What do i do now?

At the risk of looking like a complete idiot, now that ive installed and configured ny allstarlink v3, and everything seems to be working as far as i can tell (meaning PTT finally works, Raspberry pi connectivity all good, the echo feature works, audio sounds good, kerchunks result in repeater acknowledgement, allmon3 controls from the monitoring dashboard seem to all work, node report shows all ok and tells me tome of day ect), what do i actually “do” to use this thing? Lol.

Literally all i can find online is either webpages or youtube videos describing how to set the the whole thing up, (which in and of itself is a daunting task to sort through), but i cannot find any actual “operation instructions” anywhere. It seems that its even assumed that i already know what an allstarlink node actually does, and how im to use it once i have it set up.
I managed to find one ham radio 2.0 video that actually showed the guy linking to another node, and talking to the owner of that node over his radio, but having said that, if the premis of all of this is to connect my node to another node so that i have some kind of connectivity to other people, how do i know who to even connect to?
The video showed a node map, but it only half loads for me lol. Sigh.
Yes, ive read through the whole allstarlink wiki pages, but they just dont explain how this all works, just how to set it all up.
Im tired of searching through endless videos, and would really like and appreciate it if someone out there showed a dummy like me in point form what to do next, and how to use this system.
73

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Glad you got it all working. One thing I would say is that you don’t “do” AllStarLink, but rather that you use AllStarLink to in furthering doing something else. AllStarLink is basically a very nice system linking technology. You use it to, essentially, connect to other people to talk to. There’s a couple of major things AllStarLink is used for:

  1. Clubs offer ASL to allow members and others to connect to their repeater.
  2. Clubs or system owners use ASL to create a larger ham community that would be possible from a single repeater
  3. Users with a node, usually a simplex hotspot, use it to talk to someone outside of their local area that may be dead air or bereft of amateur operators

For example, my club - Silvercreek ARA operates a hub system that is tied 24/7 to our repeater. We do this both to allow club members who aren’t in good coverage area of the repeater access the system and to foster a larger ecosystem of people to talk to. Our club, centered in Akron, Ohio, now has members all over the country specifically because they linked up with AllStarLink and then stuck around. For example, you could join node #48496 and talk to the SARA community. There’s usually someone around on the air - but not always. Activity is available at https://hub.w8wky.org.

There are many clubs that offer nets over AllStarLink. For example, SARA’s nets are all available over ASL:

  • SARA Barometer Net - Monday - Saturday 7a-8a ET
  • Tues Night Club Net - Tuesdays @ 8pm ET
  • Beacon Net - Wednesday and Sunday @ 10pm ET

Other ones are easy to find like the RVWA Boredom Breaker net and there’s TONS others. Just takes a little searching detective work.

Another thing people do is look at the Keyed Nodes list, find people who are talking, and link up and join in the conversation. We have a lot of “drive by” contacts on our system from that.

Lots of possibilities. Just key up the node and enter *3NODE and off you go!

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Thanks for taking the time to reply!
I think i kinda expected this to be identical to Echolink, to which i have had a very brief exposure to quite some time ago now.
I am aware that Echolink can interface with this system also, in fact, i just configured the echolink.conf file in preparation of possibility doing that at a later date.
I get the whole “linking” thing, but what is unclear to me is who i am allowed to link to, and where those nodes are listed so i can choose who to link to. Im unaware if there is a particular etiquette involved, or, if i can simply link (or attempt to link) to any published public node.
Ive still got a few weird bugs im trying to work out, like the COS hang time, infollowed a detailed video to change the hangtime in rpt.conf to 100 from 500, but theres also this G1LRO universal radio controller that also had a 1.5 second hang time, and i have gone into that URC and changed that hangtime as well, but the two changes seem to contradict each other somehow lol. Ill figure it out.
73

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There’s no restrictions on linking per se. Just like repeaters they’re going to have different levels of friendliness and welcoming attitudes. Likely any club with a node/hub or a hub that advertises nets is going to be welcome to all. You can start by looking at https://stats.allstarlink.org/.

There’s no special etiquette different from other aspects of radio. Listen before talking and don’t quick-key.

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That’s great info, thanks!
Do you know how long I searched on the Allstarlink pages for this? I didn’t realize that was the node list, and that they were the ones I could link to. I have to say, the documentation for allstar os somewhat convoluted, or, maybe its just me. The other thing that bugs me is that every time i finally find a good YouTube video like thise Freddy Mac ones, i get into the setup and instructions. Only to find that they are for hamvoip and not allstarlink v3 lol.
What is “nnx” next to the node mean?
I was actually just reading how a guy linked his node to one of the ones on the list, and he was “chewed out” for doing so.
I dodnt see my own node published on that list, i wonder why. Its registed and everything shows as ok.
Ill test everything out tomorrow. Heading off to bed, church in the morning.
73
You’ve been very helpful, many thanks.
73

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So glad you asked this question. I myself have just got my Allstar device up and running. Then I realized I have no clue what to do with it! Got some learning to do!
73

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ASL documentation has atrophied. We would sincerely love people to volunteer to help with that. If anyone is interesting in helping out - even if you are new and want to document-as-you-learn - please contact me or Allan WA3WCO. We NEED volunteers.

Hi Frank, glad you got the thing setup and working. One thing I can tell you from 14 years experiance is that before putting it together its best to have a plan for why you’re putting it together. In my case it was to connect to a specific remote location, linking two houses , simplex node at one end (my folks house in NJ, they were both licensed) with my house with a 440 repeater. Then I discovered an old friend who had started using Echolink. Well he knew that Echolink audio is pure trash, and I told him about Allstar, we fouind another frined who had an echolink connected repeater where all three of us used to live (Austin, TX). So we also converted him to Allstar and pretty much got rid of Echolink. That created our little three node network. One had a friend that also had a repeater the other side of the state, there was another Allstar node and addition to our network. It works great. Now I have two 927 mhz repeaters connected via Allstar to about 60 other 927 repeaters from Hawaii to Long Island. All using Allstar.

Back to your situation. Many people read about Allstar and immediately equate it to some EchoLink type system. It isn’t. Now there are some groups that have formed where many/several repeaters are interconnected. Kind of like my friends. I do not know of any list of these groups. And remember lots of people will build up simplex nodes and connect together as a “intercom” of sorts between friends and like minded individuals. I think of Allstar as the glue to hold these connections together. But I have specific things/nodes I want to connect to. We rarely get “drive by” connections as is common in EchoLink. That’s a person somewhere connecting, listening for ten seconds or so and hearing nothing a disconnect. EchoLink is more a tool for “fishing” for a connection/contact. Allstar isn’t. I’d venture to say that a large number of Allstar node owners like stuff to stay quiet.

So… why not post here your node number and say you’re open to connections. I’m betting you’ll have some. The Allstar users are pretty much a nice group of helping hands. This forum goes a long way to answer questions you might have.
GeorgeC W2DB
nodes 2360 (main 440)
28599, local 927 (currently off the air as stuff being moved around in the garage)
2428 (HF Remote base, access restricted for obvious reasons)
490891 927 MHz wide area repeater just south of Dallas, TX, (not accepting inbound communication due to network router issues but connected to the 927 tech net)

https://wiki.allstarlink.org/wiki/NNX

ASLv3 is no different than any other aspect of Amateur Radio. There are crabby and unfriendly people around. Just ignore them and move on.

Do you have a statpost enabled for your node in rpt.conf?

Thank you for mentioning this and inspiring me. Stay tuned to the Announcement section on Community and the home page of Allstarlink within the next week. I am going to do a post on there asking for volunteers for documentation/wiki page and web page design. I just did a post on there asking for Beta Testers for ASL 3 and I don’t want that to get missed.

No problem, i hope that i havent come across as complaining, i just found it very frustrating that i could not easily find the information that i needed readily, and i teuly do think there is some kind of technical issue in accessing the information via google searching, as i do not get appropriate search responses when searching for allstarlink v3 information. Additionally, i am a disabled person with a past traumatic brain injury, so it isnt beyond the realm of possibility that i may have missed things while searching as well, lol. If things arent laid out readily for me, they easily blend into the sea of background information. I hope i have been more of a help than a hindrance, and i appreciate the support ive received here.
73

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Thanks again for your reply. Now that I know what I’m supposed to do, I’ve tried it out, and now identified an issue that I’m struggling to fix. Maybe i should start a new thread, but I thought I’d ask you first since I have you here. For whatever reason, any DTMF code I enter on my radio results in a repeater kerchunk, and no actual response to the command. *70, *81, *2, *980, ect do nothing but make a kerchunk happen. The allmon monitoring dashboard showd the kerchunk, and shows zero DTMF commands today when I run the show node status report. Failing this, I decided to try directly connecting to another node listed on the keyed node list, and a few failed, but then, I was able to connect to one via allmon3 monitoring dashboard link tool. I had my first allstarlink QSO, yay.
So, it’s working, but, it’s kinda not working because I can’t use my radio to instigate a connection via DTMF. I googled this, and found that there were some that had provider DNS issues, so, I opened the ports for allstarlink in my EERO gateway and created a firewall rule, and then changed the DNS servers to manual using 8.8.8.8, or 8.8.4.4, and it made no difference, so I changed the DNS servers back to the default ones. I can’t ping the default DNS servers, (i can ping the goggle one however) but I’m guessing the provider has them configured that way for security purposes. I’m actually a retired network technologist and electronics technician, and worked at a large internet provider for years, so I’m familiar with this end of things.
Do you have any idea why the DTMF commands won’t work? I’ve tried several HT radios, so it’s not the radio, and it’s not the DNS or the firewall, and it’s not the server itself as I’ve been able to make a connection via the Allmon3 monitoring dashboard link commands. What could it be? 73

Proper DTMF decoding requires that the physical radio, interface, and audio settings all be configured and adjusted properly. Preemphasis, deemphasis, and deviation levels need to be correctly adjusted. You need to watch the Asterisk CLI to see if Asterisk is even able to decode DTMF at all in its current configuration before you start trying to troubleshoot the function commands.

Well, i thought i had that all set up properly, but i guess not. Sometimes all i get is a hangup, sometimes i see a DTMF decode in the CLI but i never see it show up in the allmon3 node report as any DTMF commands that were made. I guess ill go through it all again and see what happens. Thanks

The report in Allmon3 only tells you if any DTMF functions were executed, which requires several things to be configured properly on top of DTMF tone decoding itself. You do not need to be worrying about executing functions if you do not even know if the DTMF tone decoding itself is working yet.

Do not worry about trying to execute commands, functions, macros, or anything like that until after you can get all the characters on your radios keypad to show up in the Asterisk CLI. Just my $.02.

It looks like the tones are showong up in the asterisk CLI, take a look at this and tell me if it looks like it should?
All i get back is a kerchunk and sometimes the morse code, it
seem to connect to any node or execute any functions

Txs

It looks like you’re trying to execute function 980 via DTMF. The good news is it looks like the DTMF decoding is working. Do you have 980 defined as a function in rpt.conf?