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seandepagnier / weatherfax_pi

weather fax plugin for opencpn
GNU General Public License v3.0
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RTL-SDR (feature request, no issue) #138

Open Jamos1988 opened 4 years ago

Jamos1988 commented 4 years ago

Hi Sean,

I've visited the cruisersforum where the weatherfax is discussed, but couldn't find if this question has been asked yet. Sorry that I am posting this within the issues, let me know if I need to post it somewhere else.

I would really like to be able to control the RTL-SDR dongle from the weatherfax plug-in. I don't have a radio and not able to use the soundcard, but I do have an extra SDR dongle. I don't want to use separate software to tune manually to the frequencies, press record, convert with another separate program.

This plug-in and how it works is just way to nice. I realize this request is not that simple, as we would need to let the weatherfax plug-in tune to the frequencies, adjust gains, have knowledge about when to start recording, etc.

I do have some information on how I did this with python scripts, for receiving NOAA and METEOR sattelite images. So I think it is in fact feasible or do-able. It seems exactly the same, only tuned on 137.5mhz and you need a dipole antenna and sometimes a sawfilter LNA can help.

More information about how I did it can be found here: https://www.instructables.com/id/Raspberry-Pi-NOAA-Weather-Satellite-Receiver/

Hope you are as enthousiastic as me. :)

Kind regards,

Jamos

seandepagnier commented 4 years ago

it's already implemented but not very well tested for HF weather fax but you need an upconverter or a way to receive these frequencies.

For other weather faxes like wefax I did not try or implement anything.

Jamos1988 commented 4 years ago

Thats good to hear, is there a way for me to test it? Some instruction? And, by upconverter do you mean a piece of hardware? Regards, Jamos

On Tue, 24 Mar 2020, 18:08 seandepagnier, notifications@github.com wrote:

it's already implemented but not very well tested for HF weather fax but you need an upconverter or a way to receive these frequencies.

For other weather faxes like wefax I did not try or implement anything.

— You are receiving this because you authored the thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/seandepagnier/weatherfax_pi/issues/138#issuecomment-603375651, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AOISR2CYQ5IX3VTPBN6NPULRJDSHZANCNFSM4LS2BBMA .

Jamos1988 commented 4 years ago

In opencpn settings I see:

vizGENNAV=0
[Settings/WeatherFax]
Path=
ExportPath=
[Settings/WeatherFax/Schedules]
LoadAtStart=1
[Settings/WeatherFax/Capture]
type=1
[Settings/WeatherFax/Capture/audio]
deviceindex=0
samplerate=8000
[Settings/WeatherFax/Capture/rtlsdr]
deviceindex=10
errorppm=117

Does this mean I don't have to do anything in the settings and it just finds the rtl-sdr dongle? I also checked the /home/pi/.opencpn/plugins/weatherfax folder but this is empty. I can't seem to figure out how I could configure it. Hope you can help again.

Basically when I try to start the capture it gives me an error: "Failed to configure capture." I saw in another post that you normally can choose the rtl-dongle in the preferences, but this option is not here. I only have the audio option, not rtl-sdr.

seandepagnier commented 4 years ago

the upconverter is a separate hardware like hamitup which goes before the antenna input. Otherwise it's possible to use direct mode to get ssb.

Maybe the rtl is not detected? Do you have rtlsdr working for ais?

I implemented rtlsdr support 3 years go but did not do a lot of testing. The intention is to schedules which faxes you want and the plugin automatically tunes and captures at the right time, and when complete the image automatically overlays on the chart. I did not get much feedback and because the rtlsdr has poor reception for hf weather fax I did not spend much more time.

Jamos1988 commented 4 years ago

Ah, I understand. I have two dongles from NooElec. One is being used by AIS indeed and managed from openplotter. The second is free and I tried to give it an extra parameter -d 1 in the preferences of weatherfax. The weatherfax says it cannot claim the RTL_FM after I enable yet another plug-in from OpenCPN "RTL SDR", but I don't need this plug-in ofcourse as it is managed by openplotter. I just tried the plug-in to test if maybe there would be a relation as to detecting the dongle from both plug-ins.

But I know for sure the device ID = 1. Maybe I need to set the parameter in a different way, but I also tried it in the terminal as follows, so I know it's good:

pi@openplotter:~ $ rtl_test -d 1
Found 2 device(s):
  0:  NooElec, NESDR Nano 3, SN: 1112216165
  1:  NooElec, NESDR Nano 3, SN: 2782081715

Using device 1: Generic RTL2832U OEM
Found Rafael Micro R820T tuner
Supported gain values (29): 0.0 0.9 1.4 2.7 3.7 7.7 8.7 12.5 14.4 15.7 16.6 19.7 20.7 22.9 25.4 28.0 29.7 32.8 33.8 36.4 37.2 38.6 40.2 42.1 43.4 43.9 44.5 48.0 49.6 
[R82XX] PLL not locked!
Sampling at 2048000 S/s.

Info: This tool will continuously read from the device, and report if
samples get lost. If you observe no further output, everything is fine.

Reading samples in async mode...

So my guess is that the parameter works in terminal, but not in the weatherfax settings. I do think the feature is great and I am willing to test it thoroughly helping to get the feature more stable if you wish. I'll also order an upconverter if needed.

Jamos1988 commented 4 years ago

My bad, I've set the parameter in rtl-sdr plugin and not weatherfax preferences. So, I guess I need to have an option in weatherfax to use the second dongle with -d 1, or in openplotter somehow setting sdr-ais to -d 1.

You know where I could do this and in which files for both?

In addition, I've disabled all AIS signals so the dongles are free so rtl_fm doesn't have a claim error. When starting capture in weatherfax it gives the error "failed to configure capture"

I have the feeling this doesn't have anything to do with dongles not being found, but the fact that a raspberry doesn't have a mic-in. So, maybe we need to bypass the code that tries looking for a soundcard?

Jamos1988 commented 4 years ago

Hi Sean, was wondering if you have the time for this.

-Do you know where the "failed to configure capture" comes from? The RTL dongles are not in use, or claimed by any other process. -In which file can I configure the -d 1 parameter, so my second dongle is being used?