10 receivers: WSPR not decoding

[Jürgen Weißmann (7ii)]

SparkSDR, Firmware Version 74, Patch 2, Board ID 5, Receivers 10:

While FT8 is decoded, the coding does not work with WSPR, although the signals are displayed graphically.

What have I done wrong?

73 de df7ii

[Alan Hopper]

Hi,

this could be a number of things, is your pc clock accurate i.e. sync'd with ntp? A screen shot might give some clues.

73 Alan M0NNB

[Jürgen Weißmann (7ii)]

NTP seems to work.

[Alan Hopper]

Hi,

nothing obviously wrong, I notice you have a quite high number of ep6 errors (dropped network packets) that might just cause a problem. Can you try selecting level 0 in the decode level drop down, this uses an internal wspr decoder so would tell us if there is a problem communicating with the decoder from WSJTX.  Also have a look in the error logs, the location is described in the help.

73 Alan M0NNB

[Jürgen Weißmann (7ii)]

[Alan Hopper]

Hi,

all very odd.  What happens if you restart and just run a single wspr decoder and nothing else?  You could also look to see if directories and files are being saved under the wsprd directory(just above the error logs directory).

73 Alan M0NNB

[Jürgen Weißmann (7ii)]

1 Receiver works.

[Alan Hopper]

Hi,

It might be worth checking the cpu usage but if that was a problem I would expect the decode% in stats to drop.  It may well be the number of dropped packets. If you are using a high sample rate try dropping to 96 or 48k or try and improve the network connection.

What operating system are you using? There was an error in your log I have not seen before.

73 Alan M0NNB

[Jürgen Weißmann (7ii)]

Windows 10 Pro, Version 22H2 (Build 19045, 4291)

Yes, directories and files are being saved under the wsprd directory (just above the error logs directory)

[Jürgen Weißmann (7ii)]

CPU and Network

[Jürgen Weißmann (7ii)]

No reception at all with  sample rate 96 or 48k. I am back to 192k.

[Alan Hopper]

Hi,

are you using a 100Mbit network, if so I suspect this is where the problem is.

Spark does not always do a proper retune after lowering the sample rate (in some versions) so it might be worth starting from scratch at the lower sample rate or at least restating and clicking last session after changing it. For most bands 96 or 48 should work.

73 Alan M0NNB

[Clifford Heath]

On Fri, 19 Apr 2024, 16:22 'Alan Hopper' via Hermes-Lite, <herme...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Hi,

nothing obviously wrong, I notice you have a quite high number of ep6 errors (dropped network packets) that might just cause a problem.

Lost I/Q packets would cause phase jumps which might not affect other modes much but with WSPR being so narrow-band it could destroy the signal entirely.

Could that be the problem?

Clifford Heath 

[Jürgen Weißmann (7ii)]

Dear Alan,

tnx for help! 

By the way, I find SparkSDR very intuitive to use! I like it very much.

73 de df7ii (juergen)

[Roger David Powers]

No reception at all with  sample rate 96 or 48k. I am back to 192k.

The 10 RX firmware only works at 192k, something I didn't know till I posted here.

Please see the 20201127_72p7 testing gateware release. This is an experimental 10 receiver CIC-only release. It runs at only 192kHz. The bandwidth is halved from past cicrx releases to reduce CPU and network loads. It is intended to be used for 10 band skimming with SparkSDR. Only install it if you wish to skim many bands with SparkSDR. There is no transmit in this gateware. the amount of usable bandwidth is 70 to 80 kHz.

Ref: https://groups.google.com/g/hermes-lite/c/58XB59ML6xc/m/uyKKnNzPBQAJ

[Alan Hopper]

Hi,

thanks for the kind words.  Sorry I missed you were using the rx only firmware, this really does need gigabit ethernet to make the most of it.  If you can't improve the network you can still skim many modes simultaneously across 4 bands with the default software at a lower bandwidth.

73 Alan M0NNB 

[Jürgen Weißmann (7ii)]

The following information may be of interest: Although the decoding of WSPR fails with more than 4  receivers due to the low speed of my network, it is unproblematic with CW. (I use SparkSDR, SkimSrv and CW Reporter.)

73 de df7ii, juergen