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Connecting and testing the pi cam with Portsdown 4

Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2023 3:14 pm
by M0NDE
I have connected my Picam using the ribbon cable provided.
I have the silver pads on the ribbon cable towards the HDMI socket and towards the camera front
I have set Source in M1 to Pi Cam and Output to Pluto
I had expected to see the camera image when pressing TX.
Are there any other settings needed.
I see no led on camera lit and on pressing tx blank screen.

Thanks

Nigel

Re: Connecting and testing the pi cam with Portsdown 4

Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2023 3:29 pm
by G8GKQ
Hi Nigel

The light on the camera never comes on in Portsdown.

First check on Menu 2 "Pi Cam Monitor" to see if the image appears. Once that is working, then try transmitting.

Unless you have set audio to off (on menu 1) you need to have a white sound dongle connected as well.

Dave

Re: Connecting and testing the pi cam with Portsdown 4

Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2023 9:59 pm
by M0NDE
Hi Dave, I have tested Pi Cam Monitor. The screen is blank. I have set audio to off for now.

Nigel

Re: Connecting and testing the pi cam with Portsdown 4

Posted: Thu Oct 12, 2023 8:02 am
by M0NDE
Latest test. I now have a green screen when selecting Pi Cam Monitor

Nugel
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Re: Connecting and testing the pi cam with Portsdown 4

Posted: Thu Oct 12, 2023 4:06 pm
by DK1KIK
Hi Nigel,

I only had a Picam 3 work, the Picam 4 didn't work for me. Not supported by “Buster”.

73
René

Re: Connecting and testing the pi cam with Portsdown 4

Posted: Fri Oct 13, 2023 6:29 am
by M0NDE
Thanks Rene for your reply.

My Pi camera number 3 on pcb and I am not using Buster.

Last night at club we tried many things. We tried with putty to control pi cam. We know the Pi can see the camera is connected. We tried to control Pi cam from ommand line, thiya failed. We tried a USB camera. Same result a solid green screen but Pi knows camera is present.
On the web we found a forum saying delete a file to stop green screen Something relating to successful eprom update. This file deletion made no difference. We updated Portsdown software to latest version this did not fix camera problem.


One progress to report. We did TX test card F and receive it on another receiver.

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Re: Connecting and testing the pi cam with Portsdown 4

Posted: Fri Oct 13, 2023 9:51 am
by G8GKQ
Nigel

I am not sure that the Raspberry Pi Camera 3 is compatible with the Buster OS used by the Portsdown. Perhaps someone else who has one could test it.

Oh, and before you ask, the newer operating systems (Bullseye and Bookworm) do not include the modules required for DATV transmission from the camera.

What webcam did you use? Again, that has to be compatible.

Dave, G8GKQ

Re: Connecting and testing the pi cam with Portsdown 4

Posted: Fri Oct 13, 2023 10:23 am
by M0NDE
Hi Dave
Thanks for your reply
The web cam was just an HP USB web cam that was at our radio club. It will be useful to learn what others are using so I can purchase a known working camera for Portsdown 4

Thanks

Nigel M0NDE

Re: Connecting and testing the pi cam with Portsdown 4

Posted: Fri Oct 13, 2023 4:13 pm
by g4kzy
Hi Nigel,

For my system based on a RPi 4B I used the Raspberry Pi camera V2, which I bought from CPC:

https://cpc.farnell.com/raspberry-pi/rp ... dp/SC18701

But is available in lots of places.

73,

Paul G4KZY

Re: Connecting and testing the pi cam with Portsdown 4

Posted: Fri Oct 13, 2023 6:19 pm
by radiogareth
Even the eBay £5 knockoffs work reasonably well although a genuine one does better colours and handles lighting better....
Gareth