SDR Bridge set up?

Andrew O'Brien

I had SDR Bridge working upon first try a few days ago but not today.  I think I am not understanding the basic way to set it up.  The first time I tried I just checked a skim checkbox in SDR Bridge and CW Skimmer was launched , CW Skimmer read the frequency from the Flex 6500 and decoding was fine.  I don't recall, but perhaps I had to set a DAX channel, it all seemed so automatic.  Today, CW Skimmer is not reading the frequency from the Flex (maybe I need DDutil running ?) and the audio channels needed manually pointing to the correct DAX IQ channel.  Where did I go wrong ?

W9OY

you don't need DDUTIL to run SDR-bridge.  What you need are steps.

1 boot the radio
2 boot SSDR
3 open DAX and set your I/Q channel to 96000 and turn on the channel(s) you will use.  DAX sucks a fair amount of resources so nio need to turn on 2 if your only going to use 1
4 boot SDR-Bridge there should be data in slice and stream 
5 check the skim box

Trouble shooting;
6 make sure DAX in the SSDR slice (the flag on the left of the SSDR matches your DAX channel)
7 make sure your channel is open (like you didn't close slice A when skimmer is connected to slice A)
8 close skimmer, uncheck the check box in SDR-Bridge and then re-check 

Don't randomize the steps

73  W9OY

Mickey N4MB

I have problems with SDR-Bridge as well. Whenever I QSY using Flex Control or clicking on frequency, either with SSDR or CW Skimmer, the skimmer screen goes blank and the skimmer frequency seems random, but it certainly isn't sync'ed to SSDR. Config: 6500, Win 7, 16GB RAM, Athlon Phenom (6x CPU). I reported this on the qrv.com web site a few weeks ago, so I'm sure W2RF is aware of this issue. It is beta software, after all! The intent is great, but it's not usable here yet.

Andrew O'Brien

Lee, I followed your instructions...two or three times.  Everything seems OK EXCEPT CW Skimmer is NOT reading the frequency from the Flex .  In CW Skimmer set-up the LO is zero whereas in screenshots I have seen the LO gets set to the frequency the Flex is tuned to.  Otherwise, CW Skimmer is showing signals and decoding them.
Andy K3UK

W9OY

Is skimmer set up like this?






450 CW pitch is my side tone choice.  I'm listening on 6M so that's why the 50xxx lo freq.  Is your SDR-Bridge something like this?

Andrew O'Brien

See video at http://www.youtube.com/embed/3dUqh0E0kh4?vq=hd1080   it shows me (slowly) following these instructions and the end result is no frequency in CW Skimmer
Andy K3UK

W9OY

heheh slow is an understatement.  Is telnet turned on in skimmer?  For some reason skimmer is not connecting to telnet 

Andrew O'Brien

That little ****!!!!!  The port number in CW Skimmer was changed to 7300!  Thanks VERY much Lee and others.  Now I can skim while watching the World Cup and not obsess about why it is not working.  I''ll get the courage to try 4 skim slices later tonight. 

Andrew O'Brien

But... now on to a second slice of Skimmer.  If feeding a second IQ stream to skimmer via SDR Bridge, what Telnet port ca be used since 7010 is being used by the first slice?
Andy K3UK

John

Arrrrg, in my best pirate voice.

 I have followed the instructions as shown above, over and over and even over again with no consistent skimmer love.

I have followed the boot sequence, ticked the proper boxes yet this dog still don't hunt.  For some unknown reason the displayed frequency in skimmer usually has nothing to do with what the radio is showing, usually skimmer shows the same band although not on the same frequency as the radio or I can get just what I believe to be an off-set frequency - 24 +12 etc.  

I have setup several other radios with skimmer and never had these kind of intermittent issues, arrrrg!

 Any other suggestions on what to try next?

TIA,  John NA6L  

Andrew O'Brien

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGG also! I discovered that I  CAN set one incidence of Skimmer by matching the Telnet Server port number that is in the SDR Bridge (click EDIT, then SETTINGS and you see the port numbers SDR Bridge expects)  localhost:7310 works fine for IQ1 . I also see that IQ2 has 7320 as the localhost port. So, i assume that in the second incidence of Skimmer that SDDR Bridge launches ... if I specify the 7320 as the Telnet Server port... my second incidence of CW Skimmer would show frequency read out.  Alas it does not. 
Andy K3UK

W9OY

something like a file must be corrupted,  There are not all of these machinations and the skimmers set themselves up.  You don't have to specify anything to set up the skimmers except get dax running choose the slices and check the check boxes.  The skimmers start automatically. 

Andrew O'Brien

Thanks Lee, that is what I saw happening the very first time I used it.  useful to know.  I'll delete SDR Bridge's ini files and see what happens. 
Andy K3UK

Andrew O'Brien

No, that did not help. I uninstalled SDR Bridge, reinstalled. .  Triple checked to make sure I had the latest version of CW Skimmer installed. When I boot SDR Bridge no frequency information from SmartSDR is displayed by CW Skimmer. When SDR Bridge caused CW Skimmer to open, the Telnet Server port comes up with a 7300 default but changing it to 7310 does not cause the frequency infor to be displayed.. Andy K3UK 

Andrew O'Brien

More oddities.  See this quick video capture.   http://www.youtube.com/embed/ngXAmkZKucM?vq=hd1080  It does show TWO slices with CW Skimmer and the frequency display does give some information rather that the +12 kind of thing I had before. However, like John in his earlier post in this thread, what I see on the Skimmer frequency read-out is no where near what what is displayed in SmartSDR.  If you look at the SDR Bridge information displayed in the video . it shows where I have a slice at 18.112 but the "stream" shows a range starting at 15.962 .  The beginning of the stream range is where CW Skimmer has its frequency range. It is akin to not having the IF set correctly when using Cw Skimmer with PowerSDR.  
Andy K3UK

Andrew O'Brien

John , et al.  . I think I have it working with two slices .  It seems the logic employs was not easily sussed out by my poor brain. Clicking on a SmartSDR frequency does not seem to cause CW Skimmer to move to where one clicks  (maybe I need to enable click tune ?) .  However, clicking on the callsign list in Cw Skimmer DOES cause SmartSDR to move to that frequency.  Doing the latter also appears to get rid of the situation where the start of a stream does not match where you want to be in SmartSDR.  .  Back to more messing around.

John

Andrew/all, I'd love to get skimmer working reliably with one slice! 

I have found that when I do have skimmer occasionally working properly I can click on the skimmer WF or decoded callsign and the radio follows to the frequency nicely but if I change the frequency via  SSDR,  skimmer loses all touch with reality and seems to look at another portion of the stream.

I'm listening to a 10m beacon on about 28.210 and SDR-Bridge reports an IQ 1 slice of about 28.210 and a stream of 28.101.9 - 28.197.6 so it seems like skimmer can't "see" the higher beacon frequency or move to where the radio is tuned. The DAX CP shows IQ stream 1 at 28.149.50 as does the LO setting in skimmer settings -- I did not enter these settings.

What the heck could be causing the disconnect between the stream that SSDR is working with and what SDR-Bridge is using?? If that is what is going on.

Andy, BTW thanks for all of your most excellent web apps - I'm a regular in the LoTW Sked page (-;

Regards, John NA6L

Andrew O'Brien

Thanks John.  At least I know I am not totally **** and someone is having the same issues.  I wonder if it is related to the Telnet server's functiong.

John

All, one recent discovery seems to be that choosing WWV in the SSDR bands select section is very good for testing SDR-bridge-skimmer-SSDR integration. Skimmer is always centered  right on the frequency, skimmer talks to the radio the radio talks to skimmer, the WWV frequency in centered right in the middle of the proper stream.  I'm thinking that this is a good indication that my settings are correct. Now to figure out why there are so many issues with other bands. 

Regards, John NA6L

Andrew O'Brien

Hmmmmmmm

Andrew O'Brien

FYI John, once slice Skimmer work  ...  
http://www.youtube.com/embed/9tCHzcM04O4?vq=hd1080   frequency read-out and tracking correctly Skimmer to SmartSDR.

and here is a video of TWO slices also working (albeit with some drag due to CPU issues when my video capture program is also running).  http://www.youtube.com/embed/rhL6iTSWFos?vq=hd1080
What puzzles me is the SDR Bridge screen where IQ1 has a stream starting at 14018 and IQ2 has a stream starting at 7035.  I have not figured out how to start the stream at a predictable point.  Obviously  I would like IQ1 to start at 14000 and IQ2 to start at 7000. Not sure how to change that in a way that makes sense.  So, I went inside CW Skimmer and changed the  LO for the IQ2 feed , I changed it 7050724 and the stream begin point changed to 7002.8 and ended 96 kHz up the band (logically). I remember a similar trick being published about use PowerSDr with CW Skimmer .  I closed SDR Bridge and restarted IQ2, at first the Skimmer read out was different from SmartSDR and nothing changed when clicking on CW Skimmer spots.  After  3-4 random click on CW SKimmer, I double clicked and magically CW Skimmer started controlling SmartSDR and CW signals were decoded. It is inconsistent, sometimes a double click also fails but most of the time it works. I have no clue why this happens but I  suspect some lag in the way my PC allows the various applications to talk to eachother.
Andy

Norbert Meyer

Hi to all SDR Bridge users, now after a lot of tries 4 instances of CW Skimmer running stabil - it's great- in conjunction with Writelog. Because I need a lot of space on my two monitors for the CW Skimmer plus bandmaps the SSDR with 4 panadapters and together with N4PY is running on a 2nd laptop with two monitors. Now I run 4 monitors...just for fun and to learn to play with the different programs, so DM780 or FLDigi, Band Master, Voacup etc...and to increase the complexity I use the K6TU-App on my iPad..., the Flexcontrol knob and the Griffin PowerMates, DDutil to control my Expert 1K PA and the DM780...the limitations are now only my two hands...hi ...and the time to run real QSOs....BTW today the condx are poor, yesterday the bandmaps of the CW Skimmer had between 80 and 120 callsigns. Well done to all developers, thanks 73 Norbert, DJ7JC
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Ed - W2RF

Andy,

Sorry to be late here. The Skimmer ports are set up in the Edit>Settings panel of SDR-Bridge. The default is 7310 for the first, 7320 for the second, 7330 for the third, and 7340 for the fourth.

These ports are set  in the INI files that install with SDR-Bridge.

I have had a number of instances where either the defaults or the INI settings get changed. The next update of SDR-Bridge will have a reset to defaults option.

Thanks for testing!

73 Ed W2RF

Ed - W2RF

I've tried to follow this thread but am unable to assess who has what working or what problem. This is not the proper place to discuss SDR-Bridge problems. SDR-Bridge is not a FlexRadio Systems program, so I don't get notified when a problem is posted.

If you have a problem please use the form on the http://www.qrv.com/contact.html page. From there we can work out any issues you have.

Thanks for testing!

73 Ed W2RF

Ed - W2RF

Testers,

Thanks for working directly with me on these questions.

Most of the problems were with changes that were made to settings after SDR-Bridge was installed. A new release is being prepared that restores all settings to defaults. Currently there is no way to do that except to uninstall, manually delete the INI files in ProgramFilesW2RF and the config file in  [user]AppDataLocalEd_Russell,_W2RF (a strange place, will be changed in the update), and reinstall.

One other issue is that under certain conditions the Skimmer Green Box does not sync up with the radio. This happens when the Panadapter is wider than the bandwidth being skimmed.

Skimmer skims its bandwidth from the center of the Panadapter, and never changes the Panadapter center frequency. So if you click-tune the radio outside the IQ bandpass, the Skimmer Green Box does not follow. This is by design. It is possible to change this behavior or add an option in a future release.

73 Ed W2RF

Andrew O'Brien

Thanks Ed