user soundmodem problems on Inspiron 8200 i810 chipset...

From: evalxt@mailit.tunk.net
Date: Tue Mar 09 2004 - 04:23:34 EET

  • Next message: Cristiano Tavares - SP: "Listen command"

    Hi all,
    I've been having problems getting user soundmodem to reliably copy on
    an Inspiron 8200 linux RedHat9 machine with Intel i810 sound chipset
    with a 2.4.25 kernel using the ALSA 1.03 drivers with a Kenwood TH-F6A
    HT. Any help is GREATLY appreciated.

    Be warned that this is my first attempt at AX.25, but at this point
    I'm pretty sure something must be amiss.

    I'm attempting to receive frequent APRS traffic on 144.39 from an APRS
    repeater located line-of-sight only about a mile away with 1200 baud
    afsk mode with a very clean signal. Demodulator parameters are afsk
    mode, 1200 bits/s, "Frequency 0"=1200, "Frequency 1"=2200.

    Using the soundmodemconfig diagnostic windows, what I see is what
    appears to be a perfect clean signal during transmission, but an
    uselessly high error rate in the decoding. In the "Receive-Packets"
    diagnostic window, when I turn the passall CRC check flag on, I'm
    seeing messages that are 30% garbled at best (based on the callsign
    addressing portions I can actually read). With CRC checking enabled,
    no packets are passed.

    In the scope window I see glimpses of visually very clean modulated
    sine waves with no clipping (I would dare say I could probably decode
    the bitstream manually from just looking at the scope given enough
    time). The Spectrum Display shows well defined peeks at around 1200
    and 2200 hz (twice the noise floor or better assuming the scale is
    linear) with a band between during transmission.

    Thinking it might just be very sensitive to signal levels, I've spent
    literally hours adjusting audio levels of the radio and the mixer, and
    swapped cables and adaptors. I've attempted using line-in (both left
    and right channels), mic-in, and even holding the radio speaker up to
    the microphone (which doesn't seem to make things that much worse than
    they are).

    I've got my TH-F6A radio in it's dedicated TNC mode (though I've also
    tried normal mode).

    Does anyone have any ideas? I've done a lot of googling and came
    across one other posting to the list of a user with an i810 chipset
    who had setup soundmodem successfully on two other systems but saw
    similar noise problems on the third, but there was no public
    resolution to the issue.

    As a minor bug report FYI, soundmodem will not work with the OSS Intel
    i810 drivers...it fails when it tries to put the driver into single
    channel (non-stereo) capture mode. THAT seems to be a driver issue
    (which is why I'm now using ALSA). That issue was reported to the
    list before at http://he.fi/archive/linux-hams/200206/0002.html, but I
    thought I might reiterate it.

    Please CC: me with any response because I'm not on the list.

            -braddock

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