RADEv2 (FreeDV v2) on FLEX-6000/8000/Aurora with RPI

Mike-VA3MW

try doing the direct addressing for the radio. Since I have multiple on the network, that is all I have been using.

It is also possible that if you have a firewall running, it might not see the radio.

Martin_G4ENZ

Hi Mike,

Both nodered and freedv work perfectly on their own. Each package reports a conflict if it is second to start. It's not firewall and it's not helped by direct addressing.

73 Martin

Mike-VA3MW

You may want to report that to Mooneer.

Martin Bérubé

Anyone noticed a digital noise in the background when using the waveform support? I tried both with the Raspberry pi image and my custom PC deployment and got the same issue.

It doesn't seems to be present when using the full software.

Martin_G4ENZ

Yes. I am seeing digital noise on both transmit and receive when using the Rpi image. When using the full software audio is clean.

Mike-VA3MW

I still can't get the AppImage to work on TX correctly. The Transmitted audio is distorted and not decodable and I've tested on a 2nd radio. I sent a sample to Mooneer.

However, it looks like Mooneer is adding a meter for SNR at some point. You have to subscribe to it from the radio meter list.

I pulled it into NodeRed and was testing a couple of meters to see how it looks.

This is the Meter Name you need to subscribe to:

WVF/0x65CB645C/FreeDV_SNR

Mike va3mw

Alan

Mike

I am using vFreeDV-FlexRadio-2.1.0 and do not see the meter you speak of.

Is there a more current version of the AppImage?

Alan. WA9WUD

Alan

Mike

My FreeDV Flex Waveform Dashboard so far.

My audio is working well using a RPI-4 running 64bit lite OS with the RPI on the same LAN switch as my Flex 8600.

Alan. WA9WUD

WX7Y

I have been investigating why my NODE-RED and FreeDV can't at this point co-exist on the same Pi and I have came to the conclusion that if I start FreeDV first it connects to the Radio and then when I start Node-Red the Radio Discovery packets fail this is because FreeDV is already using PORT 4992 and so there are collisions going on with the two programs, The single 4992 port problem has been an issue forever when trying to run two Flex Radios on the same Network with NODE-RED or other 3rd party programs that use Port 4992 and workarounds had to be used.

It would be nice to have a way to have more than one Discovery port available from the Flex Radios to be able to use for 3rd party software or a multi platform utility to have a HUB of some kind to Split port 4992 somehow but that is way above my capabilities.

I tried to run FreeDV on a old Raspberry Pi3 but NO DICE, as Mike said the RX Audio was very broken, I am running now on a bare install Pi4 B and it works very well.

Anyway there you go, I may be up in the night but that is what I found.

Has anyone came up with a script file to autorun the startup app on Power up? that would be nice.

73

Bret WX7Y

Martin Bérubé

Hi Bret, got the same issue here with rpi. That's why i opted to compile the freedv-flex integration on a linux machine that was available.

I am wondering how Alan got it work on his environment. btw Alan, I had the pleasure to pick your signal last week on 20m.

73, Martin VA2PX

Alan

Bret and Martin

Not sure the "one thing" I did, but all good here for me.

First, I found the Flex Radio becomes very unstable, if you first run FreeDV, build the new FDVU and FDVL modes……then **** FreeDV. Flex keeps looking for the modes and is very upset it cannot find them…..ofter resulting in a Flex Radio crash.

So, I decided to always make sure FreeDV is running BEFORE the Flex Radio boots up. More on "screens' later to keep the process running.

Next, I run my Node-Red Flex Flow on a separate device (my Mac) and FreeDV on a dedicated RPI-4.

Next I do not use the FreeDV option to "find" the Flex Radio. This uses the Flex port 4992 port, as Bret explained. Rather, I use the IP address of the radio as an env variable in the FreeDV command. More on how to do this later.

To ensure the FreeDV process is not inputted I loaded the "screen" option on my RPI:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install screen

The screenutility allows you to create multiple terminal sessions within a single window, and crucially, detach from a session without ending the running processes. 

But……I found the "****" command did not work well, because screens has two PID names. So, I built the FreeDV start command to use screens and give the terminal a unique name. Now I can **** the name cleanly.

So, finally here are the commands, insert your Flex IP address

Start

screen bash -c 'export SSDR_RADIO_ADDRESS=192.168.70.151; ./FreeDV-FlexRadio-2.1.0-aarch64.AppImage'

****

 pkill -9 -f FreeDV-FlexRadio-2.1.0-aarch64.AppImage

Alan. WA9WUD

Alan

Note: replace ***** with the word you would use to K a PID.

Alan

Martin_G4ENZ

I notice that all the US operators currently running freedv-flex 2.1.0 are displaying their correct locators whereas I am displaying my locator as AA00. Is this because the US operators have all got GPS modules inside their Flex? I am using an external 10MHz source to discipline my Flex 6600 which means it thinks it is at latitude 0 deg and longitude 0 deg.

Martin - G4ENZ

Martin Bérubé

Ok I understand now. You don't run the freedv extension and node-red on the same host.

As for the meter Mike mentioned earlier, got it configured on nr, rebooted freedv. The hex number in it changed. It seems that number change over time.

73, Martin VA2PX

Martin Bérubé

That's exactly it, Martin. I've got a similar setup than your and I also report the locator A00. the only thing I see for our situation would be to hardcode the locator in the flex. I don't think there is a way to do it.