[Leo, KK6OCI]

Hello,

I am having issues getting OpenRepeater up and running on a Raspberry Pi 3. I am unable to get audio passed through from RX to TX, and I am currently stuck in a setup loop and unable to access the control panel.

My setup:
– 2x Kenwood TK-805d UHF radios modified for repeater use
– Easy Digi interface for audio TX/RX and PTT
– external optocoupler circuit for RX COS
– RPi 3
– OpenRepeater image v1.1.0 (retrieved a couple days ago)
– Generic USB sound card

The first time I ran through setup and was presented with the control panel normally. Unfortunately I was unable to get audio through the Pi.
– COS from RX radio was being properly detected, as seen in the log
– PTT to TX radio was being properly keyed
– No audio was passed from RX to TX
– Upon the end of transmission, courtesy tone and ID were being played properly

Steps I took to debug hardware:
– Oscilloscope shows RX audio passed correctly from Easy Digi as far as the mic input of the sound card
– Oscilloscope shows TX audio flatline during transmission, but beep and ID as expected
– Headphone connected to audio out jack plays beep and ID but no audio, matching oscilloscope

In trying to debug the software side I am now stuck in an infinite loop with the setup wizard. Any time I navigate to the IP address, I have to go through setup. When setup completes and I log out, I log in again and am presented with the setup wizard again. I can never reach the control panel. Different browser and clearing cookies had no effect.

Settings do appear to be applied each time the wizard runs. Changing the callsign to ID did properly get saved. I then tried setting RX audio to right channel instead of left in case they were switched somehow, to no effect.

Any ideas would be very much appreciated – my next step is to try reformat and reinstall the SD card, just in case. I’m a big fan of this project and excited by the prospects, happy to help debug this however I can.

Thanks,
KK6OCI

[Leo, KK6OCI]

I have reformatted and re-imaged the SD card with a freshly-downloaded image and the behavior is exactly the same. Now however I can’t even reach the control panel on the first pass through the wizard, just logs me in straight back to step 1.

[Aaron, N3MBH]

Hello, sorry to hear that you are having issues. It may be that it is not detecting your USB sound card directly. Firstly, I would try to test the sound card in a know good environment like Windows or Mac. Make sure that you can both record and play back audio from the device. Secondly, there is a chance your sound card could be not fully supported. Maybe try a “lsusb” command from the command line (via SSH) and see if it give you an indication of the chipset. I know that CM108 seems to work fine. Also from SSH try checking the “alsamixer” and make sure that the levels are set correctly for your sound card. The wizard does rely on session variables and javascript so if those are disabled in your browser for some reason, that could cause problems also. Hope that helps and best of luck.

73,
Aaron – N3MBH / WRFV871

OpenRepeater is offered free of charge. Find out how you can support us.

[Leo, KK6OCI]

Thanks for the help, I will check out the sound card and see if I get better luck with a different chipset. I do keep Javascript off in both browsers I tried as well so that’s a likely culprit for the web side issues. Will post updates as I make progress.

[Leo, KK6OCI]

Hello,

Took a while to come back to this but I’m working at it again. I was able to resolve the no audio passed issue, the sound card was defective and has been replaced.

Unfortunately I am still experiencing the setup loop issue, in Chrome, Firefox and Safari, all with Javascript enabled. Same symptoms as before. Any other ideas for what could be causing that issue? Alternatively is there a way to configure the repeater without using the GUI?

Thanks,
KK6OCI

[Aaron, N3MBH]

Glad to hear that you resolved your sound card issue. Do you have anything with your browsers that would be blocking the web GUI from from setting cookies or session variables?

If you don’t want the web gui, you could do a straight SVX Link install. It would take a little more knowhow. Or you could modify/hack the ORP install if you have the programming skills. This might help some: https://openrepeater.com/knowledgebase/topic/custom-svxlink-configuration

73,
Aaron – N3MBH / WRFV871

OpenRepeater is offered free of charge. Find out how you can support us.

[Leo, KK6OCI]

Ultimately the issue was that I wasn’t setting a valid call during setup, looks like the software is checking for a call being set as an indicator of if setup has been run. My application is a GMRS repeater where the users ID but the repeater doesn’t. Putting in a valid call got me past setup, and I was able to switch off both short and long IDs in menus later.

[Aaron, N3MBH]

Glad to hear you resolved it. Yes, it does require a callsign and if one is not set, it will assume the setup wizard needs run again.

73,
Aaron – N3MBH / WRFV871

OpenRepeater is offered free of charge. Find out how you can support us.

[Aaron, N3MBH]

You can probably just set a call sign, then turn off the short and long identification.

73,
Aaron – N3MBH / WRFV871

OpenRepeater is offered free of charge. Find out how you can support us.

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