POCSAG gets stuck keying

w6el · July 24, 2024, 12:51am

Hi All,

I was experimenting with POCSAG paging on my simplex (half duplex) node, and the following command will get the node stuck keyed:

simplex900*CLI> rpt page 617081 600 123 A "test 123 de W6EL"
[2024-07-23 17:41:54.442] ERROR[288797]: chan_usbradio.c:1851 usbradio_text: Channel 617081: Cannot parse usbradio cmd: PAGE 600 123 A  test 123 de W6EL
simplex900*CLI> radio unkey
simplex900*CLI>

Using “radio unkey” will not actually unkey the radio. The only way was to stop the asterisk service and then start it again.

A quick glance at chan_usbradio indicates that this channel might not support POCSAG. Which is fine, but it should handle it without leaving the radio keyed. Why the system even gets keyed with this specific command isn’t obvious to me though.

Thanks,

–E
de W6EL

kb4mdd · July 24, 2024, 11:51am

You are correct chan_usbradio does not support POCSAG paging. That is a feature that I hope to implement in the future.

Can you file an issue on github about your problem?

Danny

w6el · July 24, 2024, 8:37pm

Done.

github.com/AllStarLink/app_rpt

POCSAG and usbradio makes PTT stuck ON

opened 08:31PM - 24 Jul 24 UTC

eliggett

Greetings, On my system I am using the usbradio channel driver with a simple…x radio node. Not realizing that usbradio doesn't have POCSAG support, I issued the following test command, which caused the radio to hang keyed (transmitting silence on the air) until asterisk was killed. ``` ; note, this is a single node system, node number is 617081 simplex900*CLI> rpt page 617081 600 123 A "test 123 de W6EL" [2024-07-23 17:41:54.442] ERROR[288797]: chan_usbradio.c:1851 usbradio_text: Channel 617081: Cannot parse usbradio cmd: PAGE 600 123 A test 123 de W6EL simplex900*CLI> radio unkey ; does not work simplex900*CLI> ``` There are really three requests here. 1: Don't route POCSAG to chan_usbradio since it does not support paging yet. This can possibly be prevented [here, in rpt_cli.c](https://github.com/AllStarLink/app_rpt/blob/83061dbe00bfd057e238b586e506dbf4dd679c16/apps/app_rpt/rpt_cli.c#L869). 2: Modify the error handling from chan_usbradio so that if it receives a text command that it doesn't understand, something makes sure the channel driver isn't keyed up. I don't really understand why it keys up to begin with but this is just my own unfamiliarity with the code. Adding this level of fault protection may end up helping other use cases too. Ie, if we don't understand the text command, we report this, and, if something told us to key up, that thing is told to stop keying. 3: Eventually, add POCSAG to chan_usbradio, because it's so cool. With my 900 MHz node, I am tempted to get some of those inexpensive pagers and try it out. Thank you all for your hard work on ASL, I love it!! Version: Asterisk 20.8.1+asl3-3.0.2-1.deb12 using ASL3's Pi image --E de W6EL

Thanks again for working on ASL, it’s so great, it pains me to even report issues because it’s overall so amazing and wonderful.

–E
de W6EL