Langstone Discussion Forum

[on7ma]

Claudio, hi,
Yes I read your remarks.
I bought this one.. still from the UK

https://www.benl.ebay.be/itm/External-V ... 2749.l2649

It seems the right one;. according to photo..

JP

[M0DTS]

I have one of the '3d sound' dongles mentioned earlier, they don't support 44KHz sample rate.

Rob

[on7ma]

Tnx Rob

i dont think 44 kHz Sr should be necessary for a TX Sound...

Could be better to sample less, to have more compatibilty with the cheapest Audio Dongles...

Just thinking this way.. am I right ?

Jean-Pierre, ON7MA

[g4eml]

Actually the default rate that most cards support is 48KHz. 44.1KHz comes a close second, most cards seem to support it. Lower rates are probably less well supported.

I will see if I can change the files to use 48KHz. It might make it a little more compatible.

Colin.

[on7ma]

Tnx Colin

seems indeed, that a lot of guys are using these cheap 3D dongles..

could be interesting not to worry about getting that "exact right " one ...

JP

[on7ma]

Hi,

just updated, and saw that 48kHz is supported
Now the Blue Dongle 3D works PERFECTLY !

Off course Tx.py en Rx.py changed to "CARD=Set...... instead of CARD=Device....

Tnx a lot

JP

[g4eml]

Hi JP

That’s good news. Hopefully it will allow more audio dongle to be used.

73
Colin.

[g0mjw]

I have a question on the GPIO. According to the github:

4 Band select Outputs on pins 31, 24, 7 and 6. These can be used to select external filters, amplifiers or Transverters. The state of these outputs is defined using the Band Bits setting.

But pin 6 is ground? Should be 22 according to the code:

#define pttPin 0 // Wiring Pi pin number. Physical pin is 11
#define keyPin 1 //Wiring Pi pin number. Physical pin is 12
#define txPin 29 //Wiring Pi pin number. Physical pin is 40
#define bandPin1 31 //Wiring Pi pin number. Physical pin is 28
#define bandPin2 24 //Wiring Pi pin number. Physical pin is 35
#define bandPin3 7 //Wiring Pi pin number. Physical pin is 7
#define bandPin4 6 //Wiring Pi pin number. Physical pin is 22

I could do with a few more as already discussed.

[g4eml]

The code is obviously the correct one.
I am using the wiring Pi library which confuses things because it uses logical PIN numbers instead of physical ones. There are conversion tables available.

If you can identify 4 more pins that don’t conflict with those used by Porstdown I can add them as extra optional outputs.
It will need some rewriting of the setup mode to handle more bits. At present it just sequences through the 16 possible states. With 8 bits it would make more sense to set each bit independently.

Colin.

[g0mjw]

Hi Colin,

I don't know what the Portsdown uses but it would be useful if we could find out. I am not sure the Portsdown needs any of the earlier version pins in this configuration, save for the band relay switching which I would expect can be incorporated through the relay mapping. Don't need the IQ, don't need the Attenuator, Don't really need I2C. Might need the RF switch.

I actually did some wiring today and this is what I have: Not suggesting anyone does the same.

Clipboard01.jpg (71.87 KiB) Viewed 97425 times

I added some LEDs to tell me stuff and put those on 15, 16 and 17. The idea was Green = RX (or maybe Squelch), Red = TX and Yellow an error state.
TX and RX can both be active at the same time in Duplex mode - e.g. for QO100. These LEDs are not really necessary with a gui but every project has to have flashing LEDs in it or it's not real electronics.

The additional relays are at the moment on 29, 31, 32 and 33. It's all wired with dupont jumpers so easy to move things about.



Another issue is sense. The cheap Ebay relays are active low not active high. That should not be a problem for the software but it might confuse things.

Mike