[Anonymous / Deleted User]

I am using a Baofeng UV-5R V2 as the transmit/receiver with 2 striped audio cables to connect to the easy digi. Now I don’t know which wires to use for PTT and Ground from the mic line, or which 2/3 wires to connect from the USB soundcard. I have everything needed, I just don’t know how to hook up the hardware.

[Aaron, N3MBH]

Right now ORP is currently setup to run as a full duplex repeater controller. This means you need 2 radios. A simultaneous receiver and transmitter. In the future we might add the option to use it as a simplex node which would only require 1 transceiver. This site also doesn’t really get into all the ins and outs of running a repeater. 2 Baofengs are really a poor choice. You are going to deafen your receive radio with the transmitter. For same band repeater you are going to need some substantial filters/cavities to isolate your inputs and outputs. You might be able to rig up a single way cross band repeater with your receive and transmit on different bands. This will give you more separation. To learn more about how repeaters work repeater-builder.com is probably a good resource.

The USB sound card connects into the easydigi and the easydigi will wire up to the 2 radios.There is an illustration on the Hardware Getting Started page. You will also need to build COS circuit as well as VOX is strongly discouraged.

73,
Aaron – N3MBH / WRFV871

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

[Anonymous / Deleted User]

Ok. I stumbled upon this project looking for ideas for a HAB (High altitude ballooning) class for college. We were going to send a repeater up into the balloon to be able to transmit between cars that are a longer distance away.

Would there be any easy way to make this a lightweight and portable project?

Also, do you have a working example of a COS circuit?

Any why wouldn’t one radio work?

[Dana, N1OFZ]

If you want lightweight and only 1 radio you are going to have to go with a ht that has built in crossband repeat. Something like the TYT TH-UV8000D.

The UV5R doesn’t have the ability to transmit and receive at the same time. The only way to make the UV5R work the way you want is to get a simplex repeater that records a transmission and then plays it back. But why bother when you can get a $50 ht that will do what you want right out of the box with no additional parts needed.

[Aaron, N3MBH]

The HAB project sounds fascinating and best of luck with it. I do have to agree with N1OFZ. He pretty much hit the nail on the head. A simple simplex store and forward repeater would work best as it is only receiving or transmitting at one time. With a dual band HT that does cross band repeater. There still might be some issues with it desensing it’s self since it is full duplex repeat (receive and transmit at the same time). Some of the cheap radios have “loose” receivers and spurious transmitters. I guess you could start out with a radio like the TYT and see if that works for you…if it doesn’t give you enough isolation at the distances you are trying to communicate simple add on one of the simplex store and forward repeater controllers and that will give you a half duplex system where the isolation doesn’t matter as much (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg2L1dnrhIw). ORP currently doesn’t have a store and forward option and if it did it would probably be too much extra weight by the time you added all the extra support components.

Good luck and I hope that helps.

73,
Aaron – N3MBH / WRFV871

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

[Anonymous / Deleted User]

I still have a few questions. Can you provide an example of a compatible COS circuit? Also, how do I wire the PTT when using 2 of the handheld radios?

If I get the TYT radio would I be able to use only one radio for this project? The main goal is to minimize weight in the balloon.

[Aaron, N3MBH]

On the TYT. No not right now this project is for full duplex only…out of the box. No support is offered just yet for store and forward repeaters or simplex nodes. So you would need two radios (one RX and one TX).

The TYT was mentioned because it has a build in cross band repeat function. It receives on one band and retransmits on another. It can do this without duplexers cavities because the band separation is much greater than same band repeat. That is probably the way to go.

As for some wiring diagrams check out the hardware page. There is a basic wiring diagram for the EasyDigi and under that is a basic diagram for an optocoupler circuit that you can use for the COS line. Some basic electronic knowledge would be required.

73,
Aaron – N3MBH / WRFV871

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

[Anonymous / Deleted User]

We have not covered optocoupler circuits yet but after doing a little more research I understand it more. What line out is feed to the input diode? Would it be the two ground pins on the radio that is transmitting? http://www.qsl.net/g4wpw/th78a.jpg

So are you saying the Microcontroller Input Pin on the diagram connects to the PTT High on the EasyDigi?

[Aaron, N3MBH]

For switching you would use two GPIO pins: One for your RX radio and the COS line and one for your PTT line to your transmitter. The COS line is a GPIO input pin and the PTT is a GPIO output pin. This is set by the ORP software by what you define in the port settings. It knows what direction the pins need to go. For for example you could use: RX GPIO 19 wired as active low and TX GPIO 16 wired as active high.

The Easy Digi only gives you isolation transformers for you audio in and out…it sits between your radios and the sound card and it only handles the PTT line. Make sure that you have an EasyDigi with the optocoupler. They do make ones without optocouplers that are intended vox operation. For the COS line from your receiver you will need to build an external circuit for taking that COS line and linking it to your chosen COS pin…another optocoupler is recommended as it provides isolation for the gpio pin as well as easily allows inverting the state…so an active high voltage into the optocoupler can create and active low on the output of the optocoupler pulling the GPIO pin to ground.

http://phil.lavin.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/circuit.png

Another thing to note is you are not going to get a COS line from an HT like the TYT you mention. You would need to crack it open and modify it or find modification instructions. You’d be better off going with commercial transceivers that can provide COS lines.

Also keep in mind having to radios (one receiving and one transmitting) as the same time in a full duplex setup you are going to have a whole other world of issues. You need proper RF isolation and filtering. That is not a topic that we cover in this forum. One of the best places that you can go to learn about that would be repeater-builder.com

Best of luck.

73,
Aaron – N3MBH / WRFV871

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

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