Site is 55 miles away… easy to get to, but only during business hours, and I basically only have every-other Friday off to arrange to go up and touch the hardware… so doing what I can to try to revive functionality remotely. I have remote SSH access to the RPi, and remote desktop to a laptop at the site so I can also SSH to the node from that as well.
I’ve got a node that admittedly the software probably needs to be replaced, but… lsusb shows the RA-35 interface attached, simpleusb configuration was good previously, recognizes the sound chip, but no Tx or Rx activity apparent via the tune menu utility or verbose asterisk ‘CLI’.
Is there a way to “poke at” the interface to see if it’s really ‘there’, taking and responding to data sent to it?
Problem may be as ‘stupid’ as the RA to repeater controller cable disconnected. Can’t see it from here
lsusb shows the sound chip and it’s device ID is properly declared in the appropriate config file for [USB] in the rest of the files. Asterisk and the tune menu ‘knows’ there is a device out there it can talk to. I just don’t know IF it is ‘talking.’ What I am want to do is ‘poke’ at that interface ‘diagnostically’ not just to return a device ID, but anything else that can tell me if it is alive and responsive.
Can you trasmit on the repeater input and while doing that at command line do ‘rpt showvars xxxxx’ ? xxxxx being node number
You should be able to see the state of COS and PTT and while the PTT status doesn’t mean the rig is keyed if you see the RX toggle you know the RA35/40 is there.
Examples…top group id no RX in, PTT off, bottom is RX input, and PTT asserted:
Variable listing for node 2360:
RPT_TXKEYED=0 <----- no ptt
RPT_NUMLINKS=9
RPT_LINKS=1,T43015,
RPT_NUMALINKS=1
RPT_ALINKS=1,43015TU
RPT_ETXKEYED=0
RPT_RXKEYED=0 <---------no rx signal
RPT_AUTOPATCHUP=0
– 8 variables
This can narrow down if the RA35 is there. And if it is there still could be an issue with driving the transmitter ptt, but it helps eliminate the wonder about the RA35
