cqinet-general — General discussion

[CQiNet] Linkbox developers any?

[Roland S. <rol...@bl...>]

Hi,

I am using, both, linkbox and bridgedaemon for quite a while now. I also
can see that there a some conference operators out there.

My questions:

Is anyone using the linkbox to go on air with echolink?

Is one of the developers here on the list?

Is there interest in doing some development?

vy 73 de oe1rsa

-- 
__________________________________________
  _  _  | Roland Schwarz
 |_)(_  |
 | \__) | mailto:rol...@bl...
________| http://www.blackspace.at

[CQiNet] Echolink server error

[Onur Ş. <tb...@gm...>]

Hi;

I installeď bridge 1.09 on Ubuntu 14. I've set all the settings. But it
fails when trying to connect.

Error;
RTP Data: Failed to find client 123.234.234.55
RTP Data: Failed to find client 123.234.234.55
RTP Data: Failed to find client 123.234.234.55
RTP Data: Failed to find client 123.234.234.55

...

Please help :)
Thx TB3TOJ, 73!

[CQiNet] echolinkten.konferans odasi aldik .node numarasi aldik.yalniz kurulumu yapamiyoruz ingilizcemiz yetersiz oldugundan.odamizin ismi kale

[Aytekin C. <ayt...@gm...>]

[CQiNet] THEBRIDGE -1.09 indirdim ama kuramadik bize yardimci olurmusunuz sevgiler saydilar

[Aytekin C. <ayt...@gm...>]

Re: [CQiNet] thebridge welcome.tbd audio file format?

[Paul W. <kb...@am...>]

At 3:00 PM -0500 9/20/09, Wayne Edgar wrote:
>What is the format of the .tbd audio files?

It's just a little header followed by the raw EchoLink packets.

>I have a wav file that I would like to convert and use for my welcome.tbd on a conference server. Thanks in advance.

There's a program called tbdcnv that converts to and from WAV format. It's available (with source code) from cqinet.sourceforge.net. Be sure and read the README -- there are some limitations on what kind of WAV file it will accept. You might need to use a general-purpose audio file editor to change the format before feeding it to tbdcnv.

The source code to tbdcnv is probably the best (most specific) documentation of the file format, too, if you want more details on that.

73  -Paul
kb...@am...

[CQiNet] thebridge welcome.tbd audio file format?

[Wayne E. <kj...@gm...>]

What is the format of the .tbd audio files? I have a wav file that I would
like to convert and use for my welcome.tbd on a conference server. Thanks in
advance.

-- 
Wayne Edgar

http://zerovertex.googlepages.com

Download vCard @ http://zerovertex.googlepages.com/wayne.vcf

[CQiNet] thelinkbox beta v0.39 available

[Skip W. <wb...@co...>]

I've uploaded the a new beta release of thelinkbox to the yahoo group
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/thelinkbox/files/thelinkbox-0.39.tgz).

This release has extensive changes to the audio signal path to
minimize port to port audio delays. I've tested it on several sound 
boards and both CM108 and iMIC USB dongles as well as both Linux and 
FreeBSD, but I won't be shocked if there are sound boards that have 
problems.  If you run into any problems please let me know.

This release also has support for interfacing two radios to one stereo 
sound card.  I have lightly tested this using clip leads, switches, leds, 
stereo speakers and a Motorola DTMF mic.  I hope someone finds this 
feature interesting and can help by testing it with actual radios.

Finally this release supports tone burst access discussed here recently, 
this is also lightly tested.

and the Changelog says:

####################################
Changes in version 0.39, Feb 14 2009

New features:
1. Thelinkbox can now support two radios using a single stereo capable 
sound device.  Thelinkbox also allows multiple ports to share a single 
serial or parallel port.  This means that the typical PC can act as a two 
port controller without additional sound devices.  The new port 
configuration variable AudioChannel specifies which channel a port audio 
is connected to.  The existing port configuration variables TxKeyMethod, 
RxCosMethod, DtmfMethod, PTT_Bit, and COS_Bit are used to specify which 
serial or parallel port bits drive PTT and which bits are COS inputs.
   
2. The linkbox now supports tone burst access repeater control that is  
typically used in Europe.  See the new port configuration variables 
ToneBurstMode, ToneBurstFreq, ToneBurstMute, ToneBurstTimeout, 
ToneBurstToneID and FakeToneBurst for more information.

Minor enhancements:
1. Massive restructuring of the audio buffering algorithm to minimize 
port to port audio delays.  Previously audio was handled as 80 
millisecond chunks resulting in a 160 millisecond port to port delay.  
Now audio is treated like a stream to minimize the delay.
    
2. Added -a command line option to the .sendbeacon command to force an 
update to be sent to the APRS-IS system.

3. Added .wav format "welcome" file support.  Wave format welcome files 
can be played for any VoIP client.  The legacy welcome file support 
inherited from thebridge only supports EchoLink clients.  See the 
configuration variable WelcomeFile for more information.
   
4. Added -p command line option to the .link command to mark a port link 
as "permanent".  Permanent links are ignored by the .unlink all, .unlink 
rf, .unlink voip, and .unlink <port> commands.  The link can only be 
removed by an explicit .unlink command that specifies both ports.

5. Added a new port configuration variable RepeaterPort to cause a 
permanent link to be created automatically from a port's receiver to its 
transmitter at initialization time.
    
6. Removed untested support for 8 bit sound cards.  Sorry about that, I 
don't have any cards to test with and no beta testers have come forward.
   
7. Added "dtmf" to the port status string when an DTMF digit is being 
decoded.

8. Added port status string support for VoIP nodes (lightly tested).

9. Added support for the MaxPlayWithoutPause and MinPlayBackPause 
configuration variables to the FILE playback "tone" generator.
    
Bug Fixes:
1. Corrected an unnoticed long standing bug in the Doug Hall support 
caught by gcc 4.3.2's anal warnings.

2. Corrected uLaw/RTP bugs.  Previously uLaw only worked correctly over 
the Speak Freely protocol.
   
3. Corrected a crash which occurred when thelinkbox was unable to open 
the sound device.

4. Corrected operation of COS & CTCSS inputs via the parallel port.  
Thanks to Erik oh2lak for reporting the problem and testing the fix.
   
5. Corrected formating of APRS-IS packets when configured for certain 
locations (longitude less that 100 degrees for one). Thanks to Erik 
oh2lak for reporting the problem and testing the fix.
   
6. Corrected crash when APRS-IS is enabled and the ConferenceCall was 
longer than 9 characters.  It is not possible to use APRS-IS with such 
"calls" since the APRS-IS object name is a fixed size, but thelinkbox 
will now report the error instead of crashing.
   
7. Corrected a crash that occurred when attempting to execute a DTMF 
command when EchoLink wasn't enabled (EchoLinkEnable = 0).  Thanks to 
Erik oh2lak for reporting the problem.

8. Corrected a crash that occurred when attempting to execute a DTMF 
command without a valid current port selection.
   
9. Corrected compile problems in the AX25 code under FreeBSD 4.x.

10. Corrected a bug in tlbcmd's imike emulation that could cause the uLaw 
CODEC to be selected inadvertently for full duplex connections.

11. Corrected a premature DTMF command timeout when buttons where pressed 
slowly.  Previously the command timeout was started on button press, now 
it's started on button release.
    
12. Reworked Vox code so it's treated more like a "real" cos.  Added 
verbose debug logging enabled by setting the DLOG_COS_CTCSS (0x400) bit 
in the debug variable.

[CQiNet] Echolinux and Fedora10

[Jacob T. <k8...@co...>]

I am a new user to Linux and have been trying to get Echolinux running 
for about a week now and still can't get it to connect to anyone.

So if anyone could give me a hand with this I would really appreciate it.

Jacob Tennant - K8JWT

[CQiNet] thelinkbox v0.38 beta available.

[Skip W. <wb...@co...>]

Happy New year everyone!

It's hard to imagine that thelinkbox beta group is over a year old
already! I had planned on finishing up the beta long ago but I'm been
very busy with other things recently.

I'm spent most of my vacation working on thelinkbox (sad but true) and
it's getting there. One or two more betas and then I'm going to stop
coding and write documentation until I can't stand it (which doesn't
take long) and then do a more public release.

I've uploaded the a new beta release of thelinkbox to the yahoo group
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/thelinkbox/files/thelinkbox-0.38.tgz).

and the Changelog says:

Changes which are not backwards compatible:
1. Inverted the active sense of RS232 based inputs to conform with
RS232 convention to avoid future confusion. NOTE: configuration files
for previous versions must be modified by changing the sense of the
InvertCOS and InvertCTCSS variables. If your configuration file did
not have an InvertCOS or InvertCTCSS then add one and set it to one.
The default is non-inverted.

2. Changed the software DTMF method for VoIP ports to 3 to match
physical ports. Method 1 is now undefined for VoIP ports.

New features:
1. Added 1200 baud AFSK AX25 packet generation support to the tone
generator. This feature may be used to send APRS beacons to advertise
the nodes location and CTCSS tone and other information. The ability
to generate packet is also expected to be useful for sending
telemetry. See the "Ax25 specific variables" section in the sample
port configuration file for more information.

2. Added ability to list the node on the APRS-IS (Automatic Packet
Reporting System-Internet Service) system. See AprsIsEnable in the
sample configuration file for more information.

Minor enhancements:
1. Added new example script that plays a rotating set of prerecorded
voice IDs periodically to a port when idle. See scripts/voiceid.sh
for more information.

2. Added new port configuration variable "ConnectAnnouncements" to
allow connect and disconnect announcements to be enabled/disabled on a
per port basis.

3. Added automatic detection of big endian hosts to configure script.

4. Added <port name> to the "dtmfdecode" event.

5. Restored the RxTone configuration file variable. The receiver's
CTCSS tone may now be set by either the configuration file variable or
the RxTone command. The eliminates the need to write an configuration
script just to set the RxTone.

6. Added an CTCSS high pass filter in the transmitters audio path,
enabled by the port configuration variable TxCtcssFilter.

7. Added the .pcm command which allows raw PCM data from various
points in the signal path to be saved to disk. This command is
primarily an debug aid.

8. Added software preemphasis and deemphasis support to properly shape
audio when thelinkbox is connected directly to an FM receiver's
discriminator or an FM modulator bypassing the radios built in
preemphasis and deemphasis circuitry. See the port configuration
variables RxDeemphasis and TxPreemphasis for more information.

9. Added configure test for the EVIOCGUNIQ ioctl which is not
available in 2.4 kernels and added #ifdefs as needed to get thelinkbox
to build. EVIOCGUNIQ is only needed for USB device serial number
support so it's not essential. It is still an open question if
thelinkbox will actually run correctly on 2.4 kernels or not.

Minor changes:
1. The APRS/AVRS configuration variables TxPower, Haat, AntGain,
AntDir, and Frequency are now port specific. This provides the
ability to beacon different information on different ports for
multiband repeaters.

2. Replaced the poorly conceived VoipOutMap and VoipInMap
configuration file variables with LinkVoipIn and LinkVoipOut port
configuration variables.

Bug Fixes:
1. Corrected Redhat startup script installation. tlb.sh should have
been named tlb. Also added chkconfig info courtesy of John K1DWU.

2. Corrected a major memory leak introduced in 0.84. Several
kilobytes of memory are lost every time the user database is updated
(by default every 10 minutes). Over time this adds up to a
significant amount of memory.

3. Corrected bogus read failures reported by GetAudioIn with some
sound card drivers. Thanks to KB7RSI for his help debugging this problem.

4. Corrected bug in CText class which prevented initial buffer size
from being increased.

5. Corrected a bug which causes an infinite loop on startup when
compiled with some compilers (gcc 3.3.4 for the ARM) that have where
the default char type is unsigned.

6. Corrected bug that broke PCM file based callsign spelling. Thanks
to WB5TTS for reporting and help debugging the problem.

73's Skip WB6YMH

[CQiNet] thebridge ver 1.06 released

[Skip W. <wb...@co...>]

I just released version 1.06 of thebridge which is a primarily a bug fix 
release. If your current version is working for you there is no reason to 
update.  

Many thanks to Tony VK3JED, David WD5M, and Erik OH2LAK for help
testing the many betas between 0.96 and 1.06. 

As always thebridge is available for download from http://cqinet.sf.net .

Here is a short summary of the more significant changes. See the
Changelog for more details.

Summary changelog since the last public release (0.96)

Bug Fixes: 

1. Corrected a major memory leak introduced in 0.84.  Several killobytes 
of memory are lost every time the user database is updated (by default 
every 10 minutes).  Over time this adds up to a significant amount of 
memory.  

2. Modified code to prevent 5 bytes of garbage from being written to the 
end of saved .info files.  

3. Modified code to prevent station list received from other conferences 
from being saved as info and in .info files.  

4. Corrected compiler errors and numerous warnings about deprecated 
conversion from string constant to 'char *' when compiling with GCC 
4.2.x. 

5. Corrected a bug in the command parser that could cause command output 
to be logged instead of the user's command.  This bug could also prevent 
multiple commands on one line from executing properly. Thanks to wd5m for 
reporting this bug and help testing the fix.  

6. Corrected bug that could cause a segfault when an invalid email 
address is entered for the EmailAdr configuration variable.  

7. Modified code to record locally generated chat traffic even when the 
conference is empty. Thanks to wd5m for reporting this bug and help 
testing the fix.  

Minor enhancements: 

1. Added automatic detection of big endian hosts to configure script.  

2. Added chkconfig info to Redhat startup script courtesy of John K1DWU.  

3. Added -b, -c and -t arguments to the .users command.  The -b switch 
suppresses the display of the user's attributes.  The -c switch displays 
the amount of time each user has been connected.  The -t switch displays 
the time since the user last transmitted.  

4. Replaced the AllowADPCM configuration variable with compressionType. 
This allows the conference to be configured for use by PCMU (uLaw), 
ADPCM, or GSM.  NB: Sharing a conference between multiple codecs is no 
longer supported, it never made much sense anyway. 

5. Cleaned up the .disconnect command's response messages.  

6. Added code to enable the stock EchoLink client's DTMF pad when the 
configuration variable EnableRemoteDTMF is set to 1. 

7. Modified the .disconnect command to accept "." as a short hand for the 
station currently talking to match the .mute command.  

8. Modified tbdcmd/tbdchat to save and restore the history file from the 
user's home directory rather than the current directory (non Windoze 
platforms only). 9. Modified ExecHook to pass all chat text in the second 
argument for "chat" and "sent_chat" events.  Previously everything 
including the event type was passed in the first argument which made life 
for scripts harder rather than easier.  

10. Added code to send an sent_chat event to the event hook when a chat 
message is sent.  

11. Added code to send an chat event to the event hook when a text chat 
message is received from a user.  

12. Modified configuration file parser and .set command to handle 
variable assignments without spaces around the equals sign.  

[CQiNet] TBD and TLB event logging

[Erik F. <la...@ik...>]

I'm seeing a need for a event log for both tlb and tbd for debugging and 
informational reasons.

The event log should/could include following details timestamped;

TLB:
-RX COS detection per port
-TX keying control per port
-DTMF decode with source information (which port etc.)
-CTCSS detection per port
-VoIP connection information
-VoIP connection activity
-Port linking

TBD:
-Node transmission with node ID (who talked and when)
-Node connection/disconnection
-Node control (mute etc)

The users of our RNET-system has required especially the who talked 
-feature, as they would like to see a short history of the last ten 
overs or so from the status page (http://rnet.rats.fi/rnet_status.cgi)
to debug which node made some noise to the system etc.

..
Erik OH2LAK

[CQiNet] thelinkbox beta v0.34 available

[Skip W. <wb...@co...>]

I've uploaded a new beta release of thelinkbox to the yahoo group
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/thelinkbox/files/thelinkbox-0.34.tgz).

Minor enhancements:
1. Modified tlbcmd/tlbchat to save and restore the history file from the 
user's home directory rather than the current directory.

2. Modified ExecHook to pass all chat text in the second argument for
"chat" and "sent_chat" events.  Previously everything including the
event type was passed in the first argument which made life for scripts 
harder rather than easier.

3. Added code to replace "$TLB_PORT" within command strings with the name 
of the port that issued the command.

4. Added a .frequency command that allows the port's receiver frequency, 
transmitter offset, CTCSS encode and CTCSS decode to all be specified at 
once.  If no arguments are given the .frequency command will display the 
current settings if available.
   
5. Added new example DTMF command script to set the transmit, receive and 
CTCSS frequencies for a 2 meter remote base.  (scripts/freqctrl.sh)

6. Added new example that implements a DTMF regeneration scheme for 
systems that use site prefixes.  See scripts/prefix.sh for more 
information.

7. Modified the DTMF muting logic.  The MuteDTMF port configuration 
variable now specifies if DTMF tones should be muted before reaching the 
port's transmitter.  Previously MuteDTMF specified if DTMF tones were 
muted before leaving the port's *receiver*.  Typically we want to pass 
DTMF tones to link transmitters, but not repeater and remote base 
transmitters, changing the binding from the receiver to the transmitter 
makes this possible.  NB: DTMF mute is only active for receivers on ports 
configured with an DTMF decoder (DtfmMethod > 0).

8. Modified the .disconnect command to accept "." as a short hand for the 
station currently talking to match the .mute command.
   
9. Added include file support for the DTMF command files.

10. Added -p command line switch to the .tonegen command to send the 
generated tone to the current nodes peers rather than the port itself.  
Peers are other nodes that are currently connected to the current nodes 
receiver. The option is useful for DTMF regeneration among other things.  
An -P command line switch can be used to send generated tones to the 
current node as well as the node's peers.
    
11. Added -c command line option to the .tonegen command to execute the 
specified command when the tone completes playback.
   
Bug Fixes:
1. Modified code to record locally generated chat traffic even when the 
conference is empty.

2. Corrected a bug in the command parser that could cause command output 
to be logged instead of the user's command.  This bug could also prevent 
multiple commands on one line from executing properly.
   
3. Corrected the name of the environment variable that holds the current 
port in tlbcmd (TLB_PORT, not TLBPORT).
   
4. Corrected .unlink command to fully unlink ports, previously only half 
of the link was unlinked.
   
5. Modified logic to announce VoIP connect and disconnect events to ports 
listed in the VoipInMap and VoipOutMap configuration variables.  
Previously connection and disconnection announcements were sent to the 
current port.

6. Added decrement of Transmitters to the .unlink all command.  Fixes 
massive memory leak caused by failure to delete uncompressed audio data 
after an .unlink all command is used.
   
7. Modified Doug Hall protocol handlers to prevent updates from being 
sent too fast to be recognized.  The Doug Hall protocol uses timeouts to 
recognize frame boundaries.
   
8. Modified the configure setup to detect the lack of a C or C++ compiler 
and exit with an error message rather than trying to press on.

[CQiNet] Echolinux on debian platform on eeePC

[<emi...@gm...>]

Hello,

I would like to use echolink software on the eeePC, because I think it is a
very good plattform for voip-amateurradio. The eeePC is a very small
subnotebook with only the essentials thinks on it and a xandros os (debian)
running. 

So I intent to use echolinux but there are only RPM-packages. I tried to use
alien to convert RPM to DEB file but alien respond error during the
converting process. Also the providing package from DL8RDS does not work.
After the installation of his package echolinux is not on the system. My
first analyis suggest that there is no echolinux included.

It would be of great help to me to get echolinux running on eeePC.
Does anybody have experiences with echolinux on debian? Can anybody give a
working tutorial to port echolinux to debian or habe a compiled version for
debian?

EeePC is a fast popular with many involving people. With regard to further
distribution on that platforms it would be helpful if beside to the RPM
package the developer also can provide a debian package too. 


Thanks,
Webpaul

Re: [CQiNet] Experiences from TLB v0.32 and earlier

[Skip W. <wb...@co...>]

> Erik Finskas wrote:
> > Skip asked to tell experiences about TLB and give some feedback, so here
> > goes.
> > 
> > We are using TLB (versions 0.30 to 0.32 currently) in our test network
> > which consists of three radio sites and few monitoring sites at peoples
> > home where they just listen to the traffic using TLB and soundcard.
> 
> Operating systems where TLB has been run successfully;
> CentOS 5.5
> Fedora 5
> Debian 4.0
> 
> Debian seems to be a good choice, as it offers a lightweight 
> installation and has all necessary packets already there. Debian is also
> very ham-oriented so the same machine can run APRSd and other things in
> parallel with TLB.
> 
> 73
> Erik OH2LAK

Thanks for the updates!

Which OS are you using on the system with the C-Media dongle?  It's the 
USB subsystem that worries me the most, the rest of thelinkbox code is 
pretty generic.  Also did you build libusb from sources or was it a 
package from the distribution ?

73's Skip WB6YMH

p.s. Erik was the first person to try thelinkbox which was well over a 
year ago now.


> 
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> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/cqinet-general
> 

Re: [CQiNet] Experiences from TLB v0.32 and earlier

[Erik F. <la...@ik...>]

Erik Finskas wrote:
> Skip asked to tell experiences about TLB and give some feedback, so here 
> goes.
> 
> We are using TLB (versions 0.30 to 0.32 currently) in our test network 
> which consists of three radio sites and few monitoring sites at peoples 
> home where they just listen to the traffic using TLB and soundcard.

Operating systems where TLB has been run successfully;
CentOS 5.5
Fedora 5
Debian 4.0

Debian seems to be a good choice, as it offers a lightweight 
installation and has all necessary packets already there. Debian is also 
very ham-oriented so the same machine can run APRSd and other things in 
parallel with TLB.

73
Erik OH2LAK

[CQiNet] Experiences from TLB v0.32 and earlier

[Erik F. <la...@ik...>]

Skip asked to tell experiences about TLB and give some feedback, so here 
goes.

We are using TLB (versions 0.30 to 0.32 currently) in our test network 
which consists of three radio sites and few monitoring sites at peoples 
home where they just listen to the traffic using TLB and soundcard.

Everything goes well, there are few glitches but I'm quite sure that 
they are configuration issues, not truly TLB issues. We are seeing 
doubling now and then, as all TLB have been configured to be 
half-duplex. I haven't tried to configure them full-duplex to see would 
if fix that. Eventually we lose some transmissions due to doubling and 
the talking opponent don't know what happened as it is just quiet after 
the doubling :)

v0.32 fixed the popping sound on CWID and stream playback when used with 
the C-Media CM108 USB sound fob.

CTCSS decoding is still on the list of things to do, so I can't tell 
anything about that yet. We are building currently two test nodes which 
will rely completely on TLB on logic side, the repeater transceiver will 
be just a dummy radio. Other will have also several repeaters hooked to 
TLB so it will be a true test bench.

I must say I'm very happy with the development of TLB. I've been 
involved from quite the beginning and it has grown well and to the right 
direction :)

I have few things on the wish-list still though;
-single tone decoding? (1750Hz in my case)
-question of how should I do such, when I want to stream out reflector 
audio. Put a lurking TLB somewhere and figure out how to output the 
audio of TLB to a input of a streamer etc?

..
Erik

[CQiNet] thelinkbox beta v0.32 available

[Skip W. <wb...@co...>]

I've uploaded a new beta release of thelinkbox to the yahoo group
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/thelinkbox/files/thelinkbox-0.33.tgz).

####################################
Changes in version 0.33, May 14 2008: (beta release)

New features:
1. Modified the code to allow thelinkbox to be run without a sound
card. Why? To give a conference server a DTMF command line and all of
the other capabilities of thelinkbox such as connections between VoIP
clients running different codecs, speech synthesizer, etc.

2. Added support for radio frequency and CTCSS control via the Doug
Hall protocol using data and clock lines attached to either the
parallel port or an USB audio dongle's GPIO lines. Connections to the
parallel port are untested currently. The new commands rxfrequency,
txoffset, rxtone and txtone are used to set the radio's operating
parameters.

Minor enhancements:
1. Added code to strip trailing spaces from end of string
configuration file variables to some difficult to find problems.
Thanks to N4KLB for the suggestion.

2. Modified text to speech preprocessing code to add text specified by
the new configuration variable CallSignSpelling between letters of a
callsign before passing it to the speech synthesizer. Previously tlb
just inserted spaces but it was discovered that some speech
synthesizers (Cepstral for example) pronounce single letter
abbreviations when they follow a number. Thanks to wd5m and n4klb for
testing and suggesting solutions to this problem.

3. Added support for spelling out callsigns phonetically by setting
the new configuration file variable PhoneticFilePath.

4. Added -s (spell) switch to the .say command to force the argument
to be treated as a callsign. Callsigns are spelled out letter by letter.

Bug Fixes:
1. Corrected compile errors in new ctcss code under FreeBSD (u_int8_t).

2. Corrected bug in tone generator that could cause the transmitter to
get stuck on while trying to generate dtmf.

3. Corrected compiler errors and numerous warnings about deprecated
conversion from string constant to 'char *' when compiling with GCC 4.2.x.

4. Modified USB PTT routine to use the PTT_Bit and InvertPTT
configuration file variables. Previously the USB GPIO bits were
hardcoded for the "standard" bits.

[CQiNet] thelinkbox beta v0.32 available

[Skip W. <wb...@co...>]

I've uploaded a new beta release of thelinkbox to the yahoo group
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/thelinkbox/files/thelinkbox-0.32.tgz).

####################################
Changes in version 0.32, April 24 2008: (beta release)

New features:
1. Added direct support for site prefix decoding. See DTMFPrefix, 
PrefixedTone and PrefixTimeout in port.conf.sample for more details.
   
2. Software based CTCSS decoding is now supported.  The tone frequency
is set by the RxTone port configuration variable.  Setting Rxtone to
"search" causes thelinkbox to attempt to determine a which tone is in
use by monitoring the channel.  RxTone may also be set to "any" which
will enable all possible tones for testing.

Minor enhancements:
1. Changed DTMFCommandTimeout from a global configuration variable to
a port configuration variable so different ports may be configured
with different timeouts.

2. Added configuration variable DTMFCommandFile for Voip ports.

3. Began modifications to allow a single stereo sound card to be used
to interface to two separate radios.  NB: modifications are *NOT*
complete yet.

Bug Fixes:
1. Modified the code to use 48khz to talk CM108 based USB dongles. 
Added local sampling rate conversion routines to convert between 8Khz
and 48Khz. On some (all ?) versions of the kernel and some (all ?)
versions of the audio subsystem sampling rate conversion between the
8Khz that thelinkbox uses and the 44.1 or 48 Khz sampling rate the
CM108 chip actually supports in hardware results in an unacceptable
amount of noise/clicking/buzzing being introduced.  
   
2. Added code to set the TLB_PORT environment variable to the port
issuing the command when a script is run.
   
3. Added numerous checks to make sure the current port still exists
before trying to use it.  Now that VoIP connections are treated as the
same as other ports it's possible for port to disappear at any time.

Re: [CQiNet] Cqinet-general Digest, Vol 12, Issue 1

[Skip W. <wb...@co...>]

> Seems to need a yahoo login, so unreachable for me.
> 73.. de Sid.
> 
> -- 

It's also checked into the CQiNet CVS repository as thelinkbox if you 
want to build from CVS.  I'll start releasing it on SF shortly, the Yahoo 
group is for the Beta beta releases and communications.  

A Yahoo login is free, but I assume you know that and don't care to 
create one for some reason.

73's Skip WB6YMH

Re: [CQiNet] Cqinet-general Digest, Vol 12, Issue 1

[Sid B. <sb...@bl...>]

cqi...@li... wrote:
> Send Cqinet-general mailing list submissions to
> 	cqi...@li...
> 
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> 	https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/cqinet-general
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
> 	cqi...@li...
> 
> You can reach the person managing the list at
> 	cqi...@li...
> 
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of Cqinet-general digest..."
> 
> 
> Today's Topics:
> 
>    1. thelinkbox beta v0.31 available (Skip WB6YMH)
> 
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2008 11:49:47 -0700
> From: "Skip WB6YMH" <wb...@co...>
> Subject: [CQiNet] thelinkbox beta v0.31 available
> To: cqi...@li...
> Message-ID: <47FF505B.24911.11CE46F@localhost>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
> 
> I've uploaded a new beta release of thelinkbox to the yahoo group
> (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/thelinkbox/files/thelinkbox-0.31.tgz).
> 

Seems to need a yahoo login, so unreachable for me.
73.. de Sid.

-- 
Sid Boyce ... Hamradio License G3VBV, Licensed Private Pilot
Emeritus IBM/Amdahl Mainframes and Sun/Fujitsu Servers Tech Support 
Specialist, Cricket Coach
Microsoft Windows Free Zone - Linux used for all Computing Tasks

[CQiNet] thelinkbox beta v0.31 available

[Skip W. <wb...@co...>]

I've uploaded a new beta release of thelinkbox to the yahoo group
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/thelinkbox/files/thelinkbox-0.31.tgz).

####################################
Changes in version 0.31, April 11 2008: (beta release)

Minor enhancements:

1. Added DTMF generation support to the tone generator.
For example:
tonespec = ID 1000 DUR 100 PAUSE 250 DTMF #123
generates 3 DTMF digits that are 100 milliseconds long with 250
milliseconds between them. The active tone time is set by the
DtmfEncodeDuration configuration variable if DUR is not specified. The
pause between digits is set by the DtmfEncodePause configuration
variable if PAUSE is not specified. The old .dtmfgen command has been
deleted since it's no longer needed.

2. Modified syntax of Tonespecs to make parsing more general and order
independent. Tone segments are now terminated with a ':' character.
As a result the DUR token is no longer special so it can be used to
specify the duration of a DTMF tone without conflict.

3. Added support for playing wave files to the tone generator.

4. Added code to send an chat event to the event hook when a text chat
message is received from a user.

5. Added code to send an sent_chat event to the event hook when a chat
message is sent.

Bug Fixes:
1. Corrected an infinite loop that occured when attempting to send a
courtesy tone under certain rare timing conditions.

2. Corrected bug that could cause a segfault when an invalid email
address is entered for the EmailAdr configuration variable.

[CQiNet] thelinkbox ver 0.26 beta released

[Skip W. <wb...@co...>]

I've uploaded a new beta release of thelinkbox to the yahoo group
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/thelinkbox/files/thelinkbox-0.26.tgz).

This release is the first release after a major restructuring of the
internals, expect bugs. I've been running the new code for a couple
of days, but it's probably less stable than 0.22. On a plus side the
restructuring has eliminated many of the limitations of the previous
design such as the inability to function the node from an VoIP connection.

73's Skip WB6YMH
####################################
Changes in version 0.26, Mar 9 2008: (beta release)

Minor enhancement:
1. Added support for the TLBPORT environment variable to imike,
ispeaker and play emulation.

Bug Fixes:
1. Removed the signal handler for SIGTERM and SIGINT for tlbcmd's play
emulation so play can be aborted by SIGTERM.

2. Reimplemented support for the courtesy tone generation by Voip
ports. The configuration file variables VoipCtone, VoipCtoneMap and
VoipCtoneDelay are obsolete, they have been are replaced with the port
variables Ctone, CtoneMap and CtoneDelay now that VoIP ports are
handled the same as physical ports.

3. Modified port and link commands to hide VoIP ports that are in the
disconnecting state.

4. Corrected spurious complaints from CToneAccessMap about being
called with CurrentNode == NULL.

5. Modified the command parser to allow a dot prefix when multiple
commands are entered on one line. Previously ".help;.help" would fail
because the '.' wasn't stripped from the second command.

6. Corrected bug in the command parser that caused the first command
to be executed multiple times when another command wasn't found or was
partially matched.

####################################
Changes in version 0.25, Mar 7 2008: (limited beta release)

Minor enhancement:
1. Added a -c command line switch to the .say command to send a
TBD_SAY_COMPLETE response to tlbcmd/tlbchat when the audio
transmission completes.

2. Modified the code to extract callsigns from SDES packets for RTP
clients as well as EchoLink. Allows nodes to be named by callsign
rather than ip addresses in offgrid networks without hostfile entries.

3. Added support for multiple commands on one line separated by ';'.

Bug Fixes:
1. Corrected a bug in the file playback code that caused crashes on
some systems when a welcome file was played for SF clients.

2. Reimplemented support for the VoipOutMap configuration variable.

3. Modified CmdInfo to suppress disable of "Currently displaying"
unless ShowStatusInInfo is enabled.

####################################
Changes in version 0.24, Mar 5 2008: (limited beta release)

New features:
1. Major restructuring of the internal infrastructure to treat VoIP
connections as pseudo ports. This means that features which
previously were only applicable to physical ports such as telemetry
tone generation, DTMF command processing, timeout timers, etc now
apply to VoIP connections as well. The interconnect matrix has been
redesigned and the "limitation" of 32 ports has been eliminated. It
is now possible to link VoIP clients together that are running
different codecs and protocols.

2. Added support for the TLBPORT environment variable. The .script
command now sets the TLBPORT environment variable to the name of the
port that executed the script and tlbcmd now uses the variable to
prefix commands issued by the script with "port ${TLBPORT};". In many
cases this allows scripts to be blissfully ignorant of the port
selection and just rely on the man behind the curtain to do the right
thing. This feature can be disabled by the new -b (bare) tlbcmd
command line switch.

3. Voip connections are now configured dynamically when the connection
is established. First tlb looks for a node specific configuration file
<callsign>.conf and then the generic configuration file voip.conf. If
either of these files are found they are used to configure the new
VoIP node.

Minor enhancement:
1. Add display support for DTMFCommandFile to the set command.

2. Added code to log any error messages (such as bad password)
received from the EchoLink directory servers.

3. Changed the configure script's default for readline support to
disabled to reduce build problems. To enable readline support run
configure with the --with-readline flag.

4. Added new configuration file variable AllowADPCM to enable the
Speak Freely and RTP conferences to support clients running the ADPCM
codec. NB: This does *NOT* mean that GSM and ADPCM clients will be
able to communicate by connecting to a common conference. GSM packets
are only relayed to GSM clients and ADPCM packets are only relayed to
ADPCM clients.

5. Added support for the dmalloc memory debugging tool. Added code to
explicitly release memory on shutdown to help locate actual memory leaks.

6. Added a new configuration variable EchoLinkEnable that can be used
to prevent tlb from opening sockets for the Echolink ports.

7. Added code to display a usage message when the .monitor command is
run without arguments.

8. Modified the .users command to display an 'a' user attribute for
ADPCM users.

9. Added support to the .play4 -u command for SF and RTP clients.

Bug Fixes:
1. Modified tlbcmd to disable readline support when used by a script
to prevent SetTerminalMode from spewing error messages.

2. Corrected a bug in SFBind2IP which also broke Bind2IP operation.
Thanks to VK3JED for debugging help.

3. Corrected a bug in tlbcmd that caused a segfault when a ^D was used
to exit and it was compiled with readline support.

4. Removed newline from playbackcomplete event. This was the only
event which ended in a newline. Thanks to WD5M for finding and
reporting this.

5. Modified SF and RTP code to ignore packets with unknown codecs
rather than kicking the connection.

6. Modified the .connect command to default to the port specified by
the SF_Port configuration variable rather than 2074 for Speak Freely
and RTP connections to match tbd's behaviour prior to version 0.87.

7. Corrected incorrect generation of "bye/disconnect" packets for
Speak Freely and RTP clients. Previously "bye/disconnect" packets were
always generated in EchoLink format.

8. Corrected a bug in the access control routines which prevented -R
or -L stations from being .allowed to connect via RTP or SF.

9. Corrected a bug in the access control routines that caused -R or -L
callsign suffixes to be lost for station connected via RTP or SF that
were allowed by IP address.

10. Corrected a bug in the connect command that prevented a connection
to a node by IP address from being reestablished immediately after it
had been disconnected.

11. Corrected bugs that prevented the .record command from recording
traffic from SF and RTP clients. NB: only GSM traffic can be recorded.

12. Modified the code to assume new SF and RTP connections are using
the GSM codec rather than ADPCM. There's no way to tell if this is
actually the case until an audio packet is received from the client.
This assumption may be wrong, but currently we only support welcome
messages in GSM format. If a welcome message is played in GSM format
for a some clients (linkbox) they will *SWITCH* to GSM when they
receive it. Meaning if you want an ADPCM conference you should *NOT*
configure the conference to send a welcome message.

13. Fixed a typo in the .connect command which caused duplicate
dynamic conferences to be created.

####################################
Changes in version 0.23, Feb 02 2008: (limited beta release)

Minor enhancement:
1. Added Echolink firewall mitigation code courtesy of Johnathan K1RFD.

2. Added support for a new configuration variable ShowStatusInInfo to
enable thelinkbox to be configured to automatically show the name the
current connection in the info field on the EchoLink directory
servers. See the sample configuration file for more details

[CQiNet] thebridge Ver 0.95 released

[Skip W. <wb...@co...>]

I just released thebridge version 0.95 which is a minor bug fixing
release. If 0.89 is working for you there is no reason to update. The
majority of the bugs affected the operation of thebridge with
non-Echolink clients such as IRLP. If you are running thebridge in
combination with an IRLP reflector then this update is for you.

Many thanks to Tony VK3JED, David WD5M, Mike KB8ZGL and Erik OH2LAK
for help testing the many betas between 0.89 and 0.95. This release
started out as a trivial update to disable readline support by default
and ended up fixing many long standing bugs/limitations in support of
non-EchoLink clients.

As always thebridge is available for download from http://cqinet.sf.net .

Here is a short summary of the more significant changes. See the
Changelog for more details.

Minor enhancements:
1. Changed the configure script's default for readline support to
disabled to reduce build problems.

2. Added configuration variables to allow thebridge to be configured
as a standalone conference supporting ADPCM users.

3. Added record and playback support for non-Echolink clients (GSM only).

Bug Fixes:
1. Modified tbdcmd to disable readline support when used by a script
to prevent SetTerminalMode from spewing error messages.

2. Corrected a bug in SFBind2IP which also broke Bind2IP operation.
Thanks to VK3JED for debugging help.

[CQiNet] Audio calibration tool?

[Erik F. <la...@ik...>]

Hi all.

I've been reading a lot of different specs and manuals of different
radio voip systems, and fell in love with the method of doing audio
calibration for asterisk/app_rpt radio channel.

I haven't personally yet done the calibration, but here's what it looks
like;
-Feed unsquelched noise to the application and define it as background noise
-Feed full quieting signal with 1kHz tone to the application and define
it to be standard signal
-Feed ctcss tone with standard deviation to the application and define
it to be PL signal
-Measure PL+1kHz signal sent out by the application with a test set, and
set deviation to what application tells it to be with +/-.

The calibration mainly tunes the mixer values of the sound card, but
this definately sets them optimally to the best dynamic point of the
sound card. This would be very useful for TLB/TBD also.

And best of all, it does not have to be any part of actual TLB/TBD. Just
a separate tool. I think that the best dynamic range in the soundcard
input is somewhere about 60-65% of the mixer slide range. Maybe same on
the output. The calibration would just check that with the standard
signal (1kHz tone at 3kHz deviation, for example) would produce certain
level to the input of the sound card. Same for the output, just with the
possibility to adjust the output level of the mixer.

What do you say?

73
Erik OH2LAK

[CQiNet] thebridge Ver 0.89 released

[Skip W. <wb...@co...>]

I just released a new version of thebridge which is available for
download from http://cqinet.sf.net.

This is a fairly minor update, but it does contain some new features
(one contribute by Johnathan K1RFD  himself!) and bug fixes mostly
for the *nix version.

73's Skip WB6YMH

The changelog says:
####################################
Changes in version 0.89, 2/9/2007:

Minor enhancements:
1. Added Echolink firewall mitigation code courtesy of Johnathan
K1RFD. This code is invoked by the .connect command to assist with
connections to version 2.0 and above EchoLink nodes located behind
unconfigured firewalls. For more details about the new firewall
friendliness of Echolink 2.x see
http://www.echolink.org/firewall-friendly.htm .
   
2. Added support for a new configuration variable ShowStatusInInfo to 
enable EchoIRLP nodes to be configured to automatically show the
name of the current connection in the info field on the EchoLink
directory servers. See the sample configuration file for more details.
   
3. Added a private chat mode for sysop's and admins.  Sysops and
admins can prevent individual chat message from being sent to normal
users by starting the message with a semicolon (';'). Sysops and
admins can also prevent individual chat message from being sent to
normal users and sysops by starting the message with a comma (','). 
Neither of these characters have any special significance when sent by
a normal user.
   
####################################
Changes in version 0.88, 1/2/2007: (limited beta release)

Minor enhancements: 
1. Added a new configuration variable SFBind2IP to allow Speak Freely
conferences to be bound to a different IP address than EchoLink
conferences.

Bug Fixes:
1. Modified the behavior for handling unknown EchoLink clients. 
Originally  unknown EchoLink clients were simply ignored which allowed
them to connect on a retry after their IP address was verified with
the Echolink directory  servers.  A change was made in version 0.84
which sent unknown (and banned) stations a "bye" packet which caused
the first connection attempt from stations that had recently logged
into EchoLink to fail.  The new behavior is to ignore unknown EchoLink
users but to send a "bye" packets to banned users.
   
####################################
Changes in version 0.87, 12/22/2007: (limited beta release)

New features:
1. Added GNU readline support to tbdcmd and tbdchat. Command history
is now available via the up arrow among a huge list of other things
that readline knows now to do.  Executive summary: use the cursor keys
and they might just do what you expect.

Minor enhancements: 
1. Modified configuration variable access routines to allow more
configuration variables to set or displayed by the .set command.

2. Added -m command line parameter to the .connect command to
establish connections in monitor mode.
   
3. Added -p command line parameter to the .connect command to allow 
connections to arbitrary port numbers.

4. Added code sent the "NAME" RTCP field to Speak Freely and RTP
clients.  The default value is ConferenceCall unless overridden by the
new configuration variable FullName.  The CNAME field is now set to
"CALLSIGN" for compatibility, previously it was set to ConferenceCall.

Bug Fixes:
1. Corrected a bug that could cause the exit status of child processes
to be missed when if more than one child exits at a time.  This bug
prevented EventScripts from being called correctly.
   
2. Changed the way the source port for transmitted packets is
determined to make it more general and efficient.

####################################
Changes in version 0.86, 12/8/2007: (limited beta release)

Bug Fixes:
1. Modified code so data is always sent from the appropriate port.
Previously IRLP data (after conversion to EchoLink format) was sent to
the EchoLink ports, but from the IRLP ports.  Normally this is not a
problem, but if a user's firewall is using dynamic rules created by
outbound packets then the these packets would be lost.  Effect is some
EchoLink clients can not hear IRLP stations via integrated
IRLP/EchoLink conferences.
   
2. Corrected bug what caused multiple copies of tbd to (attempt) to
run at the same time when the EventScript variable pointed to
something that didn't exist or wasn't executable.