. working well here on 05 17 0555.

 

[btt]

P1 and P2 default BW settings and TG Priority Int. working well here on 05 17 0555.

Thank you for testing! Just confirming that you are using 15.6 kHz for both P1 and P2? I only ask because this version did not reset the configuration to defaults if you loaded yesterdays experimental version (which had a different default P1 BW of 12.4 kHz).

 

[Cheeseburgers]

I was at 15/15 all day up until now, I just dropped P1 down to 12.4 to test some more. Seeing what works best on CLMRN

 

[Cheeseburgers]

Sometimes I though I wanted to mention if a dispatch call goes for more than like 15 or so seconds I notice that other voice grants cut it off... just wanted to bring that to your attention.

 

[goldmyne99]

Just confirming that you are using 15.6 kHz for both P1 and P2

Confirming the 15.6 kHz on both P1 and P2. I had moved them around. I really saw no difference in audio to my ears from 10 kHz to 18.2 kHz. Saved config with each change.

 

[btt]

Sometimes I though I wanted to mention if a dispatch call goes for more than like 15 or so seconds I notice that other voice grants cut it off... just wanted to bring that to your attention.

Are you sure this isn't a TG priority interrupt event? Do you have the interrupt option on? All it takes is a key-up for a higher priority TG to interrupt the current call if the the interrupt option is on. I'm not aware of any other reason for this behavior. If this isn't the case, see if you can capture this event to a log file.

 

[Cheeseburgers]

Priority is off and every TG is set to 1..

 

[Cheeseburgers]

Am I doing something wrong?

 

[btt]

Am I doing something wrong?

I doubt it. I can't think of any configuration settings other than the TG interrupt. I'll think about it / look through the P2 code.

 

[Cheeseburgers]

Yeah don't drive yourself nuts about it. The new filter switch has helped IMMENSELY for my location. The sync line isn't so erratic, super stable in both locations/

 

[Cheeseburgers]

I think 12.4 / 15.6 works best for me

 

[shirsch101]

The default filter settings are working great. This is the best audio yet! Great job!