Unitrunker not opening audio on several calls

[elliottn]

I've been noticing that as traffic occurs, every now and then a call or two don't highlight to indicate that it is opening the audio for that call or it will wait for a call to end before opening that frequency. Which is odd because it usually happens when unitrunker is only using 1 or 2 vco's out of 8 voice role vco's. It doesn't happen on the same frequency every time or the same SDR. Though it does seem to prefer a specific SDR over the others.

I have 5 SDR's with a voice and signal VCO for each frequency of the system.
So SDR 1 will have a voice and signal VCO parked (for a total of 4 vco's) on frequencies 855.81250 and 855.2250
SDR 2 will have voice and signal VCO's parked on 856.83750 and 856.22500 and so forth until all 8 frequencies are set among the 5 SDR's.

All VCO's are set to 0 squelch and have their own virtual audio cables feeding into a recorder.

One odd behavior I've also noticed is that unitrunker will tell a VCO to drive to a opened carrier instead of using the VCO already parked on that frequency.

The control channel shows 100 decoding almost all the time.

The goal is to be able to record all traffic from an 8 LCN system. I'm not opposed to adding 3 more SDR's to the system if needed and cut down the VCO's to one of each role but I'm not sure that is a cure.

Just for FYI, the system I am attempting to monitor is : https://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?sid=1678

Unitrunker version is 1.0.33.6
Winblows 10, not opposed to putting it on Linux if it would help
i7-7700K processor 4.2GHZ/32 GB ram (and system resource monitor says I'm not taxing the system at all)
All SDR's are on a powered USB hub

I THINK this is the problem occurring in the log

Log file originally created as .\R00000007\Tuner-20170703.LOG	 Version: Unitrunker 1.0.33.6
Opening.
Setting Policies.
Gathering interfaces.
Found 1 associated interfaces.
USB::USB::ControlTransfer fails, 0000001F
Found R820T tuner
PLL LO 56000000 prescale 4 Quotient 31 SDM 7281 error 22.
gain 84 C4 FF E6
PLL LO 860101250 prescale 1 Quotient 59 SDM 47792 error 79.
USB::USB::ControlTransfer fails, 0000001F
PLL LO 860101250 prescale 1 Quotient 59 SDM 47792 error 79.
gain 80 FB FF E6
PLL LO 860101250 prescale 1 Quotient 59 SDM 47792 error 79.
USB::USB::ControlTransfer fails, 0000001F
PLL LO 860101250 prescale 1 Quotient 59 SDM 47792 error 79.
gain 80 FB FF E6
PLL LO 860101250 prescale 1 Quotient 59 SDM 47792 error 79.
USB::USB::ControlTransfer fails, 0000001F
PLL LO 860101250 prescale 1 Quotient 59 SDM 47792 error 79.
gain 82 FB FF E6
PLL LO 860101250 prescale 1 Quotient 59 SDM 47792 error 79.
USB::USB::ControlTransfer fails, 0000001F
PLL LO 860101250 prescale 1 Quotient 59 SDM 47792 error 79.
gain 80 FB FF E6
PLL LO 860101250 prescale 1 Quotient 59 SDM 47792 error 79.
USB::USB::ControlTransfer fails, 0000001F
PLL LO 860101250 prescale 1 Quotient 59 SDM 47792 error 79.
gain 80 FB FF E6
PLL LO 860101250 prescale 1 Quotient 59 SDM 47792 error 79.
USB::USB::ControlTransfer fails, 0000001F
PLL LO 860101250 prescale 1 Quotient 59 SDM 47792 error 79.
gain 80 FB FF E6
PLL LO 860101250 prescale 1 Quotient 59 SDM 47792 error 79.
USB::USB::ControlTransfer fails, 0000001F
PLL LO 860101250 prescale 1 Quotient 59 SDM 47792 error 79.
gain 82 FB FF E6
PLL LO 860101250 prescale 1 Quotient 59 SDM 47792 error 79.
USB::USB::ControlTransfer fails, 0000001F
PLL LO 860101250 prescale 1 Quotient 59 SDM 47792 error 79.
gain 80 FB FF E6
PLL LO 860101250 prescale 1 Quotient 59 SDM 47792 error 79.
USB::USB::ControlTransfer fails, 0000001F
PLL LO 860101250 prescale 1 Quotient 59 SDM 47792 error 79.
gain 80 FB FF E6
PLL LO 860101250 prescale 1 Quotient 59 SDM 47792 error 79.
USB::USB::ControlTransfer fails, 0000001F
PLL LO 860101250 prescale 1 Quotient 59 SDM 47792 error 79.
gain 80 FB FF E6
PLL LO 860101250 prescale 1 Quotient 59 SDM 47792 error 79.

 

[SCPD]

If you want to catch all traffic for one site - you need one signal role VCO and seven voice role VCOs.

The park frequency specifies where the voice roll VCO should go when there is no traffic. Set park to zero hertz to silence the VCO when there are no calls.

As calls arrive, the seven VCOs will compete for traffic.

The "79 error" is actually not an error. That's the integer truncation for the SDM calculation. The actual center frequency is off by 79 hertz.

The control transfer failure is a separate concern. I don't know what is happening there. One poster on these forums had a similar error that went away when he swapped USB cables.

 

[elliottn]

So I do have 7 (8 actually) voice vco's, but they are divided up among 5 sdr's. I also have 8 control vco's so that when the system changes channels it hopefully will pick right up. I've not had much success with the follow function.

Glad to hear the 79 error can be ignored. I've tried a few different USB hubs and same behavior exist. I'm not sure if there is anything else I can try on that front.

I'm open to any other suggestions.

 

[lagunacomputer]

I would just use SDR#1 for the control only vco.
then use the other sdr's for for the voice VCOs. I would only put two voice VCOs per sdr because if you have too many on a single SDR, it can't scan out of bandwidth range. for instance if the SDR can scan 2mhz at a time, and the VCO1 is on say 860,101,250, the second VCO on the same dongle wont be able to pick up on 863,101,250 at the same time (essentially making the second voice VCO on the dongle worthless). you gotta stay in the window.

using the Chase option in the SDR1 control signal VCO should automatically switch to the alternate control freq on its own.

just try sticking to one control VCO (chase enabled), and many signal VCOs

I use three SDR Dongles, #1 has a single Control VCO, #2 has a single Signal/voice VCO, #3 has a single Signal/Voice VCO. Unitrunker routes new calls to the unused VCO on SDR #2 or #3 automatically.