[amsat-bb] Help Needed: GNU Radio + FoxTelem

Thu Oct 8 21:01:00 UTC 2015

Hi Chris thanks for the feedback.

1) real machine.  I'm aware of the temp fix, and have a cable at home 
for the 'HW' loopback method (though thats cheating when your trying to 
build an SDR ground station :-))

2)  Working through using JACK and ALSA virtual devices, but like I said 
I'm new to it.

3)  I'm using a .wav file sink in gnuradio.  But instead of actually 
recording the audio and generate a true wav file (that could be imported 
by foxtelem later) the 'file' it is writing to is a FIFO buffer (aka 
pipe, created using the 'mkfifo' command).  FoxTelem is then reading a 
wave file which is that same buffer.  The goal being as bits get written 
into the FIFO from gnuradio, they get read out of the buffer by FoxTelem.

What it looks like is exactly what you said.  GNU radio is writing to 
the 'file' or FIFO at a fixed 48k sample rate.  FoxTelem is probably 
trying to 'load the entire file' and is not throttling the rate those 
bits come in to match the 48k rate from gnuradio, thus resulting in 
'EOF-type' errors and ultimately crashing.

I think the quickest path to gettng up and running is the virtual audio 
cable piping method (for a pure SW solution).  Downside of this is the 
loss of the ability to deliver the SNR and doppler metrics to the AMSAT 
network.

So at some point I'll try to revisit the IQ pipe ideas (though plan A of 
faking it with an 'IQ wav file' will result in similar crashes).

I'm not sure how FoxTelem handles interfacing with the funcube dongle or 
'other SDRs.'  I think it would auto-populate the option to select the 
funcube source if I actually had one plugged into my laptop and make use 
of the drivers for accessing the IQ stream, rather than 'reading a whole 
file'.  What would be cool is if FoxTelem had some kind of 'generic IQ 
client mode' that could be selected.  The idea would be when you select 
that option you enter in an IP and port #.  Then foxtelem could be 
interfaced with things like the 'rtl_tcp' application for RTL-SDRs 
running on RPis or beaglebones or to the TCP sinks in GNU Radio.

easy for me though to offer up ideas like that when I'm not the one that 
has to code it up though :-).

Thanks again for the feedback.

-Zach, KJ4QLP

On 10/08/2015 03:01 PM, Chris Thompson wrote:
> Zach,
>
> Are you running Linux on a virtual machine or a real machine?  If its 
> a real machine with a sound card, you can probably use a physical 
> cable temporarily while we work out how to pipe the audio.  Most 
> modern sound cards allow you to feed the audio out of the speaker and 
> back into the mic.
>
> I think Jack Audio will be the best approach, but the virtual audio 
> products can be complex. I am not familiar with Jack but we have used 
> Virtual Audio Cable and other software on Windows.
>
> If you are creating a "virtual wav file", I presume that file gets 
> written to disk and then you are opening it in FoxTelem?  Is that 
> right?  The issue with this is that FoxTelem will read it faster than 
> it gets filled.  It won't wait for more audio - like it does with a 
> soundcard - and will think it has reached the end of the file, or 
> crashes as you indicated.
>
> Chris
>
> On Thu, Oct 8, 2015 at 1:20 PM, Zach Leffke <zleffke at vt.edu 
> <mailto:zleffke at vt.edu>> wrote:
>
>     Hello Everyone,
>         I am frantically rushing to get GNU Radio to 'play nice' with
>     foxtelem.  I'm running all linux here.  I'm hoping someone can
>     maybe throw me a few pointers on getting the fox telem software to
>     work with external SDR applications.  I'm attempting to pipe
>     signals from GNU Radio in three ways, all met with failure:
>
>     First is by running an FM receiver flowgraph and then trying to
>     pipe the audio out via a Linux FIFO using the 'Wav File Sink'
>     block in GR.  I point the SDR flowgraph to my pipe, and then I
>     point the FoxTelem software to the same pipe and fire the programs
>     up.  I've successfully used this method in the past to feed a
>     sound streaming application that "thinks" is reading from a
>     standard wav file, but is actually the GR flowgraph audio output. 
>     GNU Radio seems to run for a second or two (probably the amount of
>     time it takes to fill the buffer) then the Fox Telem Software
>     crashes with exceptions:
>
>     'javax.sound.sampled.UnsupportedAudioFileException:  could not get
>     the audio input stream from input file.'
>
>     In gnu radio I'm using the wav file sink with a single port and
>     sample rate of 48k and 16bits.  This "appears" to match what
>     FoxTelem is expecting, but I'm getting the crashes.
>
>     An alternative method I'm attempting is to use a standard audio
>     sink in gnuradio (I can hear the audio on my laptop speakers) and
>     then try to pipe that into the fox sw with a virtual audio cable. 
>     I'm attempting to use JACK and qjackctl, but I have little
>     experience with this and so far have failed to get it to do
>     anything other than listen to the soundcard mic and line in
>     ports.  If someone knows of a simple to use Virtual Audio Cable
>     for Linux so that I can pipe the audio via the sound card that
>     would be great and I can give that a go.
>
>     The third method I'm trying to get working is by placing the fox
>     sw in IQ mode and again attempting to use a 'wave file source' in
>     foxtelem pointed at a FIFO to pipe the IQ data from GNU radio into
>     foxtelem.  again I get the exception mentioned above.  This would
>     be the preferred method in my case over the audio piping.  If
>     someone has any experience with this that would be great.  For
>     those familiar with GNU Radio I'm taking the complex stream
>     (250ksps), reesampling to 192ksps, converting to float, then
>     taking the real and complex streams and feeding them into a 'Wav
>     file sink' with TWO ports pointed at the fifo, again with 16 bit
>     depth and set to 192ksps.  Foxtelem is looking for a wav file at
>     192ksps.  I'm hoping the two port file sink allows I data on the
>     right channel (in0) and Q data on the left channel (in1).
>
>
>     Any and all pointers would be welcome.
>
>     Thanks,
>     Zach, KJ4QLP
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>
>
> -- 
> Chris E. Thompson
> chrisethompson at gmail.com <mailto:chrisethompson at gmail.com>
> g0kla at arrl.net <mailto:g0kla at arrl.net>