No spots with Slicemaster & HRD

Rick Hadley - W0FG

I'm unable to get spots to show. I'm running v.2.3.7 & Slice Master v0.10.4c and HRD Log.  Spots in SSDR are enabled, Send spots to radio in SM is checked.  Spot sources checked are hrdlog://localhost, and telenet://wb8zrl.no-ip.org:7300 (I've also tried wa9pie as suggested in another post).  I'm not seeing any spots, and frequencies are not being fed to HRD Log unless I engage the HRD Server in DDUtil, at which time it fights with Slice Master and closes HRDLog.  What am I missing?

Rick, W0FG

K1DBO

Hi Rick,

To get HRD Logbook working with Slice Master, my first suggestion is to enable Slice Master's HRD TCP TX Listener.  You'll need choose a port number than configure Logbook to use it rather than the one set in DDutil.  Note that this isnt necessary for spots to work, but it will cause HRD Logbook to track the TX slice.

But even without that your spots should be working.  Your question includes a typo though, so lets make sure your configuration doesnt.  Above you wrote  'telenet://wb8zrl.no-ip.org:7300' but that should read 'telnet://wb8zrl.no-ip.org:7300' (note telnet vs telenet)

When setup like this, your spots will be coming from wb8zrl but they will be "colored" by HRD Logbook.

--Don

Burch - K4QXX

Question on this.  I use DDutil to tune my StepIR antenna and to follow the frequency of the Flex in HRD.  Can the both DDutil and Slicemaster be used at the same time?

K1DBO

Yes.  They work together just fine.  DDutil makes it's own API connection to the Flex.  But as an added feature, it also provides a replacement for HRD Rig Control and that's what you have your HRD Logbook connecting to.

Slice Master has a similar feature.  It works a bit differently in that it will follow the TX slice rather than just following slice A.  It also supports a few bits of Flex functionality that DDutil doesnt support.  

But, both do co-exist.  You can choose which program you'd like your HRD Logbook to connect to for frequency information, etc.  Even if you choose not to use Slice Master for this, Slice Master will still be able to "color" your spots with information from HRD.

--Don

Rick Hadley - W0FG

OK, Don.  By disabling HRD control in DDUtil and setting the HRD Listener port to 7809, I now have Slice Master feeding the frequency to HRDLog,  I tried switching the Telnet (the first was just my typo here) command from wb8zrl to wa9pie's cluster which is what I have running in HRDLog at the moment, but that causes it to continously connect and disconnect from the cluster.  Went back to wb8zrl and now at last I'm seeing spots.  Thanks for the help.  One final question...one of the reasons i was using DDUtil for HRD control was that it also coupled with HRD Rotator.  I don't have the Hexbeam back up yet, but when I do, will Slice Master link to that for control too?

Rick - W5FCX

Does Slice Master send spots into SmartSDR’s new API for native spot integration yet? If not, is that planned? I normally only run a single pan adapter so pop out isn’t available and the fully integrated spots look ideal.

[Deleted User]

YES

K1DBO

Rick, 

I'll test here with wa9pie, it's possible it's using cluster software that I havent seen yet.  I'm happy to hear you have things working with wb8zrl.

I havent tested with HRD Rotator but if it was connecting to DDutil on port 7809 it should work with Slice Master.  What confuses me though is that protocol is for rig control so I can imagine what information would be available that a rotator would need.  It would make more sense if HRD Rotator was connecting directly to HRD Logbook... but without more research, I'm just babbling.

--Don

K1DBO

Rick,

Slice Master now has the option to send spots to the Flex via the API or to continue to use the original overlay feature for popped-out panafalls.  The current release actually lets you use both at the same time but I cant imagine a good reason to do that.

--Don

Rick - W5FCX

Yes, it's working today!  No idea what changed... great job!!  Thank you very much.  Very productive way to locate DX quickly right in SmartSDR.

K1DBO

...and for the record, I tested here with the wa9pie cluster and it seems to work fine.  I used telnet://hrd.wa9pie.net:8000 as the spot source.

Burch - K4QXX

I am still having issues with the spots.  I am using telnet://hrd.wa9pie.net:8000 and still no spots on SSDR.  Slicemaster is working with HRD but nothing I have tried will get the spots on SSDR.  I must be missing something?

K1DBO

Burch, have you turned them on in SSDR?  (Silly question, I know, but we have to start some where).  SSDR/Settings/Spots... "Enabled".

Burch - K4QXX

Yes

K1DBO

Burch,

Please send a zip of your Slice Master config folder

C:Users<your name here>AppDataLocalK1DBOslice-master

to the email address in the Slice Master splash screen.  We can pick this up there.

Thanks.

--Don

Burch - K4QXX

Email sent.  Thanks

k0eoo

VE7CC CC cluster is down at my QTH and has been for some hours.  Yesterday after I installed 2.3.7 and setup Slicemaster, all was working....  But, today no joy.  I checked ve7cc using his app and it won't connect, maybe all the Flex users over loaded his server, hi, hi....

k0eoo

Can someone tell me how to setup Slicemaster to use AE5E(dxspot.com)?  Much better server.

N8SDR

enter in the spot sources  telnet://dxspots.com   and check the box

k0eoo

Thanks, i'll try it.  ve7cc is up now....

N8SDR

Or if you want to try and use filtering I think  this may work, (Replace CALL with your callsign)

 telnet://CALL@dxspots.com:7300/SET/FILTER K,VE/PASS

The above should show only spots that were posted from US and Canada

K1DBO

That's pretty close.  If you leave out the call sign, the one stored in your radio will be used.  Also, if you want to send commands to the cluster you need to use a question mark after the port number and follow that with a command or two separated by semicolons.

So

telnet://dxspots.com:7300?set/filter k,ve/pass

might be worth a try.  But my recommendation here is to let some other program do your filtering and have it send spots to Slice Master.  VE7CC's CC User program is great for this.  If you use DXLab's Suite, Spot Collector even more so.