I’m using the digirig Dr-891 with my Yaesu VX6r+roll up j-pole, and the WoAD app on an my old Samsung galaxy. I had WoAD up and running perfectly last night, I was able to send a receive several emails to family using a local packet winlink gate. It took a while but using the settings from The Tech Preppers video I was able to get it to work. I tried again at work on my lunch break with the same exact setup but using the stock antenna on the Vx6, that didn’t work. I could see the PTT getting activated and could see signals coming in but nothing was showing on the logs besides session open and session closed. I tried again on the way home using my mobile radio, an Anytone 778uv and the digirig cables for that radio. Same thing was happening, at this point I started messing with some of the settings in WoAD and adjusting the volume on the radio. Fast forward to tonight, I’m frustrated wondering why it’s not working, so I delete the WoAD app, reinstall it and set it up per the TPP video instructions and it’s STILL not working. Same thing is happening that has been happening all day, I can see the PPT is getting triggered (I’ve actually noticed the PTT doesn’t seem to go at the same time every time and sometimes doesn’t go off at all) and the radio is receiving some signals back the status stays unconnected and the log shows nothing but session opened and session closed. I’ve even tried moving the J-pole to the attic and still no progress, besides that everything should be exactly the same as when it was working. Last night, before I finally got it to work, I was at least seeing more in the log and I was getting initial connection before it shut down. Now I’m not even getting that far. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
Update: I had APRSdroid working really well last night as well so I decided to try that because there is more traffic on the APRS channel, and you can normally see in the log when each piece of traffic is received.
I’m seeing the radio is receiving quite a bit but none of it is making it into APRSdroid, which leads me to believe there is a problem with the phone not hearing the radio.
Last night when I had it all working, APRS was lighting up constantly, now I can see that the radio is receiving strong signals but nothing is showing up on APRSdroid
Another update -
I can see the packets coming out of the radio with APRSdroid successfully as I’m showing up on APRS.fi, so I’m starting to think it’s a decoding issue?
I’m brand new to digital modes though so I’m really just taking shots in the dark. I’ve started reading everything I can find on the forum about woad but If anyone has any ideas that would be greatly appreciated.
I’m not familiar with your radio, but if the DR is using the speaker and mic for its connections, you may have the radio’s volume up too high.
On my radios of the speaker/mic configuration, I only need the volume to be slightly above the lowest position. The bar graph on the top of the WoAD screen shouldn’t turn red on the ends.
This may not be your connection set-up, so may be worthless info for you. Hopefully it helps you, or others…
Steve VE7IIF
Thank you for your reply, definitely not worthless. This has been driving me nuts for the past 24hr so any help is appreciated.
I’ve tried the full range of radio volume levels. I only get the green bar to show up at all with the volume at about 11 o clock, lower than that the green bar is either tiny or not there at all. The weird part is that if I go higher than that, the PTT stops working… no idea why that’s happening but I suspect it’s part of the problem.
I’ve done some more listening to the audio coming out of the digirig compared to what comes out of the speaker on the radio. What I’ve noticed is when I’m just listening to the speaker on my radio I can hear static and then when a packet comes in, the static cuts out and the incoming packets come though really clearly no matter how high or low I have the volume. However when I listen through the digirig, there is no audio at all until the volume gets to a little under halfway up, only then can I hear any static. On the audio meter on my phone, I see the db go up from zero to about 40 at that point. Then if I go just one click up on the volume knob, it gets slightly louder, but if I go up any more there is no change. I can have it all the way and it will stay at around 40db. Further, when I adjust the volume above that point where the audio comes in, then the PTT stops working.
I’ve done this with both my VX6r and my Anytone 778UV and the issue persists on both radios so I know it’s not the radio. I’ve tried multiple USB cords. In my eyes, the only thing left is the digirig cable or the digirig cable. I have not found any documentation on an issue like this anywhere and I am pulling my hair out. If someone from digirig could offer some help I would really appreciate it.
Well I guess it could also be the phone, problem is I don’t have another phone to test with. I have an old android tablet but it has a micro usb so l would have to use an adapter. and I could use a computer but then I’m dealing with a different software and I haven’t gotten anything else to work on the computer yet
The February 28 Windows 11 update killed my WSJT-X and Gridtracker from receiving audio from my Yaesu FT-891 using the DR891 DigiRig device. I’m think it was a security update and now the setting don’t work due to the new security features. Anyone else experiencing similar issues?
Check your firewall settings. Make sure the firewall is letting your software access the port it needs. I had the same problem with Winlink, Vara and Varanni. Windows tends to close the ports these programs use.
I use Radiomail (Winlink email program for iphone) and have had problems with the packet settings. I decided to use the settings I use in my Windows Winlink installation and it has worked well since. Woad should have a configuration screen where you can check and adjust your settings.
Here are my Winlink settings:
Tx delay: 400
Maximum packet length: 128
Maximum frames: 4
Frack: 2
Persistance: 160
Slot time: 30
Maximum retries: 5
These settings are for 1200 bd packet.
The the thing is, and I don’t think I articulated this very well in my last post, the issue with volume being either all or nothing happens regardless of what device or radio is used. It happens with my Microsoft surface, Samsung galaxy s21, and my iPhone 16 pro. And it happens with both my VX6r and my Anytone 778UV. Thankfully Denis from digirig responded to my email to support right away and offered to take a look at the unit itself. So I am now eagerly awaiting to see what he says! But thanks for your input, and I’ll try out those settings once I get my unit back if I have any more problems.
In case anyone is wondering. Denis took a look at my unit and confirmed the codec had been busted. Not sure how or why but he sent me back a repaired unit that is working fine now.
Thanks for reporting here.
73 Constrainted