Digirig Lite PTT / Packet Receive Q’s

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Apologies if this issue has been resolved in another post; I’ve perused the site for a bit and haven’t seen this exact issue discussed.

I have the Digirig Lite set up with Android (Galaxy A9+) with APRSDroid, connected to my Yaesu VX-6r. I referenced The Tech Prepper’s YouTube video to ensure the setup and the preferences are correct (Music vol, AFSK, etc). When I select “Send Position” or send a message to WXBOT I see red light trigger the TX on both the Radio and the Radio.

So I know the connection must be correct, but on the APRSDroid app, I’m not receiving any packets on the Hub, and only occasionally are MY packets “turning green” like they’ve successfully been sent out. I pull up APRS.fi on my phone and can confirm there are plenty of active APRS users in the area, so I’m curious why I’m not receiving anything?

This may be a dumb additional question, but should the Galaxy tablet WiFi be ON or OFF when I’m using this setup? I understand that with WiFi I’ll receive from APRS-IS, but with WiFi off wouldn’t that mean that any incoming packets would be received directly by the radio?

New to this, and figuring it out as I go along with all the available resources. Hoping I’m just missing a setting here.

Any help is appreciated, or if this was answered elsewhere I’m happy to be directed there and I’ll research further. Thank you!

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That sounds frustrating, but you are getting close. Can you hear packet traffic on your radio (144.390 MHz in North America) when nothing is plugged in? Is the squelch turned off or set to 0? Is the radio in simplex mode?

There is a guide, Troubleshooting Digital Modes – digirig

which can help you through this in a step-by-step process.

73 Constrainted

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That is up to you. The question I ask is which choice removes uncertainty and simplifies the troubleshooting?

73 Constrainted

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Thank you for that troubleshooting link, I’ll check that out tonight. It certainly feels like I’m getting close, just needing to dial it in/fine tune some things a bit further. I hadn’t thought of tuning the radio in on 144.39 and just listening for packet traffic, that’s a great idea.

Turning Wifi OFF seems like it would isolate the issue to the radio-digirig-tablet connection, which would make it easier to troubleshoot.

Will keep plugging away tonight and see if I can get any success. Thanks for the advice!

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Thanks for sharing this question. I have the same setup, except a different Android. I’m looking forward to hear how you resolve the issue.

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Update:

I believe everything is in working order here. I took @Constrainted advice and started by testing the VX-6 to see if it was hearing any packet traffic. I tuned in to 144.39 and turned the squelch off, and was able to confirm it was hearing packet data. Some came through fairly clear, while other “burps” were barely audible through the background static.

I will note that the data traffic was relatively infrequent, which comes into play later

After confirming the Yaesu was hearing packet data, I reconnected it to the Galaxy A9+. To eliminate all other variables, I turned off Bluetooth and Wifi and then opened up APRSDroid and hit ‘Start Tracking.’ I hit ‘Send Position’ and confirmed that the DigiRig Lite and the radio both triggered the PTT with the red light. I was also able to see myself pop up on ALRS.fi on my iPhone.

I sent a Message to WXBOT and was able to confirm the PTT again, but the message was not turning Green to confirm it had been received. The good news here is that at certain intervals the PTT was triggering, and the “message attempts” was updating (1/7, 2/7, 3/7, etc…).

I switched over to APRSDroid Hub and lo and behold, there was a small handful of APRS info that had appeared. Over the course of perhaps 25 minutes, I think I received 5. Not much, but this was confirmation that the system is working. And I’ll refer back to my previous comment about hearing the packet data relatively infrequently, so I suppose my issue is that I’m just not picking up much from the HT when I’m in my living room/there’s not much RF APRS traffic around here at the times I’ve been tuned in.

It did raise one additional question though regarding the WXBOT. When I opened up APRS.fi on my iPhone, I received the WXBOT forecast on that app on my iPhone, NOT on APRSDroid. Switching over to the Galaxy, I confirmed the message eventually turned green. Just unsure why it was received on the APRS.fi app on the iPhone and not on the tablet running the actual APRS/that sent the initial Tx to WXBOT.

Weird.

Anyway, long story longer I may have had everything set up correctly at the outset and just wasn’t hearing any traffic bc there either wasn’t any, or my Rx just wasn’t strong where I was at.

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Thanks for explaining your process. I think congratulations are in order!

73 Constrainted

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Thanks for the update!
I got my initial setup connected, and tried to transmit one message. It’s still sitting in my outbox on WoAD. I’ll try some of your suggestions…

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@tmoe When using WoAD double check that the remote station you are trying to connect uses packet and not VaraFM. At this time there is no robust VaraFM implementation outside of Windows platform.

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