Pluto and Portsdown 4 - no signal

[G3GJA]

I have a fairly complex home network with 4 subnets, two of which are linked by IPSec VPNs to remote site and two WAN addresses that allows me to run two D-Star repeater gateways remotely.

The 192.168.2.0/24 subnet is in use and has a Hyper-V host, several virtual Windows / Linux guests and a Qnap backup system. I could not ping any of the hardware on the 192.168.2.0 subnet from the Pi, so I thought it should be OK.

Today I decided to get a fresh SD card out of its packet and start from scratch. The build completed without a hitch.

I thought it would be a good thing to get the Pluto onto an unused subnet so I fired it up connected to the shack PC and changed the config file to put it on the 192.168.4.0/24 subnet. All worked OK and when fed an RMTP stream from OBS I was able to get into GB3EY with D3 report from the Pluto connected directly to the antenna via a bandpass filter. Around -1dBm RF over a distance of 10km.

I then put the Pluto onto the P4. Pluto button in menu 42 still greyed. Tried Langstone and it hung on loading. I then tried Colin's suggestion of modifying the hosts file as I couldn't ping pluto.local but I could ping 192.168.4.1. After a reboot, Langstone now works on Tx and Rx. NS lookup time dramatically reduced.

After coming out of Langstone I then checked menu 42. Pluto still greyed but M1 showed that Pluto was selected. Back into 42 and selected Stream, back to 42 and now Pluto is blue. Selected Pluto and button went green before returning to M1. Selected TC source, 4:3, FEC 2/3, SR 333, DVBS-2, QPSK on 1255MHz.

No output anywhere between 9kHz and 1.5GHz

Clive

[g4eml]

Regarding your last comment, the Pluto is rebooted when exiting from Langstone back to Portsdown, so it will be unavailable for quite a long time. That might explain why it was initially greyed out.

[g0mjw]

Update the F5OEO firmware. In the web interface for the firmware make sure the Advanced (Remux) Force compliant (H265box) is not checked as this may prevent it working. Also don't select shortframes. Don't forget to save to flash.

Mike

[G8GKQ]

Clive

As described on this Wiki page https://wiki.batc.org.uk/Portsdown_4_Pluto , the Portsdown 4 is designed to work with and only tested with the FIRM2101RC of 5 February 2020 Pluto firmware. You can download the correct firmware from the Wiki page.

It is also designed to be run on either a standard domestic wired LAN or stand-alone. The only network configuration change that I have tested is to adjust the Pluto ipaddr and ipaddr_host as discussed here https://wiki.analog.com/university/tool ... ustomizing to allow the Pluto to run on my home network which is on 192.168.2.*. This requires the IP address referred to on the Portsdown (menu 3, Pluto config) to be set as well - you don't mention having changed this?

I have just done a new Portsdown 4 build from scratch, then loaded the Langstone software, connected my (default configuration - 192.168.2.*) Pluto by USB and the the transmitter worked first time. I then disconnected the Portsdown from my LAN (which was on 192.168.9.* specifically for this test), rebooted and again it worked with no problems. I then selected Langstone, checked that it transmitted and received perfectly, and went back to Portsdown, (and after waiting 20 seconds for the Pluto reboot) selected transmit and again had no problems.

The transmitting code does use pluto.local to refer to the Pluto, as I was hoping not to need to have the Pluto IP address set in the Portsdown software. However, ssh authentication does not work if only pluto.local is used. Details in this script, which might be a good place to start for fault-finding: https://github.com/BritishAmateurTelevi ... uto.sh#L30. I did spend days trying to make sure that it worked in every configuration. It does have a 2 second timeout to prevent the software hanging if the Pluto is not connected.

Not sure what else I can do? As far as I am concerned, it just works. Please let me know if you find out what the problem is. I'm quite happy to change the code as long as it does not compromise reliability for everybody else.

Dave

[M0YDH]

Hello
We have transmitted signal

I have received first class help from Dave G8GKQ. I had loaded the wrong version of the F5OEO DATV firmware onto the Pluto. For Portsdown don't follow the instructions in CQ-TV 270 - they're for Windows OBS users - only the Wiki ones work.
It also looked like the three commands that one sends using PUTTY over the serial port that expand the Pluto' s frequency range and number of CPUs hadn't been followed by a reboot command. Portsdown Pluto config reported no AD9364 status and the red update didn't work. So I redid those properly then put the version of the firmware called 'For the Brave' onto the Pluto. The IP address of the Pluto 192.168.2.1 had to be right for the software to work. The other picture is of the characteristic spectrum of a DVB-S2 signal. This did gladden my heart! So far FEC 2/3 437 and 1249 MHz test card and webcam work across the bench. My P2020 receiver was pressed into service because the Minitioune software on the new Windows 10 isn't installed correctly.
I hope Clive has success soon too. Thanks to Dave.
73
David M0YDH

[G3GJA]

Likewise, wrong firmware was the cause of the issue.

Upside is that the NS issues have been resolved so that Langstone loads a lot faster.

David M0YDH: the older firmware works OK with OBS; just follow the instructions on the Pluto web page (192.168.xxx.1)

Many thanks to Colin and Dave for their help.

Clive G3GJA