UniTrunker first public beta

[SCPD]

BTW, I have not yet experienced the loss of data problem with this version between sessions that was a previous problem and appears to still exist for at least one reporting user here.

His data loss problem is probably different (same symptoms but different cause).

 

[SCPD]

I know Uni-trunker was designed to decode CC data. Does it currently have the capability of decoding conventional P25 NAC's? Maybe this functionality will require a separate program :?:

Yes. You might see a different program (later this year) that serves this purpose for conventional channels (CTCSS, PL, DPL, P25 NACs, MDC1200, MODAT, or whatever "caller id" or "ANI" formats I can find).

-rick

 

[SCPD]

What would the band plan be for UniTrunker? It auto fills the plan for my 3600 moto systems, but not for this 9600. That would be my BEEOO15D.PLN file.

Try this ... (it's the standard 800 mhz plan for P25) ...

257,0,4096,851006250,6250

The first number is the site number. The program displays the site number as two numbers (Subsystem and tower/site #). Multiply the subsystem number by 256 and add it to the second number to get the internal site number as stored in the PLN file.

Example: Site 01-01 is 257 (256 + 1), Site 01-02 is 258, and so on. The site # is also the first column in the HZ file so if you're not sure, look there for an example.

-rick

 

[Joseph11]

[...]

Yes. You might see a different program (later this year) that serves this purpose for conventional channels (CTCSS, PL, DPL, P25 NACs, MDC1200, MODAT, or whatever "caller id" or "ANI" formats I can find).

-rick

I can't wait for that program.

 

[wwhitby]

I was wondering if you wouldn't mind sharing the algorithm that links the groups to the subscribers?

I'm not sure what you mean by algorithm. If you're asking how the data in the text file is laid out ... here 'tis.

-rick

Hi Rick:

I'm trying to figure our how the subscribers in the .rid file are linked to the .gid file. For example, radio ID of 65 appears on talkgroup 289 (both decimal.) In the .rid file, in the place that has the talkgroup, it shows 1073742113. I've been racking my brain trying to figure out how 1073742113 equates to 289.

Right now, its hard to view the subscribers, since the "memory" problem that I mentioned earlier keeps me from paging forward while there is activity on the system. If I can figure out how the radio IDs are linked to a talkgroup, I can import both files into MS Access and look at them there.
Not to mention, I can do a mass copy & paste of text labels.

Thanks,

Warren

 

[SCPD]

I'm trying to figure our how the subscribers in the .rid file are linked to the .gid file. For example, radio ID of 65 appears on talkgroup 289 (both decimal.) In the .rid file, in the place that has the talkgroup, it shows 1073742113. I've been racking my brain trying to figure out how 1073742113 equates to 289.

Ah! Yeah that would throw quite a few people off.

Subtract 1073741824 from your number to get the real talkgroup number. Here's why: the program stores TGs as 32 bit numbers. Bit 30 is used for internal bookkeeping. If that bit is set when the info is saved, you will see a large number like this. Subtract 2 raised to the power of 30 to get the correct talkgroup number. That's actually a bug, the bookkeeping bits should be stripped out before saving.

Right now, its hard to view the subscribers, since the "memory" problem that I mentioned earlier keeps me from paging forward while there is activity on the system.

I need to clean up the logic that decides when to re-draw the screen text. That should make the program more responsive. If you can, please check the CPU usage as reported in Task Manager. My guess is it is fairly high on your system.

-rick

 

[wwhitby]

I need to clean up the logic that decides when to re-draw the screen text. That should make the program more responsive. If you can, please check the CPU usage as reported in Task Manager. My guess is it is fairly high on your system.

-rick

With one I-Call in operation (nothing else on the system), the CPU was being utilized 60-84% (10-16). Throw in a talkgroup or two, and it went up from 70-90% (up to 18) with spikes to 100% CPU utilization.

BTW, my processor is an 866Mhz Pentium III in a Dell Dimension L866r.

Warren

 

[BANDIT]

My laptop is a PIII 400Mhz with 256mb ram and on a busy system I can't even change my view options until the active user count drops to one or two users. Four or five users and cpu usage is 100% most of the time.

 

[loumaag]

Let me make some observations about CPU usage and performance of UniTrunker.

I too experienced some glitches while trying to do things while activity was present on the system I was monitoring. Yes, I also saw the cursor flash down the console screen so I decided to take a look at what was causing this.

The actual CPU usage for the Uniform.exe process does not seem be the problem. Activity level for the actual program seldom takes more than 5% of the CPU time even when the activity level is pretty high. This made me wonder what the problem was, so I started checking all processes as total CPU usage would go from an idle of 3% to 4% (with the number of things I have open) to as much as 68% when a single channel became busy on the monitored TRS.

The program that is causing the strain on my system is csrss.exe. For those of you interested, here is the definition/usage of csrss.exe:

This is the user-mode portion of the Win32 subsystem (with Win32.sys being the kernel-mode portion). Csrss stands for client/server run-time subsystem and is an essential subsystem that must be running at all times. Csrss is responsible for console windows, creating and/or deleting threads, and some parts of the 16-bit virtual MS-DOS environment.

The interesting part of this is that the csrss.exe program's CPU usage is normal during idle times but jumps dramaticly when activity appears on the monitored system to over 50% of the CPU time; but this excess CPU usage only happens if the Unitrunker program is viewing Talkgroups or Subscribers. If for example it is scrolling the packets under View-System and activity happens, the excessive CPU usage is not observed. While checking all possible views, it appears that this excessive CPU time is restricted to those times when the Talkgroups or Subscribers are being viewed on the screen (either in View or Find modes) and not any of the other possibilites. This of course means that there is something different about the code where-in the display of those two types of data are on the screen.

BTW, I noticed I can no longer display the Channel information. If I choose to View Channel then I get a static display of packet translation. This static display begins to scroll if there is activity on the system or if I continue to hit F1 to refresh. It seems to me that we used to be able to see all the channels stored (known) and that Channel information is still stored in the file.

 

[wwhitby]

but this excess CPU usage only happens if the Unitrunker program is viewing Talkgroups or Subscribers. If for example it is scrolling the packets under View-System and activity happens, the excessive CPU usage is not observed. While checking all possible views, it appears that this excessive CPU time is restricted to those times when the Talkgroups or Subscribers are being viewed on the screen (either in View or Find modes) and not any of the other possibilites.

The same thing happens to me when I am viewing talkgroups or subscribers, or leave the results in the bottom pane. To keep the CPU down, I usually go to patches (since there are only two) and then leave the results displayed.

I also have the same memory problems when I do a find on the subscriber or talkgroup and attempt to enter information when the system is busy. Usually I have to press any key and wait 5-10 seconds for a response.

Warren

 

[jparks29]

any way to get this thing at any other res than 1024x768? at lower screen resolutions it hashes the display during refresh... thanks for a great program...and if you need help decoding MDC1200, I have a soundcard based program that does that already......and I'd be more than happy to ask the author for his permission for me to give it to you

 

[Joseph11]

any way to get this thing at any other res than 1024x768? at lower screen resolutions it hashes the display during refresh... thanks for a great program...and if you need help decoding MDC1200, I have a soundcard based program that does that already......and I'd be more than happy to ask the author for his permission for me to give it to you

Wow, please ask the author. I'd really like to have that software.

 

[BJ_NORTON]

CRASH REPORT

I don't know if this has happened to anyone else, but I crash unitrunker everytime I insert a site name
nsert...ste... then type anything into the label field and then crash. I am using a Compaq presario with XP xp2 not sure about processor speed (its a P4 processor) or RAM, its my sister's computer.

 

[BANDIT]

Try doing a Find, and then update your label. I think this is the work around for now. It works for me also on gid labels.

 

[BJ_NORTON]

I tried under [F]ind, but it will only let you enter a system number, not a site name. what I was trying to was change it form displaying "unmaned Site" to "NSRS Sunrise Mountain." I have been logging TGs from the state wide EDACS system. There are several sites that are in range from the Las Vegas valley, so I thought this might make it easier to tell what site I am listening to. The 3 main sites I have been working on have 15, 8, and 3 channels, so it isn't hard to tell what site I am on. Its still just a beta, so no big deal I'm just lucky enough that Rick took time to write the program at all

 

[Forts]

You can also edit the data files by hand in your text editor of choice... That's how I did it for the time being.

 

[poltergeisty]

What I did was "tap" the voltage follower front-end of my existing 4 level FSK decoder. The buffered audio is fed directly into the microphone input.

Can you use the slicer with say trunker and use the buffer on the slicer with uni trunker at the same time?

*** SIDE NOTE ***

You say "4 level fsk slicer." I believe I read a post by you once that said that the idea off saying 4 level fsk is not correct. Because in fact it is just 4 level and fsk is 4 level?

Am I right on this assumption? I think you said something to this affect. I'll have to find the post. I know fsk means frequency shift keying. This is the phase shift at 4 points correct? 0-90-180-270Boo!-Poltergeisty :-0

 

[BJ_NORTON]

Forts

can you go into more detail please?

With an earlier post by Rick I was able to import the Radio ID and Talkgroup info into excel, but now that I have it there, I'm not sure what to do with it. Obviously and can move stuff around, but I'm not sure how to re-save it so that unitrunk opens it.

Also I would like to build 1 file and have unitrunker open it for all of the NSRS sites around here. For example, Sunrise mountain gets the majority of traffic in Las Vegas, so it has 15 channels and has logged the most TG/RID info. I would like to use all this information when I monitor Sloan (a site that covers the southern end of the valley) or Mt Potosi (a rural coverage area) without having to manually type all this in for each site. I think this is possible If I save the info with the correct system ID in the name.

Any help you or others could give me would be greatly appreciated. I downloaded this yesterday and have been toying with it ever since. It really is very cool :!:

 

[fmon]

Forts

can you go into more detail please?

Right click on the system file and select Open with and find your text editor. I use notepad.

Then between the second set of quotes "type your system name here"

IE
2817,"Motorola",0,0,0,0x000000,"Suffolk VA Mot Smartnet",20050523024302,20050526005955,0,""

 

[Joseph11]

[...]

You say "4 level fsk slicer." I believe I read a post by you once that said that the idea off saying 4 level fsk is not correct. Because in fact it is just 4 level and fsk is 4 level?

Am I right on this assumption? I think you said something to this affect. I'll have to find the post. I know fsk means frequency shift keying. This is the phase shift at 4 points correct? 0-90-180-270Boo!-Poltergeisty :-0

I belive someone called a discriminator tap a "4-level FSK discriminator output" or something like that, if that's what you're referring to.