Periodic network issues

n0mdh · December 27

I am curious if anyone is experiencing the same issues I am. I have a 6600m connected to an eight port gigabit ethernet switch (Netgear 308) to which my PC is also connected. Both devices are showing 1G negotiation. My network quality should be perfect, yet it's far from it at least according to SSDR. Sometimes I see the quality go red and the TX action on the radio is very delayed from when WSJTX initiates it. I've seen 6000ms. I've seen SmartSDR lose connection to the radio. I've also experienced significant latency with PTT on the front panel Maestro using my Heil trigger. I do not see this latency when SmartSDR is not running. I'm pretty sure that the network latency is somehow the cause of all of this.

I am running SmartSDR 4.1.5. I have done multiple factory reset procedures.

n0mdh · December 27

I have also put chokes on the network cables and switched them all out.

I thought maybe I was running through smart link and that might be the cause of the latency. I disabled it and am still getting the issues locally.

Ted VE3TRQ · December 27

[Typo correction] I have seen these kinds of issues in the past. I have a 6600M with various switches in the path.

In my case, it was a defective switch causing the problems. I have also had the same issues with a bad ethernet cable. I would try removing things one at a time to see what cures the problem. First try direct connect, with either self-assigned or statically assigned IP addresses to the PC and radio - just a single known good ethernet cable.

n0mdh · December 27

I have swapped out the cable and swapped out the switch. I see zero network errors before and after these changes, but I still see a 2+second delay on WSJTX transmitting and when SSDR keys up

OutboundDiscardedPackets : 0
OutboundPacketErrors : 0
RdmaStatistics : MSFT_NetAdapter_RdmaStatistics
ReceivedBroadcastBytes : 537884
ReceivedBroadcastPackets : 1250
ReceivedBytes : 134973041
ReceivedDiscardedPackets : 0
ReceivedMulticastBytes : 780745
ReceivedMulticastPackets : 1643
ReceivedPacketErrors : 0
ReceivedUnicastBytes : 131961308
ReceivedUnicastPackets : 420383
RscStatistics : MSFT_NetAdapter_RscStatistics
SentBroadcastBytes : 6667
SentBroadcastPackets : 126
SentBytes : 231229407
SentMulticastBytes : 22338
SentMulticastPackets : 123
SentUnicastBytes : 229897726
SentUnicastPackets : 314520
SupportedStatistics : 4163583

n0mdh · December 27

I've noticed that my SSR network quality is all green bars until I transmit and then it goes red.

n0mdh · December 27

I have done yet another factory reset and now everything seems normal. I suspect something gets corrupted or something within the radio and it behaves oddly until fully reset again. Why it keeps happening is the real mystery.

Martin AA6E · December 27

I've had trouble (some years back) where my 6500 would not work reliably with Maestro at 1 gb/s. Always a nonzero error rate. This was "cured" by downgrading to 100 mb/s. Something to try.

Try using a 100 mb/s switch to force lower bit rate. (Gb electronics gets you rfi vulnerability with minimal performance benefit IMO.)

73 Martin AA6E

n0mdh · December 27

Thanks Martin. I'll have to give that a try. Unfortunately I'm using unmanaged switches and I don't see configurable parameters in the front panel of the 6600M to for its side to negotiate 100m.

n0mdh · December 27

So I've invested in a managed switch and set the 6600M's port to 100/Full. I've also purchased CAT 8 shielded patch cabled for every device. While I'm not seeing the operational impacts (delayed or no PTT), I do see the network quality (according to SSDR) varying wildly. Further, I'm having difficulty understanding the criteria used to determine the quality of the network. It almost seems arbitrary. Latency is low, packet loss seems to be a single event at SSDR startup, and the max latency hasn't changed.

Does anyone know how this diagnostic works?

Thanks and 73,

Mike N0MDH

Periodic network issues

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