New install, need setup help

[Frank316]

Im totally new to allstarlink, and I just installed allstarlink v3 on a Raspberry Pi 4b, and i currently have a G1LRO Universal radio controller connected to the Raspberry Pi, and just for now, i have a Quansheng UV-K58 connected to the Universal Radio Controller until i can get a better radio.
I seem to have most of what i can figure out by watching youtube videos and the G1LRO webpage set up correctly from what i can determine, but obviously something is missing, or maybe a few things.
It doesnt help that the Universal Radio Controller instructions arent referring to the Allstarlink v3 software. As far as the Universal Radio Controller goes, ive followed their instructions and upgraded the firmware, and changed the URC’s ID as per the instructions. The simpleUSB-tune instructions on the G1LRO webpage ( Making an AllStarLink Node with the URC/AIOC – G1LRO HOMEPAGE) is different than the v3 allstarlink, (HAMvoip) so im kinda guessing at this point as to the settings.
Im at the point now in the setup where i boot up the Raspberry Pi, and the UV-K58 that is connected to the Universal radio controller keys up as expected, and i have a separate HT which is also tuned to the same frequency that the Quansheng UV-K58 connected to the URC is, which is 446.100mhz, and when the radio keys up, i can hear what i assume is the node transmitting the morse code repeater startup audio. So, the radio connected to the Universal radio controller transmits from the nide when the system starts up, thats good. Whats bad is that if i try to use any DTMF command on my HT, nothing happens. The mide status shows no connections, and one keyed up.
Looking at the Universal Radio Controller instructions, it says to chsnge the simpleUSB-tune menu settings, but since they are for HAMvoip, the instructions arent the same as my v3.
It says to change the following:
Set option I : PTT Mode to “active low”
Set option J: COSFROM to “usbinvert”
Set option L: CTCSSFROM to “no”.
If i go i to the setup menu, and enter into expert configuration menu, and select “Edit simpleusb.conf file”, and then i scrill down to what is closest to the URC page instructions, i see

carrierfrom=usbinvert
Ctcssfrom=invert
Invertptt=no

Im assuming these are the same thing as the different version describes in the URC pages instructions.

If i change ctcssfrom=usbinvert to ctcssfrom=no, and reboot, everything boots as normal, and the radio then does its RF TX thing, but, the TX either does not stop, or, it keys up over and over and over and does not stop, and i can see on the node info admin webpage for my node that it keyed up 17 times before i finally shut off the radio and then changed the ctcssfrom back to “usbinvert”.

Im not even sure if this should be set as simplex, as hotspot, or repeater, full or half duplex, lol.

So, im not sure why its acting like this, or why if i enter in a DTMF code like 70* on my HT radio, nothing happens. I can see the Quansheng that is connected to the URC receiving my HT’s TX, but the Quansheng doesnt seem to be triggering anything on the URC that i can see, so i dont know if anything is actually getting through to the node or not. I hope all of this is making sense. Im a total newbie to Allstarlink, and im not a linux guru by any means, i barely muddle by.
Im hoping that someone here can guide me through getting this up and running, and also how to properly test it. Im hoping that im even correctly understanding how to use this system by what ive been reading lol. Thanks for your patience with me in advance.

[Mike]

Frank, I really don’t think there is any difference in the logic between hamvoip and asl3
So don’t change your settings from what was described in your instructions for logic.

But I have no real answer for you.

ctcssfrom=no means you are not using a carrier external PL tone for squelch activation.
cosfrom=usbinvert means you are changing the logic for a valid signal high/low / low/high
invertptt is similar but a active low is a ‘gate to ground’ on a radio ptt line.

you might want to look at the signals given from the radio side with the line disconnected to determine what is true in the logic with a meter. A way to verify what your settings need to be.

[Frank316]

Thanks for your reply. Something isnt right, because im following the setup instructions firstly from the G1LRO Universal radio controller website before i get into the Allstarlink setup, to ensure the hardware is done right, and if i set the CTCSSFROM to “no” as it says in the expert Allstarlink menu under simple usb radio file, the radio keys up PTT and it locks there, and wont release PTT until i change CTCSSFROM back to “usbinvert”. I dont get it. I would have thought that they would know how they need the URC properly set up.
The other thing that confuses me is that there is the expert settings in the asl setup menu, and there is the other place to set the same settings, meaning if i go in the menu to "1node settings/1allstar node setup menu/ update node (my node number)/ interface Tune CLI.
If i go there to that menu, and select “J” and change CTCSS from “usbinvert” to “no”, i do not see the same changes i made to that settings showup in the allstarlink main menu at "6expert configuration menu/edit usbradio.conf file.
Arent they both changing the same settings for CTCSS? Im confused.
Anyhow, regardless of “where” i change the usbinvert to “no”, for the ctcss setting, it causes the radio to lock up in the on PTT transmit position. It only seems to work right if the ctcssfrom setting is set to usbinvert, contrary to what the G1LRO Universal radio controller website says to set it at.
So basically, here is where im at.
I boot up the Raspberry Pi everything’s fine, no errors, the radio keys up, and i am receiving the intro tone and the morse code intro on a separate HT also tuned to 446.100mhz, and the web controls show the node is properly registered ect.
The problem is that i cant connect with my HT, and when i enter in any DTMF tone on my HT, nothing happens. I can see it being received on the radio connected to the URC, and im assuming that the URC is passing the audio to the Raspberry Pi.
Im pretty sure it is.
To prove my radio and URC setup was physically connected right, i turned off the pi, removed the SD card, replaced it with a copy of DragonOS Linux, booted it up, and launched WSJT-X, and then i turned on my separate HF rig, tuned it to 14.074, and then i simply put my HT up to the speaker of the HF rig, pressed the PTT, and the received tone showed up as received stations in WSJTX through the current radio and Universal radio controller setup without anything being changed, so, this test at least proved my hardware is all setup correctly, but i need to figure out the Allstarlink software setup because something isnt right.
Il try to attach images of my current settings ect, so hopefully if something stands out that is miscofigured you will see it. Hope all this makes sense!

[George_Csahanin]

One minor thing I noticed in what you wrote was when you stated you tried 70* did you mean *70?

GC W2DB

[Frank316]

Well, theres my dyslexia again, lol. I hate typing, this stupid spell checker and my fat fingers make it unbearable to type on this phone. Yup. Its *70. Star “anything” does “nothing”.
By the way, when i go into the expert mode menu, and open the simpleUSB.conf file.to edit it, it is totally empty. Is that normal?

[Frank316]

[Frank316]

[Frank316]

[Frank316]

[Frank316]

[Frank316]

[Frank316]

[George_Csahanin]

Frank, here is one of mine:

; If you are going to use this channel driver, you MUST enable it in modules.conf
; change:
; noload => chan_simpleusb.so ; CM1xx USB Cards with Radio Interface Channel Driver (No DSP)
; to:
; load => chan_simpleusb.so ; CM1xx USB Cards with Radio Interface Channel Driver (No DSP)

; SimpleUSB configuration

[general]

[usb_2360]

eeprom = 0 ; EEPROM installed: 0,1
; 0 = no (default)
; 1 = yes

hdwtype = 0 ; Leave this set to 0 for USB sound fobs modified using
; the instructions from usbfob.pdf. Use a setting of
; 1 is for Dingotel/Sph interfaces.

; Receiver parameters

rxboost = 0 ; 0 = 20db attenuator inserted, 1= 20db attenuator removed
; Set to 1 for additonal gain if using a low-level receiver output

carrierfrom = usbinvert ; no,usb,usbinvert
; no - no carrier detection at all
; usb - from the COR line on the USB sound fob (Active high)
; usbinvert - from the inverted COR line on the USB sound fob (Active low)

ctcssfrom = no ;usbinvert ; no,usb,usbinvert
; no - CTCSS decoding, system will be carrier squelch
; usb - CTCSS decoding using input from USB sound fob (Active high)
; usbinvert - from the inverted CTCSS line on the USB sound fob (Active low)

deemphasis = no ; enable de-emphasis (input from discriminator)

plfilter = no ; enable PL filter

;rxondelay = 0 ; number of 20ms intervals to hold off receiver turn-on indication

; Transmitter parameters

txmixa = voice ; Left channel output (A): no,voice
; no - Do not output anything
; voice - output voice only

txmixb = no ; Right channel output (B): no,voice
; no - Do not output anything
; voice - output voice only

txboost = 0

invertptt = 0 ; Invert PTT: 0,1
; 0 - ground to transmit
; 1 - open to transmit

preemphasis = 0 ; Perform standard 6db/octave pre-emphasis

; pager = no ; no,a,b (e.g. pager = b means “put the normal repeat audio on channel A, and the pager audio on channel B”)

; duplex3 = 0 ; duplex 3 gain setting (0 to disable)

duplex = 0 ; Duplex 0,1
; 0 - half duplex
; 1 - full duplex

[Mike]

I am limited on advice because I don’t use hacked sound fobs for logic in my 3 repeaters.
And your board is quite a new item but emulates the same.

I will say that you might want to make sure your software is up to date because there was a recent update dealing with usbsound. Perhaps an issue there ?
It can’t hurt.

Personally, I do not use the setup software, I just edit the files manually and set as needed. It is what is in the files that matters. Those are your settings.

Just a FYI
if you enable ctcss from usb/usbinvert, there is a separate pin for that. It is a logic toggle like cos.
An external source telling the software a valid tone is received. Or whatever logic you impose on that pin.
If it is set to ctcss=dsp, the software will decode it for a valid tone and toggle logic internally.

ctcssfrom = dsp  ; no,usb,usbinvert,dsp
                          ; no - no CTCSS decoding, system will be carrier squelch
                          ; usb - from the CTCSS line on the USB sound fob (Active high)
                         ; usbinvert - from the inverted CTCSS line on the USB sound fob (Active low)
                            ; dsp - CTCSS decoding using RX audio in DSP.
                            ; rxdemod option must be set to flat for this to work.

You must also set that tone in the software, not limited to one.
rxctcssfreqs=100.0,88.5,103.5,114.8

I have read your posts several times and I can’t figure out if you are using it or not for sure.
And correct settings might be dependent on it.

Forgive my confusion, but I hope that helps some.

[Frank316]

Hacked sound fobs? Are you referring to the Universal radio controller? How it is hacked?
Im trying to understand a few points of your reply, as im totally new to this, and not up on the terminology. Im not sure what you mean by a “pin”, as im not doing anything but connecting a USB cable between the URC and the Raspberry Pi, and connecting an audio cable between the radio and the URC.
When you mention about “upgrading my software”, are you referring to the Universal radio controller software, or the allstarlink software? Ive updated the firmware of the URC, and i also clicked to apply all upgrades in the allstarlink console, so im assuming everything’s up to date.
I am not using any ctcss tones in my radio, but i guess if that is the only way to make this work then i will have to implement tones. I simply set the ctcssfrom to “no” because the Universal Radio Controller instructions said to do so. See attached pics from the URC website instructions.
Im doing what is shown on this webpage:

Making an AllStarLink Node with the URC/AIOC – G1LRO HOMEPAGE

[Mike]

@Frank316

Hacked sound fobs?

Just a figure of speech for taking it apart and hacking it to make lines do things they were not originally intended.
No, that is not what you have done but the device emulates the same in it’s i/o.

@Frank316

When you mention about “upgrading my software”, are you referring to the Universal radio controller software, or the allstarlink software?

ASL3

@Frank316

I am not using any ctcss tones in my radio

The asl ctcss settings are not for the radio.
So, ctcssfrom=no if you are not using tone access of any kind in the software
Some of your other comments confused me as to if you were using it. And why I asked.

I am not familiar with hamvoip, only to say it is different, but it should deal with it’s logic the same.

If you have a spare SD card, you might try to load hamvoip and see if it works per instruction.

[Frank316]

This is literally making me insane, lol.
Its hard to try ro learn a “concept” of something, and what its supposed to be doing while at the same time troubleshooting it when your not sure what it should be doing, lol. Im still trying to learn all the acronyms.
Ive hit a brick wall in thinking what to do next, after hours of changing things back and forth to see if i can get it to work. I really dont want to have to start over by installing HamVOIP after all if this with Allstarlink v3.

From what i can tell, everything is working except for making DTMF commands work when i key up a remote HT and type in “star whatever”, nothing happens. I can see that the green light on my URC dims a bit when a TX is attempted, but i dont know if that means the allstarlink software is receiving the tones. If i oush the little speaker button on the URC while i TX a DTMF command on the HT, i can hear it thru that Universal radio controller, so i know the controller is receiving it.

If i go into the web controls, more specifically the “allmon3 monitoring dashboard,” and select under “execute commands” the option for pretty much anything, such as “!!!Toggle Test Tone!!!”, my universal radio controller keys up with a TX red light, the HT connected to it transmits, and my seperate handheld HT receives the test tone. That works fine. If i select from the same drop down box the selection “Enable system”, my handheld radio receives via RF the voice message “RPTENA”, followed by morse code. Anything i click and execute from that drop down box does the same, and im assuming that the voice message ending in “ENA” stands for “enabled”.
When i click “show node status” from that drop down box in the Allmon3 monitoring dashboard, everything looks ok. Ill post a pic of it here, maybe it will help.
I messed with the usb, usbinvert setting ect, and i even switched from SimpleUSB to USBradio, it seems to kinda work on both, but feels like its more “properly” working, or should i say closer to functioning properly on SimpleUSB setting.
If i go into the “interface tune CLI” menu, the ONLY way to get it to properly PTT (key up and release correctly on command) is to have both “Change Carrier From” and “Change CTCSS from” set to “USBINVERT”. any other combination of other settings results in malfunctions, or no function at all.
There is NO DSP option in the settings when the settings are set to SimpleUSB, that DSP option for “CTCSS from” ect are only available when set to USBradio. Same as all the setup menu options for audio setup in "Interface Tune CLI ", they arent present when set to SimpleUSB.

Now that the PTT settings seem to be working (all except sending out DTMF tones ect of course) meaning that when i boot the system, i get the welcome tone key up and morse code TX ect, i went through the test and setup menu in “Interface Tune CLI” and some things passed, while others failed, but that was when it was set to USBradio, its now set back to SimpleUSB, as thats the only way i could het the PTT to act right, with the USBINVERT settings only. Hopefully if i let you know which ones passed, and which ones failed that might point you in the right direction to give me advice on what to change next to try to get this working.

If i select option 2, Set RX voice level (using display), nothing happens, if i key up my seperate HT and talk whistle ect, i see nothing happen on that scale display, it just says its set to 500.
Option 3 is set transmit A level, and option 4 is set transmit level B, both are set to 500.
If i select F " Flash (Toggle PTT and Tone output several times)", it works, and tge radio TX an RF tone which is received on the seperate HT via RF.
If i select option v, "View COS, CTCSS, and PTT status, they are all “Clear”, and when i click on the !!!Toggle Test Tone!!! In rhe allmon3 monitoring dashboard, i see the COS input, and PTT turn from “clear” to “keyed”, and then back to “clear” again once i cancel the tone. CTCSS input and PTT out status remain at “Clear” and do not change to “Keyed” like the others do duting the sending of the tone from the Allmon3 monitoring dashboard.
Im not sire if thats the way it is supposed to act ot not.
So, given what ive typed here, does anything jump out at you what may need to change to make the DTMF TX work?
Thanks again for your replies.
73

[Mike]

@Frank316

From what i can tell, everything is working except for making DTMF commands work when i key up a remote HT and type in “star whatever”, nothing happens. I can see that the green light on my URC dims a bit when a TX is attempted, but i dont know if that means the allstarlink software is receiving the tones.

Watch asterisk in the foreground and see what dtmf it is hearing and see other actions and errors as they happen.

asterisk -rvvv

See if it is decoding dtmf
Tells you that cor is working correct and audio level is set correctly on rx

@Frank316

Now that the PTT settings seem to be working (all except sending out DTMF tones ect of course)

DTMF is never output to the tx. It is muted out. Otherwise downwind connections would be acting on the same commands issued.

Also…

In asl3 By default, most dtmf commands in the list are commented out. So, you do have to select a command set you want available and be sure they are set for the node in question. They can not run if they are not available as a command…

[Frank316]

Thanks for your reply. Perhaps im not understanding some fundamentals of how allstarlink v3 actually works. Ill do more reading. I thought it instantly just worked like echolink where you used your remote HT or radio to enter DTMF codes to do things like bring up the repeater, shut it off, run tests ect.
In the meantime, ive noticed that it appears that i have some kind of permission issues. I see this is a common problem, when i Google it, but the solutions i see online just say to fix the issue by changing permission or creating the files, with no actual details on how to do that for dummies like me who struggle with linux.
When i run asterisk-rvvv at the command prompt in terminal, i get "Unable to connect to remote asterisk (does /var/run/asterisk/asterisk.ctl exist?)
So, i ran "asterisk-cvvvvv and received permission errors, and many other errors including “disabled broken repeater”.
Ive attached a photo. Unfortunately i cant reply in a timely manner or attach more than one photo as it looks like ive been limited or something by the admins now. Not sure why. Maybe i posted too many images previously. Sorry if that was the issue.
Im struggling to figure out why my main login user “asl” does not have sufficient privileges to run asterisk and other things.
Thanks again for your help.

[Frank316]