Tetra decoding

[oz1jua]

Lenovo PC

A small report on a running environment. I wanted to see if I could squeeze this great software into a small box, and that worked just fine.

I've now installed this package on a Intel NUC, a cheap barebone box called BOXDN2820FYKH, having a Celeron N2820, dual core at 2,4 GHz. This machine is very quite, and quite small, only 116.6 mm x 112 mm x 51.5 mm.

Mini PC - Intel® NUC Kit DN2820FYKH

On this I'm running 64 bit Ubuntu 14.04.1 with 4 GB RAM and a 128 GB SSD disk, to a cost of totally 300 USD.

With this small box I can decode two frequencies at the same time on a quite busy system, including logging and recording, all running wihtout any problem. I've also tried a four frequency system but that was a bit too much for the NUC.


During the holidays I'll also try some ohter configurations, probably lbuntu to free more CPU power which in Unbutu is wasted to the GUI, and probably also test installing a more powerful NUC, the D54250WYK, running an Intel i5-4250U, to see if that can do four frequencies at the same time.

Except the cost for that NUC itself, 405 USD without SSD and RAM, it also requires an additional WiFi card (since I want to run WiFi), and the screen connection is a MiniHDMI.

I have bought a Lenovo PC B50-30 for around same price 325 $. Install Linux Mint 17.1 and then I dont have to find a keyboard and Monitor for it. Try to install the software but have problem with Install osmo-tetra-sq5bpf. All GNU Readio 3.6 is Done. But have some trouble with autoreconf. Now i think this is solved.... Trying harder with next step.

 

[firefather_sdr]

After a lot of trial and error, I think I have everything installed correctly.

Running Ubuntu 12 in a virtual box.

When I try to execute the flowgraph in gnuradio I get the following error:
FATAL: failed to open rtlsdr device

When I do "lsusb" it shows the RTL dongle as:
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0bda:2838 Realtek Semiconductor Corp
among with some other USB devices.

How can I solve this problem?

Thanks!

Type in terminal: rtl_test -t

Please, read the message and follow the instruction, if you read something with kernel module.

 

[oz1jua]

Error when Run Make in Install libosmocore-sq5bpf.

application.c: In function 'osmo_daemonize':
application.c:153:9: warning: ignoring return value of 'freopen', declared with attribute warn_unused_result [-Wunused-result]
freopen("/dev/null", "r", stdin);
^
application.c:154:9: warning: ignoring return value of 'freopen', declared with attribute warn_unused_result [-Wunused-result]
freopen("/dev/null", "w", stdout);
^
application.c:155:9: warning: ignoring return value of 'freopen', declared with attribute warn_unused_result [-Wunused-result]
freopen("/dev/null", "w", stderr);
^
Any know what this error is about Thanks.

 

[sm0vec]

try to disable the spectrum graph (just press STOP on all tabs), and see if this makes the cpu load low enough

i can provide a 4-channel grc without the spectrum graph enabled if you want (or you can do it yourself, just delete the wxgui fft sink blocks)

Yes, to dispable the spectrum makes quite big difference when being on the limit. The 1 channel simple grc file is the one which takes the most power since both graphs run on the same screen. Since the window also becomes to tall to fit a small screen I divided the graphs on two tabs, which also reduces the CPU load. Using two tabs though works just fine since I can search for the frequencies on the wide spectrum and then switch tab and fine tune.

Another observation regarding the cheap Intel NUC. When I instead of Ubunto 14.04.1 updated to 14.10 the background tasks of the os took more power and the application started to miss sync sometimes, while everything worked perfect on 14.04.1, so new is not always better when it comes to performance.

 

[ltd_nova]

I try to understand how tetra system work in my town:

Zone A Group A: 3 frequencies , MNC = 332, color code 2 same downlink frequency

Zone A Group B: 2 frequencies , MNC = 332, color code 1. same downlink frequency (different from group A). This frequenies are low RF signal

20 Km away Zone B, 2 frequencies, MNC= 332, color code 2

Two group with the same MNC, but different Color code, it´s the same tetra network?

 

[sq5bpf]

Yes, to dispable the spectrum makes quite big difference when being on the limit. The 1 channel simple grc file is the one which takes the most power since both graphs run on the same screen. Since the window also becomes to tall to fit a small screen I divided the graphs on two tabs, which also reduces the CPU load. Using two tabs though works just fine since I can search for the frequencies on the wide spectrum and then switch tab and fine tune.

yes, the 1 channel simple grc uses a lot of cpu. it is only there to help people start using the software.

Another observation regarding the cheap Intel NUC. When I instead of Ubunto 14.04.1 updated to 14.10 the background tasks of the os took more power and the application started to miss sync sometimes, while everything worked perfect on 14.04.1, so new is not always better when it comes to performance.

you could also try debian. it installs less crap by default, and usually "feels" faster (although this is by no means a scientific measurement)

btw the problem is aggravated even more by people that try to run linux in a virtual machine under windows, this can stutter terribly even with one channel.

 

[yo4tnv]

Tetrapol and TETRA: a briefing from the national research-based TETRA Airwave safety campaign

 

[velu]

Thanks for the software to decode Tetra. I am new to Ubuntu and managed to install the software following the tutotrial at RTL-SDR. I am able to see lots of scrolls on receiver1 1. On Rxx I am able to see the frequency on top and also it is showing Playing <<OK>> but I am not able to hear any audio. If I enable Verbose mode by pressing 'V' I am able to see "NOW PLAYING" with 2,10,45 etc.,. but I am not able to hear any thing. I tried recording and 99% of those recorded files are of 2.7kb and they don't play at all. In rare cases it is over 3.5kb or more and I hear only blank audio on it.

The Air mode shown is 0 so I hope it is not encrypted. What might be going wrong here?

@Mods as my post is pending for approval I am posting this and request you to merge both incase needed.

Now managed to find what is going wrong.

mv: cannot stat ‘/tetra/in/traffic_20141219_150401_41_0_0_0.out’: No such file or directory
cdecoder: can't open input_fileInput file '/tetra/out/20141219/traffic_20141219_150401_41_0_0_0.codec' does not exist !!
sox FAIL formats: can't open input file `/tetra/out/20141219/traffic_20141219_150401_41_0_0_0.raw': No such file or directory

ERROR: Cannot open input file "/tetra/out/20141219/traffic_20141219_150401_41_0_0_0.wav": No such file or directory
rm: cannot remove ‘/tetra/out/20141219/traffic_20141219_150401_41_0_0_0.out’: No such file or directory

So some path related problem. I manually gave the following commands based on the script. Copied a file which was sitting in the IN folder and renamed it as test.

$./cdecoder test.out test.codec
$./sdecoder test.codec test.raw
$ sox -r 8k -e signed -b 16 test.raw test.wav

test.wav is now playing on Ubuntu

@mods please merge this with my earlier posts. As they aren't approved I am not able to edit.

Update: Without any change in the configuration now it is writing files properly. But with more than 50 .ogg files I checked they are either 2.7kb or 4.4. But audio length is 0 seconds in all of them. In manual decode also same 0 seconds files only coming. In rare cases file length is more than zero seconds but still blank audio. Extremely rare cases audio is coming. Out of 180 files I checked I was able to find few seconds of audio in 3 files only. No audio played in real time either. What could be the problem?

Few Messages from Tetrad:
Done encoding file "/tetra/out/20141219/traffic_20141219_173708_37_0_0_0.ogg"

File length: 0m 00.0s
Elapsed time: 0m 00.0s
Rate: 15.5561
Average bitrate: 4.4 kb/s

Done encoding file "/tetra/out/20141219/traffic_20141219_173635_37_0_0_0.ogg"

File length: 0m 00.0s
Elapsed time: 0m 00.0s
Rate: 16.7131
Average bitrate: 4.4 kb/s

Done encoding file "/tetra/out/20141219/traffic_20141219_173827_17_0_0_0.ogg"

File length: 0m 00.0s
Elapsed time: 0m 00.0s
Rate: 31.5540
Average bitrate: 2.5 kb/s

Done encoding file "/tetra/out/20141219/traffic_20141219_174132_9_0_0_0.ogg"

File length: 0m 00.0s
Elapsed time: 0m 00.0s
Rate: 32.7422
Average bitrate: 2.5 kb/s

 

[racingfan360]

Could someone please explain the following from the telive build instructions....I specifically don't understand the line 607 reference (ie what exactly needs to be modified - it's line 607 of which file please?)

Currently build-gnuradio doesn't support some newer versions of distributions, for example debian
7.4 is supported, but 7.7 is not. In case of debian this can be hacked around easily by modifying the
line (around line 607):
*6.0*|*wheezy*|*sid*|*7.1*|*7.0*|*7.2*|*7.3*|*7.4*)
to read:
*6.0*|*wheezy*|*sid*|*7.1*|*7.0*|*7.2*|*7.3*|*7.4*|*7.5*|*7.6*|*7.7*|*7.8*|*7.9*)

I'm running debian 7.7 and I thought I'd successfully installed gnuradio companion, but I'm currently unable to operate any of the gnuradio buttons in say the FFT displays etc when i've executed a build.

TIA

 

[sm0vec]

A small report on a running environment. I wanted to see if I could squeeze this great software into a small box, and that worked just fine.

I've now installed this package on a Intel NUC, a cheap barebone box called BOXDN2820FYKH, having a Celeron N2820, dual core at 2,4 GHz. This machine is very quiet, and quite small, only 116.6 mm x 112 mm x 51.5 mm.

Mini PC - Intel® NUC Kit DN2820FYKH

On this I'm running 64 bit Ubuntu 14.04.1 with 4 GB RAM and a 128 GB SSD disk, to a cost of totally 300 USD.

With this small box I can decode two frequencies at the same time on a quite busy system, including logging and recording, all running without any problem. I've also tried a four frequency system but that was a bit too much for the NUC.

Ok... let's double the cost, I'm now for exactly 600 USD running the big brother NUC, a Intel NUC D54250WYKH, with an i5 4250U CPU. The memory is still 4 GB RAM and 128 GB SSD disk, and the boxes are exactly the same size.

Since I've wanted to get a smaller footprint from the OS I've installed Lubuntu instead, which is based on Ubuntu. The main version is the same 14.04.1.

To double the cost I got more than double the performance. With this setup I can without any problem run 6 channels at the same time. The CPU loads to 60% and the CPU temp is rising to about 65C in the long run. This also makes the fan a bit louder, running at just over 4000 RPM.

However the normal base stations doesn't have more than 4 channels, so that's a more relevant test. When I do this the fan go back to same speed as in idle mode (about 3300 RPM) and the temperature quickly drop to under 60C.

Running 4 channels the CPU takes 44%, and with the FFT stopped it comes down to 40%.



So to conclude this the test so far;

The i5 powered NUC with Lubuntu is well capable to decode a complete 4 channel site without becoming to warm or making a lot of noise. It's of course more expensive than the Celeron NUC, but it feels good to have some margin.

Next step is to also try running Lubuntu on the cheaper Celeron box that I tested before. I don't expect to run 4 channels on that, but at least I don't want to be on the limit. The target is to be able to run TeamViewer at the same time without having the decoding losing sync.

Btw... Lubuntu also have a user interface which I think works better for this software. The different receiver windows shows as individual windows in the bottom list (just like in Windows). In Ubuntu they all are gathered under one button in the panel to the left.

 

[sq5bpf]

I'm running debian 7.7 and I thought I'd successfully installed gnuradio companion, but I'm currently unable to operate any of the gnuradio buttons in say the FFT displays etc when i've executed a build.

if you can run the fft display, then this means that gnuradio-companion is compiled properly.

you probably ran the gnuradio flowgraph without running the receiver1 script first. you need something to consume data from /tmp/fifo* . without this the flowgraph blocks after a short period while writing to the pipe

everybody - please read the official documentation, and not just the tutorial.

 

[sq5bpf]

[...]
So some path related problem. I manually gave the following commands based on the script. Copied a file which was sitting in the IN folder and renamed it as test.

$./cdecoder test.out test.codec
$./sdecoder test.codec test.raw
$ sox -r 8k -e signed -b 16 test.raw test.wav

test.wav is now playing on Ubuntu

so if this is playing, that means that the receiver is working ok.

i don't know what could not work in the tetrad script, so you will have to debug this yourself. ubuntu users often have permissions problems (i'm not sure why this is specific to ubuntu, must be something in the interface that misleads them). check permissions (including file ownership) in /tetrad (maybe try something like chown -R youruser /tetra ), check that everything is running as the same user , check that you have access to the audio devices

you can simplify debugging if you still have test.out (that you know is playing properly), then you can test tetrad without running the receiver. simply copy this file into /tetra/out/raffic_20141234_123456_1_6_6_6.out and wait a while for tetrad to find it

 

[racingfan360]

>you probably ran the gnuradio flowgraph without running the receiver1 script first.
No - I've consistently run the receiver1 script first.

>everybody - please read the official documentation, and not just the tutorial.
I did - several times. That's exactly why I asked about your comment on "In case of debian this can be hacked around easily by modifying the line (around line 607):" question, as it's not clear what needs to be hacked. So is the documentation wrong or providing superfluous information?

 

[sq5bpf]

So to conclude this the test so far;

The i5 powered NUC with Lubuntu is well capable to decode a complete 4 channel site without becoming to warm or making a lot of noise. It's of course more expensive than the Celeron NUC, but it feels good to have some margin.

thanks for the update.

and with this margin, maybe you could probably run two usb sticks for more frequency coverage (unless all local networks fit into 2.4MHz)

nice box btw, and 600 USD is probably way cheaper than any tetra scanner will cost (if there will ever be one)

did you measure what is the power consumption with 4 channels?

Next step is to also try running Lubuntu on the cheaper Celeron box that I tested before. I don't expect to run 4 channels on that, but at least I don't want to be on the limit. The target is to be able to run TeamViewer at the same time without having the decoding losing sync.

don't use teamviewer, use x11vnc

just leave the X11 server running (you can also use xvfb or xdummy, so that you don't even have to use the graphics hardware). it you want to connect to it, then ssh to this box, and run
x11vnc -ncache 10 -display :0 , then you can connect using vnc to it (or you can tunnel vnc over the ssh session if you want).

or if you like modern shiny things, then use xpra http://xpra.org (haven't tested it yet, but looks nice)

 

[sq5bpf]

>you probably ran the gnuradio flowgraph without running the receiver1 script first.
No - I've consistently run the receiver1 script first.

make sure it is still running. you can try this instead of receiver1:
(first kill everything)
mkfifo /tmp/fifo1 (might give an error that the file already exists)
cat < /tmp/fifo1 > /dev/null (and let it run)

in another window run the 1 channel receiver.

>everybody - please read the official documentation, and not just the tutorial.
I did - several times. That's exactly why I asked about your comment on "In case of debian this can be hacked around easily by modifying the line (around line 607):" question, as it's not clear what needs to be hacked. So is the documentation wrong or providing superfluous information?

no, but it says to run receiver1 first, and i thought that you didn't run it.

btw did you look at the grc message window?

did you install any proprietary graphics drivers? (like the nvidia driver) they can sometimes cause x applications to misbehave

 

[velu]

so if this is playing, that means that the receiver is working ok.

i don't know what could not work in the tetrad script, so you will have to debug this yourself. ubuntu users often have permissions problems (i'm not sure why this is specific to ubuntu, must be something in the interface that misleads them). check permissions (including file ownership) in /tetrad (maybe try something like chown -R youruser /tetra ), check that everything is running as the same user , check that you have access to the audio devices

you can simplify debugging if you still have test.out (that you know is playing properly), then you can test tetrad without running the receiver. simply copy this file into /tetra/out/raffic_20141234_123456_1_6_6_6.out and wait a while for tetrad to find it

Unfortunately I thought if I reinstall fresh Ubuntu and follow the same tutorial all will work. So formatted and reinstalled which started giving new problem and even ./receiver1 1 refusing to start! I better download some other flavor of Linux. Which version is easier for people with very low linux knowledge? One member here mentioned Mint.

 

[giannit]

Hello, after having arranged the whole thing, I created a launcher which automates the start of riceiver. only thing I miss, the automatic execution of the flow graph. It can do this automatically, without clicking or perform its function key?

 

[grahampaull]

Unfortunately I thought if I reinstall fresh Ubuntu and follow the same tutorial all will work. So formatted and reinstalled which started giving new problem and even ./receiver1 1 refusing to start! I better download some other flavor of Linux. Which version is easier for people with very low linux knowledge? One member here mentioned Mint.

Mint works perfect, I was having too many issues with Ubuntu.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[sm0vec]

Hello, after having arranged the whole thing, I created a launcher which automates the start of riceiver. only thing I miss, the automatic execution of the flow graph. It can do this automatically, without clicking or perform its function key?

Yes, this can be done.

When you run the workflow from gnuradio-companion, a python script is created and executed. This python script is called top_block.py togehter and can be found with your grc-files under telive/gnuradio-companion.

You can then copy and rename top_block.py to a desired name, like 427_5.py

This can later be executed from a terminal window or a bash script without loading the gnuradio-companion workflow editor everytime:
./427_5.py

 

[velu]

Mint works perfect, I was having too many issues with Ubuntu.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Then I will also try with Mint. Kali Linux claims to come with Gnuradio 3.6 in that case we can avoid one step of building Gnuradio which takes over 90minutes for me on I5 Generation 2. I nearly went to download before reading a post in this thread that they have faced problems with Kali.