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Aaron, N3MBH
Forum AdministratorFor 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 / WRFV871OpenRepeater is offered free of charge. Find out how you can support us.
Aaron, N3MBHForum AdministratorThanks for your feedback. We are aware of the Orange Pi, but our focus is shifting solely the RPI as the main supported board. Meaning that it is the only one that we are going to concentrate on for providing downloadable images. This doesn’t mean that ORP won’t run on the Orange Pi. We have a install script that we have been working on also that could be used by individuals to build their own installs on other boards.
There is a need to shift this direction as the project grows. For one, the RPI is the most dominate board with the largest support community behind it. Our downloads over more than a year show this compared to the other two boards we’ve been tinkering with. Secondly, as we are working to develop hardware, we need to focus on what will sell and what we can support. Third, having more than one board to support detracts from our ability to focus on development is we are constantly change support issues across the board.
Stay tuned as I think Richard will has support for the OPI once the next version is released.
73,
Aaron – N3MBH / WRFV871OpenRepeater is offered free of charge. Find out how you can support us.
Aaron, N3MBHForum AdministratorGlad you got it working and thanks for taking the time to describe you experience for others.
73,
Aaron – N3MBH / WRFV871OpenRepeater is offered free of charge. Find out how you can support us.
Aaron, N3MBHForum AdministratorOn 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 / WRFV871OpenRepeater is offered free of charge. Find out how you can support us.
Aaron, N3MBHForum AdministratorIf memory serves correctly, I believe OPR 1.1.0 is running something like SVXLink 15.11 or something close to that. Richard does a custom Debian build that he uses to in the build script when we do a new release. You can also compile it for yourself. I believe that is in the SVXLink install instructions. Just be careful that things don’t change as the ORP GUI might be tied in to the version of SVXLink bundled with it. If something changes in SVXLink it could break some GUI functions. Just make sure you make an image of your card before you attempt anything so you can easily revert.
We are working on a new version of ORP which we hope to release soon. That will have an upgraded SVXLink version with it. We don’t have an exact release date as we are still testing some functions. Hopefully around mid summer.
73,
Aaron – N3MBH / WRFV871OpenRepeater is offered free of charge. Find out how you can support us.
Aaron, N3MBHForum AdministratorYes, I have heard that Motorola software is a bear to get working. I think I had run across a YouTube video in the past of something successfully using DosBox to run it, but they had to slow it down to a specific number of cycles.
73,
Aaron – N3MBH / WRFV871OpenRepeater is offered free of charge. Find out how you can support us.
Aaron, N3MBHForum AdministratorFor a simple COS circuit, I would use an optocoupler On the RPI (photo transistor side) you would just make the active state ground the COS GPIO pin then make sure you include a pull up resister to pull the GPIO pin up to 3.3v when the optocoupler is inactive.
On the radio side you would simply need whatever resistor to operate the LED in the optocoupler. So when your COS is active the radio pin goes high activating the LED in the Optocoupler and making the COS GPIO pin go to ground (active low). This is the way v1.1 is. It is active low, but we are givng the option to make it active high in the next release.
As for the interface board. There will be an upcoming group order in April. Keep an eye on the site or social media for updates as I will be posting soon.
73,
Aaron – N3MBH / WRFV871OpenRepeater is offered free of charge. Find out how you can support us.
Aaron, N3MBHForum AdministratorThe 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 / WRFV871OpenRepeater is offered free of charge. Find out how you can support us.
Aaron, N3MBHForum AdministratorGreetings,
My guess would be yes, so long as you can provide receive audio out, into the controller and take audio out of the controller for transmit back into the repeater as well as have a COS/COR line and PTT line.We are working on some code updates now and should be coming out with a new release that improves some things here in the near future.
Also keep and eye on the site, I will be announcing an upcoming group order for SVXLink Card interface boards. These are offered as kits and come from France. There is a smaller interface board available also. We are also working with an established US based controller manufacture to design a new interface board that will be offered preassembled.
Hope that helps.
73,
Aaron – N3MBH / WRFV871OpenRepeater is offered free of charge. Find out how you can support us.
Aaron, N3MBHForum AdministratorNo problems glad to see that you are coming along and that you are getting your hands on some decent radios. ORP is not setup to do everything, but it is a great spring board into SVXLink where you can do much more one you learn the ins and outs.
73,
Aaron – N3MBH / WRFV871OpenRepeater is offered free of charge. Find out how you can support us.
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