CW Skimmer Server with HL2

[Matt]

I've spent a couple of hours trying to get single band CW Skimmer Server (http://www.dxatlas.com/skimserver/) working with my HL2 (build 7 and I haven't got round to any firmware updates yet). I've not had any luck, but it could be because I am trying to do everything in Linux using Wine.

My goal is to have the HL2 skimming on 1 or 2 bands with this connected to a Skimmer Server that I can telnet into. I can get a CW Skimmer running under Wine running with a 3 kHz bandwidth and using linhpsdr, but this has limited use.

I have downloaded the Hermes dll https://github.com/k3it/HermesIntf/releases and reviewed the code change proposed here:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/hermes-lite/N130G9MEJwE/wfg05AgXrrUJ

these changes still seem to be in the current gateware. Hooking up Wireshark I can see the HL2 is sending the ID in a packet. However the Skim Server is saying "Timed out waiting for UDP data". Looking at the log file produced I see the following:

2019-04-14 15:32:11.947: IP Address DLL Filter found
2019-04-14 15:32:11.947: GetSdrInfo: HermesLT 10.42.0.220 A213DD Idle v62
2019-04-14 15:32:11.947: GetSdrInfo: HermesLT 10.42.0.220 A213DD Idle v62
2019-04-14 15:32:11.958: StartRx
2019-04-14 15:32:11.958: Worker thread running
2019-04-14 15:32:11.969: SetRxFrequency Rx# 0 Frequency: 14022750
2019-04-14 15:32:14.954: Timed out waiting for UDP data
2019-04-14 15:32:17.976: Worker thread done
2019-04-14 15:32:17.977: StopRx
2019-04-14 15:32:17.991: IP Address DLL Filter found
2019-04-14 15:32:17.991: GetSdrInfo: HermesLT 10.42.0.220 A213DD Idle v62
2019-04-14 15:32:17.991: GetSdrInfo: HermesLT 10.42.0.220 A213DD Idle v62
2019-04-14 15:32:18.002: StartRx
2019-04-14 15:32:18.002: Worker thread running
2019-04-14 15:32:18.013: SetRxFrequency Rx# 0 Frequency: 14022750
2019-04-14 15:32:21.000: Timed out waiting for UDP data

Using Wireshark it looks like the HL2 is sending the UDP data. But I'm not an expert on this. I tried putting some debug statements in the dll and rebuilding, but hit a brick wall with some Windows dependencies that I would need Visual Studio for.

I'm not sure if it is a Wine related issue, or some subtle firmware thing that means it doesn't work on the HL2 (everything I can find relates to HL1 with many more receivers available). Unfortunately I don't have a Windows build to try it on.

Has anyone else got this working?

73,

Matthew M5EVT.

[Steve Haynal]

Hi Matthew,

Thanks for you detailed question and for digging into past posts. Unfortunately, I am super busy now and it will be a few days before I can provide a detailed answer. One thing you can try is fit a jumper and pullup resistor to CN9. This will force the Hermes-Lite to identify as a Hermes board which may help and be a work around. I know in the past CW skimmer has worked, but I haven't tried it recently. Maybe others on this group can provide more help.

73,

Steve

kf7o

[Alan Hopper]

Hi Mathew,

I've no idea if this works under wine but there is another version of hermesintf here https://github.com/n1gp/HermesIntf . I have been pondering ways to interface cw/rtty skimmer to Spark .

73 Alan M0NNB

[Matt]

Thanks for the reply. I've fitted the jumper to CN9 and pullup but looking with Wireshark it still sends out HERMESLT. So the dll will still think it is a Hermes Lite.

I've just tried the other dll referenced by Alan. No luck.

I'm suspicious this could just be a wine issue, but I've got nothing to prove it until someone says their HL2 works with it.

73 Matthew M5EVT.

[Matt]

With quite a few more people on the group using the HL2 now, I would be curious if anyone has had any luck getting the HL2 to work with CW Skimmer Server?

I should confess this not working for me led me down an interesting path. I've got a very proof-of-concept skimmer working based on this library:

http://ag1le.blogspot.com/2019/

I've trained the network to learn all the calls from here with varying amount of artificial noise:

http://www.supercheckpartial.com/

I've trained it on some other things like CQ, 599 etc.

It is all incredibly clunky and too manual with too many different python scripts at the moment, but I'm successfully decoding CQs and callsigns (not in the training set) recorded using my HL2/gnuradio. Progress is incredibly slow, but I'm trying to get beyond my proof-of-concept into something to run as a background server in Linux decoding a whole band. I'm quite keen to deploy this on the new NVIDIA Jetson Nano, I think it would be ideal for that.

73 Matthew M5EVT.

[Alan Hopper]

Hi Matt,

that looks really interesting and fun, I'm had something similar in the back of my mind. I've been pondering how to interface to decoders like this. Initially I wanted to incorporate the wsjtx code into Spark rather than calling the wsjtx exes but I've come to see the advantage of running decoders in a separate process. I've been looking at some more generic options and quite like the look of gRPC https://grpc.io/ for interfacing and sharing decoders between software. If you are interested in developing a common interface to share your decoder I'm very keen to help.

73 Alan M0NNB

[Rob Frohne]

Hi Matthew,

I think your work is really great!  Mauri has done some very interesting testing, and your work adds to his.  This is an area that is very interesting.  I'm glad to see you working on this.  I personally think it would be great to have an open source CW skimmer, and even better if it was better than Alex's.  :-)  Keep up the great work!  I do think machine learning has possibilities for this. 

It would be nice to figure out a way to get real training data off the air.  I envision a web site that operators using fldigi or something like that would send the messages they send, and you could use the web site to train your receiver.

73,

Rob

KL7NA

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[Steve Haynal]

Hi Matt,

Very interesting work. I know that in the past people have used CW skimmer with a Hermes-Lite. The maintainer of CW skimmer made some requested changes for me about a year ago. I haven't tried it and haven't heard any recent usage reports.

73,

Steve

kf7o

[Pete Smith N4ZR]

I'm one of the organizers of the Reverse Beacon Network, and worked with VE3NEA during alpha and beta testing of CW Skimmer Server.  A few years ago, I borrowed an HL-1 and had no difficulty getting it running with Skimserv, using the Hermes interface dll written by K3IT.

I've been hoping that Hermes-Lite 2 would be an easy adaptation to use with Skimserv, so that there would be an alternative to the Red Pitaya for multi-band "Skimming". 

I'd be happy to weigh in with Alex if that would be helpful. Alas, I am *not* a programmer - more of an advanced user.

73, Pete N4ZR
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