Odd clicking noise in radio

[Don [N5SKT]]

I hear what sounds like a relay clicking whenever an application starts the radio. On whole panadapter jumps up and down while this is happening like the receiver is dieing and starting over and over again. It eventually settles down and all is well. 

Any ideas what could be happening inside the radio?

Best Regards,

Don - N5SKT

[Probir]

Hi Don,

 

Is this is happening during Transmission.  BTW which Application Software you are using

 

Best regards,
Probir VU2BQF..

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Hermes-Lite" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to hermes-lite...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/hermes-lite/CAEE%3DpNrJQk5tM1NiJYoaznoT8SM1-tFbbiiBNO8%3DQG_BkEpy6w%40mail.gmail.com.

[ron.ni...@gmail.com]

If the HL2 relays are chattering, and not just clicking once or twice, it likely means the network between your application and the HL2 is termporarily too slow in terms of latency variation.  This is common even over some fast WiFi networks.  So I used wired ethernet (via a dongle adapter for my MacBook and iPad which don't have built-in ethernet ports) whenever possible.

The pinging your HL2 for several seconds.  If your ping times vary by more than a few milliseconds, your network is delaying UDP packets (and maybe trying to catch up later with a fast consolidated burst that's already too late), and the transmit buffer could be underflowing during Tx.

73,

Ron

n6ywu

[Don [N5SKT]]

OK, odd. I run a wired ethernet only. Wifi I use for my phone or tablets only. Everything else including my Pis are directly connected to the same system with Gig ethernet.

Best regards

Don - N5SKT

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Hermes-Lite" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to hermes-lite...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/hermes-lite/88db814c-9be4-403d-af4d-1b0cee4a8983n%40googlegroups.com.

[Don [N5SKT]]

Here is a capture of what I am seeing when the radio is "clicking".

--

[ron.ni...@gmail.com]

Do you have or can you find a network ping utility?

If so, try pinging the IP address of the HL2 a few dozen time.  (Shut down piHPSDR first.)

What sort of numbers (ping times) do you see?

Also, do you have anything plugged into the key jack on the front panel of the HL2?

73, Ron, n6ywu

[Don [N5SKT]]

--- 10.101.1.91 ping statistics ---
28 packets transmitted, 28 received, 0% packet loss, time 816ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.105/0.169/0.418/0.071 ms

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/hermes-lite/e1c8ccab-ad59-4972-81f9-601aba13fe6en%40googlegroups.com.

[Don [N5SKT]]

Oh, and nothing plugged in.

[ron.ni...@gmail.com]

Those ping statistics don't reveal any issues with network latency (at least during the time those pings were done).

But did you say the problem (relay clicking) was intermittent, and sometimes went away?

Could the issue be with some component warming up?  

Or the SDR application being interrupted by some busy process on your computer?

- Ron

[Joe LB1HI]

Hi,
I have noticed the same (similar) behavior in other softwares used with Hermes Lite. Both under windows and under linux on  three different PCs.
 It was the worst for two middle-class PCs. The most annoying is when during TX PTT PA starts clicking too.

I tried two different LAN cards (both Gigabit) through the router and directly. No improvement.

I suppose this has nothing to do with LAN cards (transmission speed) but with how the PC deals with this transmission. Because if the PC was artificially loaded with other tasks then it generates clicking the filter relays and the TX / RX switch in Hermes Lite. A small test program from https://www.userbenchmark.com was used to generate the load/
 Relays click the most when during  the CPU  test. The trasmit RF is also disturbed at this time. (seen on a different SDR RX)

The only remedy is to use the samplig rate 48.000 which unfortunately gives us only a segment of the band and does not cover even the CW segment at once.

With 96,000 and above it is impossible to work comfortably.

The test is simple to perform.

Connect a dummy load or an antenna to the output. Transmit with very little power by running TUNE.  Then run the test program from https://www.userbenchmark.com and observe the relay behavior and your SDR TRX softwar. Additionally, you can watch on any other receiver. (You can transmit for a few minutes the temperature does not rise beyond the norm)

I think that it is worth testing the used Hermes Lite - PC - Software set in this way to avoid surprises during the contest or work with DX (especially when using PA)
I think I will come back to this issue one day. Currently very busy with other projects
73, Joe
LB1HI

[Steve Haynal]

Hi Don and Group,

I think people may be talking about different issues here.

I think Don is reporting a relay click that occurs when he first connects software. He is not transmitting at the time. Don, please let us know if this is a correct understanding. How long do the click(s) last? 1 second, 5 seconds, etc.? Is there just a single or double click, or are there many clicks making relay chatter? When application software connects, it will set the filters which will cause one or two relay clicks for LPF and possibly HPF. Also, you are running older gateware. Can you try the latest testing gateware?

There is another issue where the HL2 will empty all TX buffer data, hang for a short period of time, and then leave TX as it thinks TX is done. This is due to large variations in network latency or PC send latency so that the TX buffer is not filled in a timely matter. To address this, there are PTT hang and TX buffer level settings which software can make. I and I believe most users never or rarely (one or two clicks per hour) see this issue. I was only able to force it by setting the TX buffer level and PTT hang to absurd values. The problem is due to a poor system and/or network setup.

73,

Steve

kf7o

[ron.ni...@gmail.com]

Looking at Protocol 1 and the default Tx FIFO sizes in the FPGA, one should be careful using the Hermes Lite 2 to transmit on any non-real-time PC that could become busy with other processes.  Window machines are notorious for coming pre-loaded with a bunch of stuff that can use a ton of resources in the background at random times.

Minimal OS installs on Linux machines can have far fewer busy processes.  So, for SDR Tx, I use a dedicated Raspberry Pi 4 with no email daemon or web browser running.  Just a clean desktop with only the SDR app open.  And on a Mac or iPad, I explicitly run a low-latency real-time audio process from my SDR app, which under macOS or iOS pretty much guarantees that my SDR app will get at least some cycles every 5 mS or so.  Hopefully enough CPU cycles to keep the UDP packets on close schedule (so far, so good) for the HL2.

Are there any process priority settings one could use on Windows or Linux systems to make sure the SDR app gets CPU cycle frequently enough?

73,

Ron

n6ywu

[Steve Haynal]

Hi,

I don't understand why some experience issues and feel a need for more or dedicated CPU. Although I upgraded in the last year, for the two prior years my main system was:

https://www.asrock.com/mb/intel/q2900-itx/

This is a low end Intel motherboard. I ran a full Linux Mint distribution on it with all the bells and whistles including the Cinnamon desktop. I ran MythTV on it and it was often capturing HD data from a network attached HDTV device to disk while I operated FT8. It was a file and print server for a couple of other systems in the house. I always have chrome open with at least 5 tabs. I operate mainly FT8 (WSJTX+Quisk) which has pretty CPU intensive decode cycles. I *never* had issues with relay chatter during TX even with all this happening. There was only a cheap gigabit switch between this PC and the HL2. I never did any special setup of software or the OS or network to achieve this.

73,

Steve

kf7o

[Alan Hopper]

Hi Ron and group,

my experience with the hl2 on a wired network and windows is somewhat more positive than Ron's. I've never had a problem with a range of machines over the years, none particulaly powerful, and I've never had to do anything special to get good tx.  My main machine is an 8yr old i5 that is full of dev and office software and serves live tv to the house and works very happily even if I'm running models or compiling code whilst using the radio. I use even older laptops with no problems. Things do get more critical with the 10rx firmware when you run 50+ virtual receivers but my i5 can just do that so a single rx and tx is not really touching the cpu power.  Problems on wired networks indicate something is very wrong.

73 Alan M0NNB 

[ron.ni...@gmail.com]

Hi Steve,

That's interesting.  I see a fair number of threads in FPS gaming forums regarding problems with dropped frames on busy PCs.

So I assumed that this would also be an issue for other apps that have latency critical needs, and use the GPU for real-time rendering (waterfall, etc.). At a 60 Hz frame rate, a dropped frame could be due to a 33 mS scheduling gap.  That's a lot of missed Protocol 1 packet time slots.

73, 

Ron

n6ywu

[Joe LB1HI]

Hi,
One of PC I used for the tests (E5-2650 V2 processor, 16 GB RAM) works smoothly with the high reception bandwidth of 10 Megahertz on SDRplay. So you'd expect it to handle 393kHz in Hermes lite. But unfortunately there are clicks of relays and short flashes in the received audio. (I wrote about TX earlier but it also applies to reception, but to a much lesser extent).

Correct LAN bandwidth was checked with separate software designed for this purpose and it was correct on both LAN cards. One is builtin on the motherboard and the other is purchased specifically for comparison on a PCI x4 connector.

One thing that distinguishes between SDRplay and Hermes Lite is that Hermes Lite uses LAN and SDRplay USB.

The problem occurs to a similar degree on Lin / Pi / OpenHPSAR, QUISK, SDRConsole so it would indicate that the problem is not in the software used. The only exception is Spark SDR which even while broadcasting has no clicking relays and is RF stable.

But it is not a big consolation because the SparkSDR program is still in the continuous development phase when it comes to SSB emission.

But I think this PC was sufficient if coped well with other hardware open for 10 MHz and taking into account its technical specifications  so it's not due to a poor system and / or network setup.

73, Joe
LB1HI

[Alan Hopper]

Hi Joe,

That is interesting, I'm not sure what could cause relay clicks on rx, a >1.2s ish loss of comms would trigger the watchdog and probably cause a click but the software is likely to stop at this point. I don't think shorter interruptions should cause a click on rx (Steve may know better) so that is a mystery and may point to some other problem. 

73 Alan M0NNB

["Christoph v. Wüllen"]

The CPU requirement depends on what you want.

I measured FFTW performance on a bunch of systems, and the Raspberry Pi is
about a factor of 10 slower than standard Desktop PCs or laptops.

Since I can go well with a RaspPi, I guess that the floating point
performance of even old PCs must be enough by far.

The only problem I can think of is if different things are done in
one thread and then one waits where one should proceed.

> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/hermes-lite/f4f37513-76b6-4001-8a68-ca113145ee05o%40googlegroups.com.

["Christoph v. Wüllen"]

Can you tell me the TX FIFO size in the HL2 FPGA? I usually assume that it is 4k samples
(this is AFAIK for Anan radios) and in pihpsdr the default TX buffer size is 1K.

In P1 the TX samples keep flowing, but in P2 it is important that you half-fill the
TX FIFO with zero samples after a RX/TX transition.

> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/hermes-lite/b93b05ff-7dbd-4a1e-9413-978bac44cea5n%40googlegroups.com.

[Don [N5SKT]]

Steve,

It lasts several minutes but it is a single click over and over again until it settles in. And yes, I can upgrade the firmware. 

Best Regards,

Don

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/hermes-lite/2c7542e0-46b7-40a9-9ee0-618852e8cafco%40googlegroups.com.

[Don [N5SKT]]

Ron,

The pi4 should be fine and I have a wired Gig ethernet. Again, this is when I "open" or "start" the radio. After some time, the clicking stops and everything is fine. I also have this happen on my dedicated gaming machine where I have reformatted and reloaded windows so it is now dedicated to the Hermes. 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/hermes-lite/f4f37513-76b6-4001-8a68-ca113145ee05o%40googlegroups.com.

[Don [N5SKT]]

I have seen this happen with Quisk as well but have not gone back to SparkSDR.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/hermes-lite/f2eee798-1ea7-4eca-ba74-baa82595336cn%40googlegroups.com.

[Joe LB1HI]

Hi Alan,

Yes it's strange but it's true. . I'm already skipping the load of wsjtx or logging applications. But during receiving it happens even when the web browser starts, for example to look at the cluster or check the forum :-).

During RX, this is not so harmful and disturbing, rather, you will almost lose one letter in CW or decode quality  in digi modes. But while transmitting it causes distortions and interruptions in the audio, and "misses" parts of the letters CW but also can be very harmful to the hardwarelike PA TX/RX, switches etc.
Alan any plans to add some microphone audio line  tools like e.g.compression. noise gate, EQ ect to Your Software?

73, Joe

LB1HI

[Alan Hopper]

Hi Joe,

as it happens I'm working on eq right now, our local daily covid 2m net is proving a great way to improve the audio, half the group are ex BBC engineers so give plenty of good feedback. I've added(not released) a loop function that allows you to capture and loop a few seconds of raw mic data so you can hear the effects of changing level and eq without the confusion of speaking at the same time (which completely messed with my head).

What os are you using?  I can understand audio breaks when things get busy but not the relay clicking, maybe finding out what is happening with Don's radio will give us a clue.

73 Alan M0NNB

[Joe LB1HI]

Hi Alan,
Here's some good news for audio. Good luck.

My free time is ending so I will answer briefly.

I test and use Windows. Linux (Debian, FreeBSD) Raspberry Pi OS.

But ....... ;-)

But the most complete and reliable software and applications for ham shacku, electronic workshop and contest. Like eg logging programs and their large selection (but most often N1MM for cotest :-) antenna modeling software, large selection of switching software, virtual ports, audio cables and various SDR hardware and software are for Windows.

I also like use linux, and experimenting as part of the hobby, not just QSO only.
But  if it comes to setting up a reliable and headache-free station for contest or DX or remote, then Windows only.

I also like to configure and experiment with sdr aplications for other OS. But when it comes to  use (and you asked for it) it's Widows.

Windows = No headache. And Windows give us the  time to effectively USE the radio instead of constantly configuring and repairing something.

Just my 5 cet`s from exprience

I used to try to complete all the necessary software for OS Linux Mint using various substitutes and replacements. Mostly it worked.

But the quality of these substitutes and their interplay with each other represented a much lower quality in use. They left a lot to be desired. But the biggest drawback was unexplained errors and the lack of reliability.

73, Joe
LB1HI

[ron.ni...@gmail.com]

The issue is not with raw CPU or network performance.  A system can have a 10G network and a petaflop FPU.  But if the router or OS only schedules network packets or processing in bursts every 10 mS or 100 mS or so apart, the HL2 Protocol 1, which likes getting UDP packets every 2.5 mS or so to keep fifo levels flat, is going to have a very bumpy ride.

And that was the problem I found with one of my WiFi networks.  The network could easily burst and on average stream at well over the data rate required for the HL2, but with occasional large gaps (many 10's of milliseconds) between bursts.  Similar issues can occur with non-realtime OS schedulers, which can drop real-time frames, even though they have an excess of Gflops on tap.

So latency jitter and process scheduling are the potential culprits, not raw performance.

73,

Ron

n6ywu

[ron.ni...@gmail.com]

Just hypothesizing:

Another possible culprit could be the amount of DRAM in the system.

If the SDR process is getting periodically swapped out and back in from the VM system, or needing something like a garbage collection to run mid-process, etc., that could definitely cause latency variation issues.

Maybe those who have seen no relay clicking issues have plenty of memory, even on their older slower systems?

73,

Ron

n6ywu

------

On Wednesday, October 7, 2020 at 11:13:15 AM UTC-7 "Christoph v. Wüllen" wrote:

["Christoph v. Wüllen"]

This basically corresponds to my observations, and this is the main reason why I prefer
having a direct cable between radio and PC.

I have seen routers (they do store-and-forward) which send out UDP packets not in the same
order as the arrive, and other such things . . .

But I think the original poster *did* have a direct cable connection.

> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/hermes-lite/89633c9f-ab49-4ddb-afe8-642cface5347n%40googlegroups.com.

[Joe LB1HI]

Hi,
Christoph

Unfortunately, direct connection would break the idea of remote use.

It would not in any way distinguish Hermes Lite as a Network radio from other USB-connected SDRs.

The problem here occurred whether connected directly or via a router. So we have to assume that the LAN transfer (Outside of PC) is not the cause.

Thank you Ron n6ywu for the additional inspiration.

As I remember, on the same PC there was no such problem at the beginning right after installing Windows and PowerSDR.

I think it will be interesting to conduct an investigation what other application installed later "messed up" in the operating system. If that clue is right.

73, Joe
LB1HI

[Don [N5SKT]]

I heard the clicking today while using the other radio and on a whim, I pulled the ethernet and it immediately stopped. Plugged it in and it started again. I do think it is a network issue. But, as I said, my entire lan is 1G and my latency between my systems and the Hermes is less than 1/2 a millisecond.

. 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/hermes-lite/ab5274dc-399d-4bc9-a193-8075cbf7e6e3n%40googlegroups.com.

[Jonas Sanamon]

Hi Joe,

Antivirus or Windows Indexing Service etc hogging all the CPU cycles?

Have Windows task manager open and sorted on the CPU usage, so You can see if there is some process using a lot of CPU when this happens, don't forget to make sure the "show processes from other users" checkbox at bottom is checked. 

Regards

Jonas

[Alan Hopper]

Hi Don,

I just did a sanity check and modified spark so it only sent 1 in 200 of the packets expected, just enough to stop the watchdog triggering. The radio still worked fine on receive with no relay clicks or other problems (other than slow respose to commands). So if your clicking is on receive I think it is to do with something other than network issues.  Maybe we should start another thread for network related issues to explore Joe's tx problem.

73 Alan M0NNB

[ron.ni...@gmail.com]

Hi,

A single direct wired ethernet cable is not required for remote operation of the HL2.  Remote operation can also work using a set of hard-wired or optical connections that do not pass through any routers that do UDP packet shuffling or UDP packet combining.  That rules out many WiFi access points, and perhaps some older consumer wired network routers.

For instance, I have an optical fiber connection from my QTH to the telco WAN. If I ethernet cable my HL2 directly to my optical fiber connected QTH router, I get ping latency variances of less than +-2 mS, even over the WAN from distant (but also fiber connected) locations.  So I should be able to work remote to my QTH from a remote office that has a good fiber optic connection to the WAN.

However, if I put my HL2 or my iPad on WiFi, all bets are off.  The Tx relays will start clicking unless I'm super careful.  I have one newer 5 GHz WiFi router that might work if I stay within 4 meters of it.

73,

Ron

n6ywu

[ron.ni...@gmail.com]

It might be informative to do a tcpdump or wireshark logging on your LAN for when you hear the HL2 clicking.

Also run a process monitor on your PC and see if the CPU load or memory usage is changing during the clicks.

73,

Ron

n6ywu

[Joe LB1HI]

Hi Don,

Your description that the problem reappeared when you turned on / started using another radio, gave me an idea for a test.

I have a small sugestin / test proposal. 

It concerns small voltage differences between devices like Hermess lite, router, PC, (and possibly other radios, devices if they are somehow connected to the PC, for example via USB).

In particular, it concerns what these individual devices are powered from.

In the past, it happened (router was out of  schack bounding)I noticed that two power supplies even connected to the same phase of the power grid. One of them was the LAN router power supply and the other  SDR RX caused the flow of disturbing currents on the LAN cable. Which cause  deterioration of data transmission and the communication between both devices

I don't want to write much about the complex "grounding and bouding" but I want to propose a simple test to power the router and Hermes Lite from the same power supply. And see if it has an impact on your phenomenon.

From the same power supply I mean low DC voltage. No Power outlet.

73, Joe
LB1HI

[Don [N5SKT]]

I noted that when I unplugged the ethernet from the radio it stopped but plugging the ethernet back in, it started again.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/hermes-lite/c2226045-9348-4191-8311-dc3b15e7a0fcn%40googlegroups.com.

[Steve Haynal]

Hi Christoph,

There are some details in various group posts, for example:

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/hermes-lite/4Iagw7nhLpY/xBZjEZ5TBQAJ

The HL2 has a different TX buffer then either openhpsdr P1 or P2. The buffer empties after TX. It fills until TX latency work of samples are stored and then begins TX. The default is 10ms. It is adjustable so that if you have a good network you can lower this latency, but increase the latency for a bad network. This is one of the control to address potential relay clatter. I've made it adjustable in my hermeslite.py library, but not sure if any software has adopted it. You can find the details on the protocol wiki page. Search for "TX latency" and "PTT hang" on the wiki page and in this group.

https://github.com/softerhardware/Hermes-Lite2/wiki/Protocol

73,

Steve

kf7o

> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to hermes-lite+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.

[Steve Haynal]

Hi Don, Joe and Group,

Don, did upgrading the gateware help? Maybe there is a ground loop. Do you still experience the same with no antenna and no CW key or anything else attached? Does it behave the same with a different power supply?

Ping flood is a useful diagnostic. Here is what I see when flood pinging a HL2 100000 times from another system while it is operating in 2 RX mode:

shaynal@sonata:~$ sudo ping -f 192.168.33.128 -c 100000

PING 192.168.33.128 (192.168.33.128) 56(84) bytes of data.

..... 

--- 192.168.33.128 ping statistics ---

100000 packets transmitted, 99995 received, 0.005% packet loss, time 13188ms

rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.063/0.117/10.303/0.032 ms, pipe 2, ipg/ewma 0.131/0.120 ms

What do you see when you try this?

We have discussed relay chatter during TX many times. The options are to change the TX buffer latency and PTT hang times to find an acceptable setting for a problematic network setup. You can now do that independently of SDR software using the hermeslite.py library. I suspect there is something unusual for some people going on like the router has QoS enabled with low priority for HL2 packets, some other program they like to run is hogging resources or has high network priority, etc. Matthew once posted a parameter to give a socket higher priority. All I can say is that I run pretty mediocre machines on a typical 1Gb home network with many other programs running and no special configuration and use primarily Quisk and WSJT-X, and I seldom have any extra relay clicks during TX or RX, even with multiple 384 receivers.

73,

Steve

kf7o

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to hermes-lite+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.

[Reid Campbell]

Hi Steve, Christoph,

The latest beta for PowerSDR has controls added for these two parameters. You will find them in Setup/General/HPSDR.

When running 384000, I would get break up of Tx audio with the default settings. That seems to be cured for my network by setting Tx Buffer Latency and PTT Hang both to 10ms.

Cheers

Reid
Gi8TME/Mi0BOT

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/hermes-lite/7f0ad5ba-63aa-488f-ac5e-68a69762517bo%40googlegroups.com.

[Don [N5SKT]]

100000 packets transmitted, 66813 received, +6 corrupted, +31739 errors, 33.187% packet loss, time 8097ms

rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.075/0.259/1039.530/12.883 ms, pipe 14, ipg/ewma 79.402/0.096 ms

That is odd. I need to look into my network and see why I am dropping packets.

And no, the new firmware did not prevent this. 

> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/hermes-lite/b93b05ff-7dbd-4a1e-9413-978bac44cea5n%40googlegroups.com.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Hermes-Lite" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to hermes-lite...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/hermes-lite/7f0ad5ba-63aa-488f-ac5e-68a69762517bo%40googlegroups.com.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Hermes-Lite" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to hermes-lite...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/hermes-lite/99ded22b-8367-7e34-dcd6-cb88603ea5f8%40gmail.com.

[ron.ni...@gmail.com]

Did you try testing your PC's connection to the net using one of the network speed testing apps?

See if your PC's connection checks out (high bandwidth, no pauses, no lost packets, etc.).

You can also try running a ethernet cable directly between your PC and the HL2, and use the HL2's self assigned IP address (usually the self assigned IP = 169.254.19.221) to connect to it.  That will bypass any possible issues with your router, switch, panel connectors, or site cabling.

Or if you have (or can borrow) and 2nd PC (or Raspberry Pi, Mac or iPad, etc.), you can try connecting that to your HL2 with that, both over your current network or with a direct ethernet cable between the two, and see if there's any change in behavior.

73,

Ron

n6ywu

[Alan Hopper]

Hi Don,

can you confirm that the clicking is on receive. If so I think the network performance is a red herring and Steve's suggestions about ground loops or power supply are worth investigating. Latency or dropped packets when the radio is in receive will not cause relay clicks,  the exception being the watchdog if no packets reach the radio for >1s but then the clicks would not repeat until the software restarts the radio.  It might be worth trying another network cable.

73 Alan M0NNB

[James Ahlstrom]

Hello Group,

The Config/radio/Hardware screen in Quisk has a setting "Tx buffer msec" that sets the HermesLite Tx buffer size. You can adjust this to see if it makes any difference. This is the setting that Steve is referring to. But this setting could only produce a change on transmit. If there is clicking on receive it must be something else.

Jim

N2ADR

[Don [N5SKT]]

There is no ground lug on the Hermes. I have tried both my standard power supply that is connected to my Flexradio 6600 and also, the power supply for the Maestro (which is perfect for the Hermes). In both cases, I never had an issue until just recently. Not sure how much it matters but the clicking instantly stops when I unplug the ethernet and resumes immediately when I plug it back in. Also, it eventually stops. 

Best Regards,

Don 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/hermes-lite/6d6b75b8-686e-47c7-b071-d22da744d6b6n%40googlegroups.com.

[Alan Hopper]

Hi Don,

all very odd. Can you tell which relay is clicking or could it be something else like the ethernet connector or one of the supply inductors buzzing?

73 Alan M0NNB

[Don [N5SKT]]

Not sure how I would know short of opening it up which I can't do for a few days.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/hermes-lite/af2b9262-0ba1-491c-83d6-109b714b8b86n%40googlegroups.com.

[ron.ni...@gmail.com]

Which ethernet cable are you unplugging from what end?  (e.g. HL2, switch, router, or PC?)

Have you tried running an ethernet cable directly from the HL2 to your PC? (no switch or router in between)

73, Ron, n6ywu

[Matthew]

Don,

Something sounds very odd here. Do you have a laptop? If so, can you connect a 12 V battery to the HL2 and run the battery from the laptop and connect Ethernet cable direct to the HL2 (no router/switch/hub)? Switch mode DC power supplies often have a weak AC current, I've measured 200 V AC potential on these before. Some devices become very uncomfortable to touch with this. See here. Very very rarely I have seen this cause problems with hardware talking to each other. I would be very surprised if this is the case here, but seeing as we are into the realms of wierd...

Also, just to confirm, you have nothing (including no antenna) connected to the HL2 except for Ethernet cable?

73 Matthew M5EVT.

[Don [N5SKT]]

Using Thetis, I am not hearing or seeing the clicking. Odd. 

Best Regards,

Don

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Hermes-Lite" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to hermes-lite...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/hermes-lite/567e039f-d6aa-449d-90e9-a33dfc6cde2eo%40googlegroups.com.

[Joe LB1HI]

Joe LB1HI	4:32 PM (1 minute ago)
to Don

Hi,
These programs have more clicking problems if you install them after installing another 3.4.9 or 3.5.0 beta version beforehand. But often a database reset helps to fix this problem

(Setup=>General  bottom left)

73, Joe

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/hermes-lite/CAEE%3DpNrjd873v7EMK-WfWSacC026xEOFJCf_EN2Kr43ovEJZ1Q%40mail.gmail.com.