Pico Tuner to Portsdown Connection?

[G1INU]

I have found the answer to the problem I was having with the Portsdown software - and it might be a help to others!
After updating the firmware some time ago, the Portsdown 4 would receive from a Minitiouner but was not good when receiving from a Picotuner as it would lock up on no signal. After exploring all the possibilities I went back to the old firmware and it all worked. Now I have updated that to the latest and all is now working well!
Martin G8LCE

Hi Martin,
Do you recall what version of Portsdown software you went back to before then running the update please?

[G8GKQ]

Hi All

Please could I advise against EVER installing an older version of Portsdown than the current production build. In circumstances where you think that an aspect of the software is not working, the first thing to do is rebuild the card from scratch. During the re-build, keep an eye on the screen for red error messages. Yellow ones are OK, but red ones indicate a problem.

Quite often, Portsdown updates fix problems caused by updates of other software (such as VLC), so if you go to an earlier Portsdown version, you will re-introduce a problem that has already been fixed.

If the problem is still present on your new card, report it here with as much detail as possible and the community will help you/me to diagnose it. If a problem is reported with sufficient detail, I usually do a new build to check to see if I can reproduce it.

Portsdown 5 will generate a log of any problems that occur during the card build to make diagnosis of build problems easier.

Dave, G8GKQ

[g6hfs]

Hi,

Picotuner rev 1 with portsdown 4 and latest firmware over usb runs with no problems here, make sure you have a good 3-4amp 5.1v psu on portdown, only goes off if we have a power cut but ok on reboot.

Brian

[g8lce]

I had a copy or backup of an old version that was working on another Portsdown and used it to test the problem Portsdown 4 after changing everything else.
It proved that during an update process there had been some sort of corruption in one tiny part of the system which caused a random fault which only showed up when using a Picotuner not a Minitiouner! Further updates did not cure this problem!
Going back to the old backup and updating from that worked fine and the problem was solved.
This shows that if you have a problem don't blame Dave!
How to stop this from happening or to detect this sort of problem that may of happened during an update is above my pay grade!!

The Portsdown 4 can do so much that testing everything after an upgrade is difficult and any problem injected during a problem update may continue through future updates and a clean install may be better with a spare sd card.....

Martin G8LCE

[g6hfs]

Hi,

This one is probably for Dave G8GKQ

Will the portsdown 4 be able to support a Picotuner ethernet connection only on external power input, this would free up a usb port.

Brian

[G8GKQ]

Hi Brian

in a word, No. I have thought about it, but the Portsdown is intended to provide a beginners'/portable solution. Neither use case lends themselves very well to having to set up a network.

Also, given that the Portsdown can only display one received signal at a time, there would be no added functionality.

To address the lack of USB ports, I have built in cheap (unpowered) USB2 hubs to a number of my Portsdowns.

Dave, G8GKQ

[g6hfs]

Hi Dave,

Thankyou for the reply, I do use a powered usb hub with no issues.

Brian

[radiogareth]

I did use a powered hub until it's presumably minimalist power supply let 12V through the Lime Mini. Magic smoke and dead lime mini ensued......they could have rated the PSU parts at 12V Vin....
Gareth