General Information
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Tips, Tricks, & Trouble
Tips and Tricks
Problems?
Sound Card Use
. Sound Card Interface
. HF Operations
. 9600 Operations
. Receive Problems
. Transmit
Problems
Help Date:
21 June 2004
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Trouble Shooting Sound Card Receiving Problems
No Signals
Signals but no decode
Other Receiving Problems
For problems and solutions that are not unique to sound card
operations,
see the Problems? page.
If packets are being decoded
successfully, you will see packet text in the Monitor
window. In addition, the green pixel in the PE Pro modem icon
(in the Windows System Tray
at the bottom right of your screen) will flash, as will
the green "LED" light in the very lower left of the PE Pro
main window
.
If there is a decoding problem, first determine if PE Pro is hearing
any
packet audio from the sound card by using the Sound Card Tuning Aid. Are
you seeing the DCD (Data Carrier Detect) light flash
and waves in the Sine
Wave oscilloscope -- yes or no?
A. No, I
am not seeing any DCD or oscilloscope activity.
If you are not seeing any activity, look for the problem at one of
five places along the RX audio path:
a. Radioport
settings
Check the following in the Properties settings for the sound card:
- Make sure you have selected the correct
sound card device
- Make sure you have selected the correct
packet baud rate
b. Volume Control settings
Use the Volume Control
screen
to recheck your setting:
-
If you happen to have more than one
sound card (i.e. mixer device), make sure you are working with
Recording settings for the correct sound card.
-
Make sure you are working with the Volume
Control Recording settings, not the "Playback" settings.
-
Make sure you have selected the input
jack -- LINE IN or MIC -- where your RX interface cable is attached.
-
Make sure the
vertical
volume sliders for the
selected input jack is not at or near the bottom (about 1/3 up is fine).
If you see Balance sliders, make sure they are centered.
-
If there are still no
signals, try selecting the other input source --
Microphone
or Line In. You may have the plug
in the wrong jack. If this was the problem, move the
plug back to the
correct jack and reset the input source.
c. Radio/antenna
Verify that packets are being received at the
radio. Disconnect the sound card interface temporarily and see if you can hear
packets from the radio's speaker and/or see the radio's 'S' bars or the 'Busy"
indicator light up.
- If you don't see or hear packet activity:
- is the squelch too high? Since PE Pro
prefers no squelch for transmitting, it's
best to leave the squelch off (even though PE Pro will still
receive with the squelch on, providing it is
not set too high).
- is tone squelch (CTCSS and DTSS)
turned off?
- if dual VFOs, is the correct VFO/band
selected?
- is the antenna connected?
- is the radio tuned to the right
frequency?
- can you hear packets by using a
different antenna (more gain)? or by moving the antenna to another location
(higher, away from possible EMI interference)?
- can you hear packets using a different
radio with a different antenna? with a different radio but the same
antenna?
- If you can't hear packets from the radio's
speaker (internal or external):
- Is the speaker volume knob set too
low? (Low speaker volume would only affect sound card receiving if your
interface's RX cable connects to the radio's external speaker or
microphone jack, not a data jack.)
- If your interface's RX audio connects to
the radio's external speaker jack, is that radio jack known to work
with speakers? If not, use a meter to test the jack.
d. RX audio cable
See the RX audio cable
Help page for wiring schematics and other hints:
Test the cable by unplugging it from the sound card
jack and plugging it into a speaker (it the speaker also has a plug, use
clips leads or an in-line coupler to join the two plugs). If you hear RX
audio in the speaker, the RX cable is OK. If you can't hear
anything:
- Use a multi-meter to test the RX cable:
- test for continuity and short circuits.
Check your solder connections if you find a problem.
- Is the RX audio line wired to the tip
of the stereo plug? The ring of the stereo plug should be
unwired, unless you are interfacing to two radios. The sleeve
should be wired to the sound card ground.
- Is the RX line securely soldered to the correct
pin in the radio plug?
- If the RX cable has an in-line isolation
transformer, make sure it is a 1:1 transformer, unless you
are using the radio's external speaker for RX audio. If you are
using the external speaker, then you should be using a 1000:8
transformer and the
1000 Ohm primary coil of the transformer should be wired to the
sound card side, not the radio side.
If the cable appears to be electrically sound, consider these
possibilities:
- Is the RX cable plugged in completely at the sound card jack? Make sure you haven't
used the wrong sound card jack or haven't confused the RX cable with
the TX or PTT cable. (Hint: put labels on the ends of all cables.)
- If you are using two sound cards, is the RX
cable
plugged into the right one?
- Are you using a stereo jack at the sound card
plug? You should use a stereo plug for most sound cards.
- Are you using the MIC jack on the sound card
instead of the LINE In jack?
Then you probably should
have an attenuation circuit in the RX cable. See the
RX audio cable
Help page for such a circuit.
e. Sound
card or driver
- The first question to ask is does the sound card work with other Windows' sound
generating programs? If not, in the Windows Control
Panel under Sounds/Multimedia,
make sure the sound card is installed and there are no conflicts with other
devices.
- Driver: Make sure you have the latest driver for your version of
Windows. You can usually download the latest version from the sound card
manufacturer.
- Card: If the problem appears to be your sound
card, consider replacing it or adding another. New cards are fairly
inexpensive or you may find a "used" sound card at a hamfest/computer
show or in a discarded computer. PCMCIA and USB sound cards are also
available. A second sound card dedicated only to ham programs may actually
be very useful. Your first card then be used for Windows and other programs
without conflict.
PE Pro and Sound Cards
When a sound card won't work with PE Pro, it's not
the fault of PE Pro. PE Pro uses Windows to do the actual hardware
reading and writing in conjunction with the sound card's Windows
device driver. In fact, it's the driver that has the hardware
specific code in it, not Windows or PE Pro. With a well-written
driver linking the sound card to Windows, a Windows program like PE
Pro can operate under different versions of Windows and work with a
wide range of sound cards without any sound card-specific program
code.
So when PE Pro won't work with a particular sound
card, it's probably because there's a problem in the quality of the
card (noise, distortion or frequency response) or there's a problem
with its driver. |
B. Yes,
I see DCD or oscilloscope activity.
If you are receiving signals but PE Pro is not
decoding them, then it is probably caused by one of these problems:
f. Signal
quality
For sound card use, generally you need at least an S3 signal for
1200 baud packet and nearly an S9 signal for 9600 baud packet. If you encounter
problems with received signal quality, see the general
Problems? Help page. The tips there
apply to both sound card and TNC/modem use.
g. Interference
Signal interference from EMI, RFI, and ground loops can
distort received packet signals and make them un-decodeable.
- EMI, electro-magnetic interference, can come from
any nearby AC-powered source, such as your monitor. Turn off the monitor
temporarily and then turn it on to see if your packet program recorded any
signal when it was off. You may be able to reduce EMI
by re-locating either the device or your interface
cables; or by using shielding on the device; or by using ferrite cores (split or toroids) on the
interface cables.
- RFI, radio frequency interference, can be reduced
by limiting the length of your interface cable; using interface cables with
shielding; and/or by using ferrite cores (split or toroids) on them.
- Ground loops can result when DC current flows
between your computer and your radio. Normally, DC current should not
flow between the devices, but it will if there is a voltage potential
difference between the devices. Unfortunately, a sound card interface can
become that direct connection. To break the ground loop, you should use
isolation transformers on your RX and TX audio cables, plus a
phototransistor, or opto-coupler, in the PTT line (a simple transistor in
the PTT line does not does provide isolation). You must isolate all three
connecting cables. Note that manufactured interfaces may or may not
provide isolation on all three cables (For example, the West Mountain
NOMIC does not provide isolation for a RX cable). You'll need to verify if they
do by visual inspection or by contacting the manufacturer. Below are screen
shots from the Tuning Aid's Sine Wave scope
showing a ground loop:


h. Sound Card or Driver
i. "Recording" Volume
Settings
PE Pro is very tolerant of RX
audio volume levels, but your volume settings may still be too loud or too
soft.
-
Too soft/muted: try raising the receive
volume sliders until you see more
deflection (peaks and valleys) in the
Tuning Aid's Sine Wave.
(If the sliders don't change the wave, try turning up the volume at the radio.)
-
Too loud: If the sine pattern
has very thick and tall waves (nearly fill the scope top to bottom), try lowering the volume
settings. (If the sliders don't change the wave, try turning down the volume at the radio.)
-
MIC input: If you are using Microphone
input, note that most sound cards are expecting an input voltage (e.g. max
200 mV) much less than radio's maximum output (e.g. 500 mV). For this
reason, you should probably use a voltage
attenuation circuit in your RX cable.
The ideal attenuation will depend on the sound card's input and radio's
output specifications. You can try to use the volume sliders to find an
ideal spot, but the setting is likely to be very delicate without the
attenuation circuit.
In addition, check that your are
not using the
Microphone Boost or the 20dB option on our sound card, if available. This option is
not found in the PE Pro Volume settings, but it may be found as a button in
the Windows' Recording Volume Setting
window under the Microphone slider (you
may need to use the Option: Advanced menu option to have it display).
This option will increase the MIC input by 100 times, which could distort
your packet even more.
j. PE Pro Settings
- Baud Rate: Make sure you have selected the correct
packet baud rate in the Properties window.
- Equalization: You can try adjusting
the Equalization slider on the Tuning Aid window
to compensate for any error in the sound clock's timing. The default slider setting is 4
(an arbitrary number). Since PE Pro doesn't know if your clock is
slow or fast, trial and error is the only way to determine if any changes up or down
will make a difference. Note that changes will only take effect after you
restart PE Pro.
- Sampling rate: For computers with
slow processors, you can try lowering PE Pro's audio sampling rate. In the
PE Pro folder, open the port?.ini file
that corresponds to your sound card port, remembering that the .ini file has
a number one less than the port. So radioport 1 settings are found in the
port0.ini. Open the .ini file with a text editor such as Notepad and look
for this line: QUALITY=2. Change it to QUALITY=1. Save the .ini
and restart PE Pro.
-
Seeing two copies of every packet:
May occur if the second sound card radioport
is active in PE Pro even though it is not being used. To correct this, in
the sound card's properties window select
Single Port
instead of Dual Port.
- Packets from one port are showing up on the other
port: Packets "leaking" to the the other port will
only occur if you have a sound card interface with one radio on port 1 (left
channel) and another radio on port 2 (right channel), i.e. both radios are
using the same input stereo plug. The reason for the leaking is not clear.
The best known solution is to reduce the RX input
volume control settings on the radioport that is leaking to the minimum
needed to decode packets.
- Sound card suddenly stops working:
This probably a power management issue; your computer is going into power
saving mode and is turning off the sound card.
For other problems relating to packet exchanges and
connections, i.e. problems not unique to sound card use,
see the Problems? page.
If your problem is not resolved by these Help
pages, then try these other solutions:
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Copyright 2004 SV2AGW George Rossopoulos
. All rights reserved.
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