OP25 VirtualBox Project - Run OP25 on Windows 7

[rjdj2000]

I think I am on the right track.....

Ok... So I have took the plunge and finally got Ubuntu 14.04 installed and at least had wired ethernet working. Followed Picco's installation instructions and everything went as planned (or as I thought it should. Everything didn't die and there was no smoke coming from my laptop)

now when I run this:

./scope.py --args "rtl=0" -N 'LNA:46' -f 454.0500e6 -S 2400000 -q 67

I end up getting this:

jeff@jeff-MP061:~/pybombs/src/gr-op25/op25/gr-op25_repeater/apps$ ./scope.py --args "rtl=0" -N 'LNA:46' -f 454.05000e6 -S 2400000 -q 63
linux; GNU C++ version 4.8.2; Boost_105400; UHD_003.008.000-48-g241c6903

gr-osmosdr v0.1.4-7-g20fd6a8c (0.1.5git) gnuradio 3.7.6git-199-gb2e6c0f2
built-in source types: file osmosdr fcd rtl rtl_tcp uhd hackrf bladerf rfspace 
Using device #0 Generic RTL2832U
usb_open error -3
Please fix the device permissions, e.g. by installing the udev rules file rtl-sdr.rules

FATAL: Failed to open rtlsdr device.

Trying to fill up 1 missing channel(s) with null source(s).
This is being done to prevent the application from crashing
due to gnuradio bug #528.

setting gain LNA to 46
Using Volk machine: sse3_32
set_center_freq: 0
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "./scope.py", line 2817, in <module>
    app = stdgui2.stdapp(p25_rx_block, "APCO P25 Receiver", 3)
  File "/home/jeff/target/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gnuradio/wxgui/stdgui2.py", line 46, in __init__
    wx.App.__init__ (self, redirect=False)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/wx-2.8-gtk2-unicode/wx/_core.py", line 7981, in __init__
    self._BootstrapApp()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/wx-2.8-gtk2-unicode/wx/_core.py", line 7555, in _BootstrapApp
    return _core_.PyApp__BootstrapApp(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/home/jeff/target/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gnuradio/wxgui/stdgui2.py", line 49, in OnInit
    frame = stdframe (self.top_block_maker, self.title, self._nstatus)
  File "/home/jeff/target/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gnuradio/wxgui/stdgui2.py", line 76, in __init__
    self.panel = stdpanel (self, self, top_block_maker)
  File "/home/jeff/target/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gnuradio/wxgui/stdgui2.py", line 98, in __init__
    self.top_block = top_block_maker (frame, self, vbox, sys.argv)
  File "./scope.py", line 213, in __init__
    self.open_usrp()
  File "./scope.py", line 1158, in open_usrp
    self.__set_rx_from_osmosdr()
  File "./scope.py", line 894, in __set_rx_from_osmosdr
    raise RuntimeError("failed to set USRP frequency")
RuntimeError: failed to set USRP frequency

Will 'try' to see if I can copy and paste on the laptop but the command line of linux is far above what I know. - Edited - Was able to copy & paste more information

As I don't exactly even know how to get gnuradio running but I guess will head over to there and do some looking around as I think I need to have that running from the sounds of it...

 

[KA1RBI]

usb_open error -3
Please fix the device permissions, e.g. by installing the udev rules file rtl-sdr.rules

FATAL: Failed to open rtlsdr device.

This is not a problem in OP25, it's unable to locate the RTL USB stick. The most common cause is a permission error (assuming the RTL stick is plugged in ) in the USB devices. I think there's a command rtl_test (can't recall the syntax) that you could run...

Max

 

[rjdj2000]

Thanks for the info Max.... Will head off to Google Land to search on it and see if I can get it going...

 

[rjdj2000]

Well I must be getting closer.... just have to modify something somewhere now.....

jeff@jeff-MP061:~$ git clone git://git.osmocom.org/rtl-sdr.git
Cloning into 'rtl-sdr'...
remote: Counting objects: 1587, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (681/681), done.
remote: Total 1587 (delta 1160), reused 1213 (delta 898)
Receiving objects: 100% (1587/1587), 341.27 KiB | 176.00 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (1160/1160), done.
Checking connectivity... done.
jeff@jeff-MP061:~$ rtl_test
Found 1 device(s):
  0:  �v�, (p��h���Gu�@h��(oP�Hh����v�, SN: ��M�


Using device 0: Generic RTL2832U
usb_open error -3
Please fix the device permissions, e.g. by installing the udev rules file rtl-sdr.rules
Failed to open rtlsdr device #0.

 

[rjdj2000]

Well..... After trying to get wireless working I ended up borking the wired connection... So.... As they say I am done with this. The whole Linux thing just doesn't work for me as I don't get the whole thing anyways. Yeah I am a computer nut but the terminal commands is where I am lost on... more of a GUI type than the typing in to run. Used to do a lot of that back in the old days of C64's and what not... So I guess it is onto the newer version of DSD+ and trying to get that tuned in with the newer DSDTune...

Everyone has reported such great results with OP25 and by seeing some of the videos it made me want to try it, have 3 R820T dongles laying around anyways, but there is just so much more to this than I expected... So now to go back and load windoze and go on with things....

 

[AZScanner]

An update on this project: Very successful getting OP25 up and running and decoding using Picco's excellent step-by-step directions for those of us who can barely spell Linux let alone understand it. No I haven't posted screenshots of the constellations tab and such yet because I'm a bit embarrassed of the crappy reception I get on my dumb little dongle - the antenna is shot and I don't have a spare. It's definitely not a fault of the software, in fact this really speaks volumes that even with cheap-o dongle and a messed up stock antenna you can decode P25 just as well using this as any scanner I've yet owned, including the 436. That's really impressive.

This month I expect Santa to bring me all the pieces necessary to build a full-size desktop SDR sporting a fancy new AirSpy or HackRF (I haven't decided fully yet, but am leaning towards the HackRF assuming I can actually get one without a long wait) and once that's done I'll post all sorts of screenshots and videos of this in action. It's really quite something to see.

That being said, OP25's great if what you want is something that works like your scanner does. I however want to set up a system like Luke Berndt's DC scanner that captures an entire system at once, and so with that in mind I'm going to try to get GNURadio 3.6 installed so I can use GR-SmartNet and DSD. Eventually I'd like to swap out the DSD piece for OP25 but I don't have the expertise needed to pull that one off. Luke, if you do it, please share - I'd love to combine your setup with OP25 out here in Phoenix.

For those of you getting frustrated I feel your pain - it took me 5 tries (we're talking full wipe and reinstall of the OS + software) before I got it right. There's lots of moving pieces to this thing and just goobering up ONE is all it takes for the maddening error messages to start appearing. When that happens to me I just punt and start over. It may take longer but it's FAR less stressful.

Based on this success coupled with the fact that I myself am still very much a Windows guy, I'm going to see if it's at all possible to get this running in Windows using GNURadio on Cygwin. I would MUCH rather stick with Windows if I can. Lots more to come, so stay tuned...

-AZ

 

[AZScanner]

Well I must be getting closer.... just have to modify something somewhere now.....

jeff@jeff-MP061:~$ git clone git://git.osmocom.org/rtl-sdr.git
Cloning into 'rtl-sdr'...
remote: Counting objects: 1587, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (681/681), done.
remote: Total 1587 (delta 1160), reused 1213 (delta 898)
Receiving objects: 100% (1587/1587), 341.27 KiB | 176.00 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (1160/1160), done.
Checking connectivity... done.
jeff@jeff-MP061:~$ rtl_test
Found 1 device(s):
  0:  �v�, (p��h���Gu�@h��(oP�Hh����v�, SN: ��M�


Using device 0: Generic RTL2832U
usb_open error -3
Please fix the device permissions, e.g. by installing the udev rules file rtl-sdr.rules
Failed to open rtlsdr device #0.

Just as a side note here: I ran into this issue also. My scorched earth method of removing the software completely (./pybombs remove) and a reinstall of GNU Radio and OP25 fixed it. You have to follow Picco's instructions exactly or you'll end up with errors like this. Ask me how I know.

-AZ

 

[KA1RBI]

still trying to understand how i could decode multiple channels simultaneously. Is there a way to do that in op25? I want to build something like Luke Berndt's DC fire scanner for the Phoenix RWC.

This capability has been added to OP25 in the git 'max' branch. It's P25 Phase I/FDMA only for now, but I expect phase II/TDMA to be added before year end (assuming there is enough time).

It records in parallel all talkgroup activity (except talkgroups excluded via the white list and black lists system). The band of frequencies that can be spanned is equal to the SDR sampling rate, 2.4 MHz or so, wider in other devices (8 MHz in HackRF, for example). Only one RTL SDR is needed though, no matter how many talkgroups are to be logged. The option is enabled via the new "-L x" command line parameter (where x is an int specifying the number of logfile workers - one plus the number of concurrent talkgroups to be logged). The wider the spectrum, and the more workers defined, the higher the CPU usage ...

Max

 

[rjdj2000]

For those of you getting frustrated I feel your pain - it took me 5 tries (we're talking full wipe and reinstall of the OS + software) before I got it right. There's lots of moving pieces to this thing and just goobering up ONE is all it takes for the maddening error messages to start appearing. When that happens to me I just punt and start over. It may take longer but it's FAR less stressful.

Based on this success coupled with the fact that I myself am still very much a Windows guy

AZ... Yeah I feel the exact same way but I think the newer version of Ubuntu that I installed (the latest LTR version from their site) just does not play well with my wireless/ethernet hardware that is in my laptop. (It is a Dell 9400 and is old LOL) So when I went to get the wireless going, I borked everything and that is when I had enough and went and put Win 7 back onto it. I was following along with Picco's instructions that are in this thread as well but just couldn't get anything to seem to work right.

I have a couple Core Duo desktop machines laying around so I may try to get one of those going with it as I only have to worry about the wired network and not wireless and they have a little more umph in the CPU department as well. I hate to just give up on it all together as the challenge of doing it and actually getting it to work is half the fun.. Now that is winter time out here I can't do much outside without freezing so I will still tinker with this until I get it going.

One question though, I did find GNURadio in the 'Applications' download area in Ubuntu. can you install it through there and have it work or is it best to do the terminal commands to install it?

 

[PiccoIntegra]

This month I expect Santa to bring me all the pieces necessary to build a full-size desktop SDR sporting a fancy new AirSpy or HackRF (I haven't decided fully yet, but am leaning towards the HackRF assuming I can actually get one without a long wait) and once that's done I'll post all sorts of screenshots and videos of this in action. It's really quite something to see.

Other then a lower noise floor and larger bandwidth, you won't see much of a difference. AirSpy would be my choice, unless you need TX ability. I just wish it was a little cheaper.. not a deal breaker though.

That being said, OP25's great if what you want is something that works like your scanner does.

If you're tired of buying $500 scanners that cannot demodulate LSM sites, then OP25 is by far your best option. It's a bit of a learning curve, not as portable as a handheld, but your frustration level will be greatly diminished.

I however want to set up a system like Luke Berndt's DC scanner that captures an entire system at once, and so with that in mind I'm going to try to get GNURadio 3.6 installed so I can use GR-SmartNet and DSD. Eventually I'd like to swap out the DSD piece for OP25 but I don't have the expertise needed to pull that one off. Luke, if you do it, please share - I'd love to combine your setup with OP25 out here in Phoenix.

You do not need GNURadio 3.6 for DSD and SmartNet. Luke's github repos have 3.7 compatible versions available. I'll help you install those when the time comes for you to install them, so just ask before jumping off into the deep end. The problem I have with DSD is that it's input is 48k audio buffers. I'd like to see it modified to use sliced symbols instead.

 

[PiccoIntegra]

One question though, I did find GNURadio in the 'Applications' download area in Ubuntu. can you install it through there and have it work or is it best to do the terminal commands to install it?

Nope, please don't install GNU Radio that way, it will not work for this purpose(OP25). Just pick a linux distro, then follow my instructions.

 

[rjdj2000]

Nope, please don't install GNU Radio that way, it will not work for this purpose(OP25). Just pick a linux distro, then follow my instructions.

Picco... I thought probably not. I may try again this weekend to see if I can get one running. I just think Ubuntu 14.04 didn't like my older laptop, while the desktop machines I have are newer, I hope I can get it running without the same problems I had on the laptop as everything seems pretty straight forward on the install part.

Also as to DSD and the 48k input... Could that be why I am having trouble with it in windows? I have to keep messing with the line levels and sometimes I still get the motorboat errors during a voice transmission. Should I set the VB cables to 48k only? (Sorry for taking a sidetrack on the thread, just curious as I may try DSD as well if I can get everything going in linux)

 

[PiccoIntegra]

Also as to DSD and the 48k input... Could that be why I am having trouble with it in windows? I have to keep messing with the line levels and sometimes I still get the motorboat errors during a voice transmission. Should I set the VB cables to 48k only? (Sorry for taking a sidetrack on the thread, just curious as I may try DSD as well if I can get everything going in linux)

My comments regarding DSD were in the context of an "out of tree" GNU Radio block on Luke's github repository. DSD in general has a few short comings, one being that there is no error correction implemented. Having said that, discriminator taps will not perform well on CQPSK or LSM type modulation schemes. The same can be said for piping NFM demoded audio from SDR# via VB. It's all crap.

 

[rjdj2000]

I kind of figured that. Yes DSD does have its problems in regards to errors. I just thought that maybe what you said might help correct it some. Will have to play around with it sometime. I am going to get the Linux box going somehow to see how it performs against the setup I already have. If it is better, I may swap it for my online stream and that is going to be another process to get that going. Just need to get it running first then figure out how to put online lol.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[AZScanner]

Getting closer - ordered my HackRF-One yesterday. Should hopefully arrive sometime in January when the next batch ships out.

-AZ

 

[EricCottrell]

I kind of figured that. Yes DSD does have its problems in regards to errors. I just thought that maybe what you said might help correct it some. Will have to play around with it sometime. I am going to get the Linux box going somehow to see how it performs against the setup I already have. If it is better, I may swap it for my online stream and that is going to be another process to get that going. Just need to get it running first then figure out how to put online lol.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hello,

I need to setup gnuradio again so I can play with OP25.

Recent versions of DSD have implemented some error correction for P25. I have implemented some error correction for DMR and NXDN as well as decoding. It has not made the mainstream DSD code yet.

73 Eric

 

[jcook11]

I've been wanting to play around with OP25 for a while, and this thread has motivated me to get the basics out of the way. Following picco's instructions, I can bring up the APCO 25 receiver window, but most of the time when I click one of the other tabs, it crashes and I see a "segmentation fault (core dumped)" in the terminal window. Any idea what is causing this?

 

[PiccoIntegra]

I've been wanting to play around with OP25 for a while, and this thread has motivated me to get the basics out of the way. Following picco's instructions, I can bring up the APCO 25 receiver window, but most of the time when I click one of the other tabs, it crashes and I see a "segmentation fault (core dumped)" in the terminal window. Any idea what is causing this?

Don't be afraid to start a new thread of your own. :wink:

It's difficult to say without more information. What hardware are you running? CPU/Memory, video card specs(in case of opengl problem), RTL, AirSpy? A console log would help too.

 

[jcook11]

Don't be afraid to start a new thread of your own. :wink:

The thread has diverged from running this on a Virtual Box/Win 7 to a how-to thread on running it on native Linux.

It's difficult to say without more information. What hardware are you running? CPU/Memory, video card specs(in case of opengl problem), RTL, AirSpy? A console log would help too.

This is on a laptop with an AMD N830 triple core processor, 4 GB RAM, and ATI Mobility Radeon HD4250 GPU. It's not the best hardware by any means but seemed to be sufficient looking at some of the other installs mentioned. I'm guessing it's a hardware limitation but don't know for sure. Input device is an RTL for now. I can get a CC of interest to show up correctly and even a voice channel that I tested came through just fine, but if I go to look at the constellation or other tabs it crashes.

rtlsdr_read_async returned with -5
Segmentation fault (core dumped)

Occasionally if I click the C4FM tab it will show up but then the window locks up. Graphics issue?

EDIT: I should also add this is Ubuntu 12.04. I am new to Linux and just realized there are a bunch of updates/patches I didn't install. I'm going to do that and see if that helps.

 

[PiccoIntegra]

This is on a laptop with an AMD N830 triple core processor, 4 GB RAM, and ATI Mobility Radeon HD4250 GPU. It's not the best hardware by any means but seemed to be sufficient looking at some of the other installs mentioned. I'm guessing it's a hardware limitation but don't know for sure.

I think you're good..

rtlsdr_read_async returned with -5
Segmentation fault (core dumped)

Occasionally if I click the C4FM tab it will show up but then the window locks up. Graphics issue?

Please post the command line you're using. This looks like a buffer issue.