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struggling!

Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2020 3:33 am
by KO4BFY
I'm struggling with setting up a codeplug. My initial needs are basic.
1. TG 3100 USA
2. TG 91 Worldwide
3. TG 9990 Parrot

I have each set up as a digital contact.
A TG List (Brandmeister) with each contact above added

Whenever I attempt to use parrot, the target on pi-star remains at 3100. I'd appreciate guidance!

Re: struggling!

Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2020 4:39 am
by VK3KYY
Hi

Look on your PiStar dashboard and confirm that you are transmitting on the TG you think you are.

You an manually enter any TG, simply by entering # THE_TG_NUMBER then press the Green button.

BTW. AFIK Parrot on BM is a Private Call to 9990 , rather than a Group call.

To make a private call, press ## THE_PC_NUMBER then press the Green button


IMHO. Brandmeister is quite buggy in terms of leaving a TG. If you Enter # 91 GREEN and press Tx for a few seconds, this will setup a static route to your hotspot from TG 91, so you'll then get all the TG 91 traffic being set to you.

However you'll find that if you subsequently want to go back to TG 3100 , (and press # 3100 GREEN) and hold the PTT for a while, you'll still get traffic coming through on TG 91 for ages.

I have found that I need to make repeated attempts to go to another TG after having been on TG 91.


Also, in theory if you transmit on TG 4000, its supposed to release you from the current static route, but in my experience this doesnt work. (at least not for 91 and possibly not for any TG)

Note.
There is a quirk in the firmware. If you transmit on TG 4000, BM will respond with a recorded voice, but BM sends from DMR ID 4000, so this gets treated as an incoming private call (which it technically is) and you get a prompt about whether you want to accept / return the call.

So just Press RED to get ride of the Private Call message if that happens.

(I think we'll need to put in a special workaround for this quirk with BM using strange ID numbers for their message transmissions)

Re: struggling!

Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2020 6:33 am
by DU2XXR
Some master servers use a different parrot talkgroup or private call ID. Which server are you using?

Re: struggling!

Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2020 6:53 am
by m1dyp
VK3KYY wrote:
Thu Feb 13, 2020 4:39 am


Note.
There is a quirk in the firmware. If you transmit on TG 4000, BM will respond with a recorded voice, but BM sends from DMR ID 4000, so this gets treated as an incoming private call (which it technically is) and you get a prompt about whether you want to accept / return the call.

So just Press RED to get ride of the Private Call message if that happens.

(I think we'll need to put in a special workaround for this quirk with BM using strange ID numbers for their message transmissions)
in the options menu, I set 'allow pc:off'

Re: struggling!

Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2020 8:31 am
by VK3KYY
m1dyp wrote:
Thu Feb 13, 2020 6:53 am
in the options menu, I set 'allow pc:off'
That's a good work-around, but we probably need to do a better fix in the code.

Technically the firmware is working OK, but the way BM transmits these audio messages via a PC is problematic

Re: struggling!

Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2020 10:13 am
by G4EML
Roger,

The ‘accept private call’ prompt is something that most radios don’t do. If they receive a private call they just receive the call, then if the user responds within a hang time the reply is automatically sent back to the originator as a private call.

I know you introduced the prompt so it didn’t rely on a hang timers but in this case it seems to be a hindrance rather than a help. Maybe have an option to enable or disable the prompt.

Colin

Re: struggling!

Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2020 2:59 am
by VK3KYY
Hi Colin

I've done a modification to handle these special source ID's differently, which I have posted to the other thread that has this as a similar problem.
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=631


The Private Call accept screen is now only displayed for ID's >= 1000000 , because this seems the minimum ID that would ever be allocated to a normal operator.

The only lower ID than this in the RadioID.net database seems to be

302911 RADIOID

But I've no idea what use that I would have, the details are

All Regions None RESERVED


Which implies its more like a ID for a All Call.

Re: struggling!

Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2020 4:59 pm
by KO4BFY
Thanks for the tips. Doing ## 9990 got Parrot working. I also discovered the user guide on github which I had somehow missed so that's helping too. And I successfully used hotspot mode with pistar so things are looking up!