OpenGD77

I tinkered with hotspot mode once with BlueDV but never with Pi-Star, so I decided to play with that today and it was very easy to set up with the guidance in the manual etc, worked just fine! First time using Pi-Star 4, it's a tiny bit different but pretty much the same.

Not sure what to change to set the radio power from Pi-Star itself, so I needed to change it on the radio, was 250mW, wanted to make it 1W and see what kind of distance I got on my base antenna here, can't seem to change it while in hotspot mode so I power cycled the GD77, set it to 1W, looked and it was still set to hotspot mode... but it never seemed to reconnect to Pi-Star. Fiddled around a bit, eventually rebooted Pi-Star entirely and then it connected just fine.

Is there some way to get Pi-Star and the GD77 talking again after such a disconnect?

power cycling both seems to be the only way.

The problem is in the USB driver in the Pi, but the same problem exists on most systems as they don't handle unexpected disconnects very well.
i.e its know bug on Windows

VK3KYY wrote: ↑

Sun May 10, 2020 11:00 pm

power cycling both seems to be the only way.

The problem is in the USB driver in the Pi, but the same problem exists on most systems as they don't handle unexpected disconnects very well.
i.e its know bug on Windows

Okay, as long as that's expected good to hear I didn't have anything goofy here.

Hey, how do I vary the power in Pi-Star itself? I see the 100% mention in the manual, but when I look in expert->mmdvm, I see Power right under where the frequency is defined, but it was set to "1". I tried like.. .5, 50%, nothing seemed to matter. Not a big deal, sounds like I should be able to adjust the power from Pi-Star so that'd be nice to have available.

This is documented in the User Guide in the Hotspot section

VK3KYY wrote: ↑

Mon May 11, 2020 1:14 am

This is documented in the User Guide in the Hotspot section

Indeed.

Note. By default PiStar configures the “modem” to have a power setting of “100” in the Expert -> MMDVMHost settings.

This is 100% of the maximum power of the modem, and in the case of the radio the maximum power output is 5W, but the radio is not designed to operate as a hotspot, where it may be continuously transmitting.

But my question was, Pi-Star (4.1.0) for me under Expert->mmdvm, Power right under the frequencies, I assume that's the right place, defaulted to "1". Not 100. I tried a few things here, .5, 50%, 50, none of them seemed to matter. But perhaps one needs to restart both sides after this change? I was setting this up fresh on a Pi I have sitting around rather than fiddling with my existing hotspot.

Hi

kt4lh wrote: ↑

Mon May 11, 2020 1:07 pm

VK3KYY wrote: ↑

Mon May 11, 2020 1:14 am

This is documented in the User Guide in the Hotspot section

Indeed.

Note. By default PiStar configures the “modem” to have a power setting of “100” in the Expert -> MMDVMHost settings.

This is 100% of the maximum power of the modem, and in the case of the radio the maximum power output is 5W, but the radio is not designed to operate as a hotspot, where it may be continuously transmitting.

But my question was, Pi-Star (4.1.0) for me under Expert->mmdvm, Power right under the frequencies, I assume that's the right place, defaulted to "1". Not 100. I tried a few things here, .5, 50%, 50, none of them seemed to matter. But perhaps one needs to restart both sides after this change? I was setting this up fresh on a Pi I have sitting around rather than fiddling with my existing hotspot.

RFLevel, in Modem section, IIRC.

Cheers
---
Daniel

F1RMB wrote: ↑

Mon May 11, 2020 1:28 pm

Hi

RFLevel, in Modem section, IIRC.

Cheers
---
Daniel

Aha, yes! That is set to 100, I missed that, I was looking for "Power" on the page. I'll try that again next time I mess with this, thank you!

By the way, I've tried this twice and both times worked but your mileage may vary!

Run Update in Pi-Star, watch the GD77. As soon as it drops out of Hotspot mode (pretty far into the update process) turn it off. Then unplug etc. Then when you're putting it back on hotspot duty, plug in, turn on, and hit Update again.

I'm sure there is some less silly way to make it restart services than "Update" and just rebooting is probably just as fast, but just wanted to follow up.