TwoToneDetect Beta

[aaknitt]

I've put together a program for detecting two tone pages and upon detection, recording 30 seconds of audio and sending it to a specified email address as a .WAV file. I wrote this for my own use, but am making it available for others who might find it helpful. It's not very polished at this point, but it does what I need it to do. Requests for new features may or may not be acted on, depending on complexity and the time I have available.

Features include:

• Audio frequency counter for finding tone frequencies with PC sound card
• Decodes up to 5 two-tone pairs and 3 long tones
• Upon detecting a valid tone set, records 30 seconds of audio and emails it to a specified address as a .wav file attachment
• Provides limited serial port control of BCD396T and similar scanners to provide fire tone out functionality on multiple frequencies at the same time by skipping transmissions that are not valid tones

Installation is somewhat of a pain in the neck because of the large runtime engines that have to be downloaded in order to make the program run. I wrote it in LabView because that made it easy. I'm starting to play around with C# programming, and if I figure that out, I may make a version in that language that should be much easier to install.

Install instructions, basic instructions, and a rudimentary download are at http://radioetcetera.googlepages.com/twotoneprogram

Feedback through this thread is welcome.

Regards,

Andy

 

[HarryWilly]

We use exclusively long tones, and it decodes them fine - the only problem with our setup is that we need to take down the tolerance because when two certain stations are toned out, it will trip our tones even if one of the stations isn't ours and every so often it will trip on another station's tone (I personally think whoever setup the original system did a bad job - seriously, all long tones? and at annoyingly high pitches??) Part of it is I think our old scanner is a piece of junk and is feeding bad audio (it used to be on the station PA, but we replaced it with a Uniden BCD996T - the difference in understanding audio in the station was remarkable)

 

[aaknitt]

Is anyone else having a problem with it not decoding long tones?

What tone and duration are you trying to decode? If you have a .wav recording you could send me, I can try to do some troubleshooting.

Andy

 

[dsheli]

I have been using TwoTone Detect for a few months. I find it to be exactly what I have been looking for. But, after running the program, it seems to freeze up and freeze all other programs running on the computer. This happens after about 3 or 4 days of running just fine. This computer is running a couple of other programs, but they all seem to freeze after running TwoTone Detect for a few days. Shutting down the programs and restarting them seems to work, then it does the same thing all over again. It sometimes does a hard freeze and end program does not work and I have to reboot.

Any suggestions or things that I should be looking at? Otherwise the program is great!!!

John

I also have this same problem. I am also running shout cast on this same server (Scan America) could this be possibly causing a problem?
David

 

[crazyboy]

What tone and duration are you trying to decode? If you have a .wav recording you could send me, I can try to do some troubleshooting.

Andy

539.0 hz is the tone. I do not have a recording at this time but I will try to get one. I have a pair of tones in the two tone section and the long tone, the two tones decode and work perfect but it doesn't realize its supposed to be going off on the long tone.

 

[aaknitt]

When the 539 Hz tone is being sent, what is the program displaying in the "Tone Freq" field? What is the duration (in seconds) of the 539 Hz tone?

Andy

 

[bfd51005]

As previously stated by others, this is a GREAT program. We have been using the program for about 5 months now at the station to send pages to some of our cell phones and have not had any issues with the program.

What I am trying to do is have everything play over the PA at the station. We have a record delay of 4 sec and would like to play an attention getting audio clip just before the message comes across.

I have found when we use the command line to play an audio file upon tone detection, it doesn't play the audio until after the program has recorded for the set amount of time and sends the e-mail. Is there a way to put an option in the program to choose to run the command line as soon as the tones are detected instead of after the recording has been made or maybe im doing something wrong?

 

[aaknitt]

Rev 23 Available

I have found when we use the command line to play an audio file upon tone detection, it doesn't play the audio until after the program has recorded for the set amount of time and sends the e-mail. Is there a way to put an option in the program to choose to run the command line as soon as the tones are detected instead of after the recording has been made or maybe im doing something wrong?

The command line was purposely designed to execute after the sound was recorded so that you could move the file to an FTP server, etc. after it was recorded. Quite a few people have asked for the capability to play a .WAV file upon tone detection, so I just added this feature and posted version 23 on my site. I haven't done a lot of testing, but it seems to be working ok.

Andy

 

[bfd51005]

The command line was purposely designed to execute after the sound was recorded so that you could move the file to an FTP server, etc. after it was recorded. Quite a few people have asked for the capability to play a .WAV file upon tone detection, so I just added this feature and posted version 23 on my site. I haven't done a lot of testing, but it seems to be working ok.

Andy

Thank You much for adding this feature to the program. I downloaded v23 late last night when i got home to test it out but doesn't seem to work. I tried setting it to play a .WAV and a .MP3 with negative results from each. Also tried preloading Windows Media Player (my default player) so it was running in the task bar and ready but doesn't do anything. I am running this on Window XP Pro fyi. Any ideas??

 

[APXguru1]

I have switched my twotone detect program to an HP Vista home computer with line in, and I cannot get the audio sent to my phones as an attachment mms message anymore, before it would sent it to my phone as a mms but now it will not work. It will detect tones and "sending email" to the specified addresses but when I recieve the message from the page it specifys "page recieved" and NO audio like before. Any ideas as to why it worked before and not now? I have tinkered with the audio settings with NO differance...Thanks!! I am running Ver0.22.

 

[carpetman]

Email

Do you have to have an out going email account set up on your computer for the emails to be sent?

 

[aaknitt]

I have switched my twotone detect program to an HP Vista home computer with line in, and I cannot get the audio sent to my phones as an attachment mms message anymore, before it would sent it to my phone as a mms but now it will not work. It will detect tones and "sending email" to the specified addresses but when I recieve the message from the page it specifys "page recieved" and NO audio like before. Any ideas as to why it worked before and not now? I have tinkered with the audio settings with NO differance...Thanks!! I am running Ver0.22.

That's strange...you're sure you're running the same version on both computers? Same version of .NET framework? When it sends the emails it calls .NET functions, so that might have some impact, but I'm not sure.

Andy

 

[aaknitt]

Do you have to have an out going email account set up on your computer for the emails to be sent?

You have to have an SMTP server that you can use. I've had the best luck with using gmail. Set up a gmail account and you should be good to go.

Andy

 

[aaknitt]

Thank You much for adding this feature to the program. I downloaded v23 late last night when i got home to test it out but doesn't seem to work. I tried setting it to play a .WAV and a .MP3 with negative results from each. Also tried preloading Windows Media Player (my default player) so it was running in the task bar and ready but doesn't do anything. I am running this on Window XP Pro fyi. Any ideas??

No I'm not sure. I've tried it on two computers here with good results. What exactly does it do when a tone is detected? What is displayed in the Status box? Anyone else having trouble?

 

[APXguru1]

That's strange...you're sure you're running the same version on both computers? Same version of .NET framework? When it sends the emails it calls .NET functions, so that might have some impact, but I'm not sure.

Andy

Yea, im currently using a GMAIL account...same account I used on on my XP operating computer, I just plugged in all the info from that machine to my new Vista running machine, I DLed all the required programs to allow my program to run and still wont work...It decodes and sends a mms to my phone except NO Audio, it has actually recorded 2 sec. of silence and thats it. Not sure what the deal is??? Thanks for the help...

 

[aaknitt]

Yea, im currently using a GMAIL account...same account I used on on my XP operating computer, I just plugged in all the info from that machine to my new Vista running machine, I DLed all the required programs to allow my program to run and still wont work...It decodes and sends a mms to my phone except NO Audio, it has actually recorded 2 sec. of silence and thats it. Not sure what the deal is??? Thanks for the help...

I assume you used MP3 files before...did you get the LAME exe on the new machine? Is the record time set to what you want?

Andy

 

[APXguru1]

Im lost....

I assume you used MP3 files before...did you get the LAME exe on the new machine? Is the record time set to what you want?

Andy

Ok, im severly lost...How do I get a "LAME exe" and what is that and how to install it or where to put it??

Sorry for being a pain in the A$$....

Thanks again!!

 

[aaknitt]

How do I get a "LAME exe" and what is that and how to install it or where to put it??

See this post from earlier in the thread:

http://www.radioreference.com/forum...e/120010-twotonedetect-beta-2.html#post905686

Andy

 

[bfd51005]

No I'm not sure. I've tried it on two computers here with good results. What exactly does it do when a tone is detected? What is displayed in the Status box? Anyone else having trouble?

Everything works as its supposed to except it doesn't play the sound file i have selected. The status box starts with "Checking for A Tones" goes to "A Tone Found, Checking for B Tones" then "Tone Set Found, Waiting" next to "Recording Audio" and finally "Sending E-mail"... i have the Play Audio While Recording selected and i hear everything from that fine. The location of the sound file i'm trying to play really shouldn't effect right?

 

[aaknitt]

Everything works as its supposed to except it doesn't play the sound file i have selected. The status box starts with "Checking for A Tones" goes to "A Tone Found, Checking for B Tones" then "Tone Set Found, Waiting" next to "Recording Audio" and finally "Sending E-mail"... i have the Play Audio While Recording selected and i hear everything from that fine. The location of the sound file i'm trying to play really shouldn't effect right?

I'm not sure what the issue is. I'll do some playing around with audio files of different sampling rates, etc. I was using a mono .WAV file for my testing.

 

[bfd51005]

I'm not sure what the issue is. I'll do some playing around with audio files of different sampling rates, etc. I was using a mono .WAV file for my testing.

I tried some different sampling rates along with mono and stero and still not having any luck. How is the program setup to do it? does it play the audio file right from TwoToneDetect or does it open a secondary program to play the audio file?