This video is a follow-up to the APRS+RT95 Series. I've gotten APRS working on this radio in prior videos and now I'm trying to perfect the interface. Take a look here for more info! VOX Version: th-cam.com/video/tRYpdnbDx_A/w-d-xo.htmlsi=mWgdb0u1VzOTk7W- PTT Version: th-cam.com/video/26Bsd2BWSm4/w-d-xo.htmlsi=X8tD_lbXK_155W_t
I ended up getting the Digirig kit for the radio. I set it up with UZ7HO soundmodem and OZ9AAR Greencube terminal to work APRS on the ISS. Worked great!
Take the connector out of the equation. Get a plastic ethernet barrel connector, break it open then measure the inline amperage on each wire as you press the buttons on the microphone.
@@pnowikow I've gotten it working, just trying to make the interface more prettier: VOX Version: th-cam.com/video/tRYpdnbDx_A/w-d-xo.htmlsi=mWgdb0u1VzOTk7W- PTT Version: th-cam.com/video/26Bsd2BWSm4/w-d-xo.htmlsi=X8tD_lbXK_155W_t
I'll be keeping up with this series. I had the same plan but life slowed the project down. I have the radio and just never got to figuring the pinout. This video will motivate me back to the project.
Hey Travis, there are two more in this series: VOX Version: th-cam.com/video/tRYpdnbDx_A/w-d-xo.htmlsi=fDez9sViX91P1S-8 and PTT Version: th-cam.com/video/26Bsd2BWSm4/w-d-xo.htmlsi=img9QXiA_Rx7YG1A After that my experiment went sideways and I decided to get more serious now with a scope and SCIENCE! I'm still befuddled, but I'd welcome any info you have.
If you go online and look for the pre-manufactured APRS cable for this radio - in the product details, it shows the pinout the product uses. I used pinout on that product and everything works perfectly - the one in the manual that comes with the radio seems to be incorrect.
I'm glad to see you reviving this project! You should consider buying a usb logic analyzer. It might help you decode the digital signals passing along the speaker mic.
You know what I really like about this radio is it's a cheap way to have a standalone local EMCOMM radio to scan the various types of radios that people have lying around, and reply to any emergency radio traffic from them (FRS/GMRS, MURS, Marine, and the old color dot/star freqs. I have mine on a comet FC5NMO, and it's perfectly matched for those freqs. I hope it catches on because these radios are only 120 bucks.
I suspect I may have told you, but I used to be a Senior RF Designer at Celwave, and my tech actually updated the design of that load. Those 150W (200W??) Celwave loads are rated for 150W at least with at least 25 dB return loss to 2 GHz. I have two of them in my shack - both purchased from Hamfests.
Regarding those DuPont cables - the plastic shrouds around the male or female connectors are singles but you can buy multi-pin shrouds to enable plugging in to multiple connectors at once. You just have to push something thin and pointy into the shroud to unclip it from the metal pin or socket and then push the pin or socket into the multi-connector shroud. That way you could plug in all four wires to the header or terminal block at once.
Hey Littrell, I mentioned that in the description. Denis takes the easy way out and uses the speaker connection on the back instead of the speaker mic line. Denis is a nice guy and I like the Digrig lineup, have a ton of his gear.
I think you made the same mistake I did on a similar project. The pin markings are for the head unit, not the hand mic plug. Pin 1 on the left side of the radio means your Pin 1 on the cable is on the right side of the connector. I can't speak for how the pins are labeled on you board, whether they are for the cable or the connector. You may have just ran your test backwards. I'd suggest running it the other way and seeing if you get different results. Easiest way to confirm correct pin layout is go from +5V to GND. If you've got a different value than +5V, you're either on the wrong pins or there's something wrong with the board. Also, you should be going across Pin 3 (Mic) and Pin 4 (Mic Gnd), not Pin 1, when testing the mic.
Excellent Tip Brandon! I thought about that at the coupler, but not at the radio. Makes perfect sense and I should have known better too! I'll take a look.
Best thing to do is use the tyt9000d and do the db9 mod to it so it all comes out the back of the radio no need to plug anything into the mic or speaker jacks on the radio. Only thing is, the 9000d is monoband 2m only
Hey Steve, I think there might be a direction to the treedix coupler. So if the breakout is numbered it should be numbered with one side. The otherside will be reversed. That is the only way you could get a negative value is by putting the red probe to ground. And not sure what value this gives you as I read the rest of the comments. Look forward to more videos on this radio. Thanks.
Steve, you should probe all those pins using the battery connector black wire as common. You could maybe even locate the correct ground pin on the RJ45 connector with a continuity test with the battery connector black wire. I feel the pin you were using for return was not actually return. 😊
I found the audio out and the UP signal (if I remember correctly it has been a while) were multiplexed. Needed a filter to decouple the audio from the gpio. Audio level was low and I needed an amp to boost. Got tired of trying to reverse engineer so I got the DigiRig mobile cable for the radio. Well the AnyTone version of it. It uses the speaker jack on the back and the RJ45. Ugly yes, but it works.
MIC GND and GND are probably two different grounds. MIC GND will be analog and, as there is a serial data line, GND is probably a digital ground. It is pointless trying to use a volt meter or oscilloscope on a digit signal. You need a digital signal analyser. The Up, Down, etc pins may use the MIC GND as ground return and not the GND digital ground.
I have the same radio and I would like to connect Kantronics modem to it. I have not read the comments but is it possible that you mistook PIN 1 for PIN8? You never tested PIN1 against the actual body of the radio. Or I have missed this part. The "differential voltage" makes me think that you are measuring against the DATA PIN8. Please let me know. I have found a diagram for the Digirig cable and I will make my own with appropriate modifications. We will see what happens.
I would start with finding the obvious stuff and work from there. Ground should be easy to find (test continuity from the ground side of the PL-259 jack and find the one pin that's got no resistance. That's ground. That's one pin down. Once you have ground, +5V should be easy to find - it'll be the only one with +5V all the time (regardless of PTT or other button presses.) O-scope should give you mic and speaker audio. That's five of the eight. Should make figuring out the last three fairly straightforward.
Great tips! I don't know if you saw the previous videos, but the proof of concept has been done, now I'm just trying to perfect the interface a bit more and make a more "consumer safe" cable.
If that diagram applies at all, the guy who drew it (almost certainly) numbers RJ-45 pins differently that your breakout board does, and I am not surprised. Thus the pin that you're using as a ground reference probably isn't, making all your meter readings useless. With power off, use an ohm meter between the shell of the SO-239 (a for sure ground) and each pin in turn to locate the ground pins (mic and logic) on the cable. Be sure that the probe that sources current (is positive) is the one that you are probing pins with, lest diodes in the circuit confuse you. (It's probably the red probe, but you can verify that with a separate volt meter.) Make several second measurements, to allow, for example, an electrolytic capacitor, say on the 5v line time to charge and stop looking like a short. Now, still using the SO-239 shell as ground, switch the meter to voltage and find all the pins that look like 5V. Now add a 1k to 10k resistor across the meter and find the one that still looks like 5V, which is (probably) the +5V pin. Now identify PTT, Up, and Down. Sorting out Mic and Keypad you should probe with a scope, since a meter, especially a digital meter, just isn't going to react. Sorting out mic ground from (logic) ground is tougher. Maybe with other things settled a pin number ordering will make sense. BUT if you are expecting audio out on that connector, i.e.; if that is a speaker mic that actually speaks, then THAT PIN-OUT DIAGRAM IS CLEARLY WRONG since there is no pin for audio out. I would have disassembled the mic to ring out the pins. Too bad I'm not closer. Playing with it together would have been a great birthday present for me.
Radios Radios Radios, let’s talk about who’s going to fire up the grill ,, ITS STEAK NIGHT and some jumbo shrimp on the grill for Mr. T.O. 👋🍔🍤🥩 ( watch BIG BOY in Texas looks like he can eat up some shrimp ) .🍤🤠😂,,,,
Did they upgrade the firmware? You already got the mic gain setting before shipping? Don't loose the chance to make a video if you don't have the mic gain setting. Another great chance to brick and send it back to the far end of the world again. Jokes aside, wondering if mic gain could be useful for this project.
My problem with my RT95 is that I sound "like I'm behind a door" say my fellow hams I heard that there's a new software that suddenly introduces a MIKE GAIN that you can adjust from 1 to 3, and that fixes everything. So, i was hoping you were dealing with this commonly seen problem.
Same issue, tried at first enlarging and aligning better the mic hole with no avail. The firmware did fix the reports. Two tips: I tried using a virtual machine at first to avoid running the .exe directly on my PC but it used to fail around 50% (with no damage to the rig). It is probably a very time sensitive transfer. Running directly on a PC solved this. Also please note the PUSH button isn't the PTT, it is pushing the rotary encoder wheel, like you do to enter menu and confirm. Reports are now fine at level 2 but if you keep the mic too close you will get some echo (don't know if this is related to the bigger hole mic). Hope it is useful, but YMMV. Finger crossed 🤞
@peterhume3474 I'm getting word that the firmware in the radio already supports mic gain, you'll just need to turn it on in the programming software. Give it a shot!
This video is a follow-up to the APRS+RT95 Series. I've gotten APRS working on this radio in prior videos and now I'm trying to perfect the interface. Take a look here for more info!
VOX Version: th-cam.com/video/tRYpdnbDx_A/w-d-xo.htmlsi=mWgdb0u1VzOTk7W-
PTT Version: th-cam.com/video/26Bsd2BWSm4/w-d-xo.htmlsi=X8tD_lbXK_155W_t
I ended up getting the Digirig kit for the radio. I set it up with UZ7HO soundmodem and OZ9AAR Greencube terminal to work APRS on the ISS. Worked great!
Hey Eric! Sats are cool!
@@temporarilyoffline working the ISS digipeater is pretty easy too. My RT95 has no issues getting digipeated on it even with a basic vertical antenna.
Take the connector out of the equation. Get a plastic ethernet barrel connector, break it open then measure the inline amperage on each wire as you press the buttons on the microphone.
I think I'll just try that next!
@@temporarilyoffline if you get this working let me know cuz well it's cool
@@pnowikow I've gotten it working, just trying to make the interface more prettier:
VOX Version: th-cam.com/video/tRYpdnbDx_A/w-d-xo.htmlsi=mWgdb0u1VzOTk7W-
PTT Version: th-cam.com/video/26Bsd2BWSm4/w-d-xo.htmlsi=X8tD_lbXK_155W_t
Been looking forward to this follow-up, TO. You never disappoint.
Thanks Ray, Sometimes it just takes me a while to get there. So much to do in this hobby!
I'll be keeping up with this series. I had the same plan but life slowed the project down. I have the radio and just never got to figuring the pinout. This video will motivate me back to the project.
Hey Travis, there are two more in this series: VOX Version: th-cam.com/video/tRYpdnbDx_A/w-d-xo.htmlsi=fDez9sViX91P1S-8 and PTT Version: th-cam.com/video/26Bsd2BWSm4/w-d-xo.htmlsi=img9QXiA_Rx7YG1A After that my experiment went sideways and I decided to get more serious now with a scope and SCIENCE! I'm still befuddled, but I'd welcome any info you have.
If you go online and look for the pre-manufactured APRS cable for this radio - in the product details, it shows the pinout the product uses. I used pinout on that product and everything works perfectly - the one in the manual that comes with the radio seems to be incorrect.
Good eye!
I'm glad to see you reviving this project! You should consider buying a usb logic analyzer. It might help you decode the digital signals passing along the speaker mic.
I'll have to take a look! Would be intersting if that was an RJ-45 shaped USB plug.
You know what I really like about this radio is it's a cheap way to have a standalone local EMCOMM radio to scan the various types of radios that people have lying around, and reply to any emergency radio traffic from them (FRS/GMRS, MURS, Marine, and the old color dot/star freqs. I have mine on a comet FC5NMO, and it's perfectly matched for those freqs. I hope it catches on because these radios are only 120 bucks.
Yeah. The price is awesome!
I suspect I may have told you, but I used to be a Senior RF Designer at Celwave, and my tech actually updated the design of that load. Those 150W (200W??) Celwave loads are rated for 150W at least with at least 25 dB return loss to 2 GHz. I have two of them in my shack - both purchased from Hamfests.
Hey Kevin, Hadn't told me yet. I think those are awesome loads. I haven't found a better setup yet!
Great video, I look forward to the update when you figure this out! It's always fun watching the process of tinkering with things like this.
I'm having fun with it and I like bringing everyone along for the journey!
Use a fine tip sharpie and write the numbers on the top of the metal casings of the RJ-45 Jacks.
Good idea!
Regarding those DuPont cables - the plastic shrouds around the male or female connectors are singles but you can buy multi-pin shrouds to enable plugging in to multiple connectors at once. You just have to push something thin and pointy into the shroud to unclip it from the metal pin or socket and then push the pin or socket into the multi-connector shroud. That way you could plug in all four wires to the header or terminal block at once.
Thanks for the info!
Digirig sells a cable to use with that radio I do believe. And it has a pin out too.
Hey Littrell, I mentioned that in the description. Denis takes the easy way out and uses the speaker connection on the back instead of the speaker mic line. Denis is a nice guy and I like the Digrig lineup, have a ton of his gear.
I think you made the same mistake I did on a similar project. The pin markings are for the head unit, not the hand mic plug. Pin 1 on the left side of the radio means your Pin 1 on the cable is on the right side of the connector. I can't speak for how the pins are labeled on you board, whether they are for the cable or the connector.
You may have just ran your test backwards. I'd suggest running it the other way and seeing if you get different results. Easiest way to confirm correct pin layout is go from +5V to GND. If you've got a different value than +5V, you're either on the wrong pins or there's something wrong with the board.
Also, you should be going across Pin 3 (Mic) and Pin 4 (Mic Gnd), not Pin 1, when testing the mic.
Yeah I agree, I think the diagram is wrong. I would find the ground and +5 before doing anything else.
Excellent Tip Brandon! I thought about that at the coupler, but not at the radio. Makes perfect sense and I should have known better too! I'll take a look.
You could also check continuity for ground with the radio powered off there should be continuity from the chassis of the radio to the GND and MIC GND.
On the Digirig site they also show the pin layout. Indeed they use the brown/white as pin 1 instead of pin 8 !!
Also, you kept getting negative, even though you are probing positive…
I knew I wasnt crazy fighting a rt95 to use on a AIOC board. I gave up before I bricked my radio. I almost had it working but the PTT wouldnt stop TX.
Inhave a working proof of concept in a previous video, but I'm trying to make it elegant now... More to come!
With the way the pins are staggered they will only fit on one side of the board. Pinecil irons are great. I have a couple.
I made a single sided board like this and you'd be surprised at the number of people that didn't know that ;-)
Nice company, great work , tnx Man!
Yeah, they were really good about the support.
Best thing to do is use the tyt9000d and do the db9 mod to it so it all comes out the back of the radio no need to plug anything into the mic or speaker jacks on the radio. Only thing is, the 9000d is monoband 2m only
Oh I need to hear more about that!!! Send me an email
That phone ring volume on point
Right!
5:24 "snap"
I bricked an IC-7100. A bad day indeed. It had been an outstanding APRS Base iGate/digipeater platform.
Sorry for your loss brother!
Hey Steve, I think there might be a direction to the treedix coupler. So if the breakout is numbered it should be numbered with one side. The otherside will be reversed. That is the only way you could get a negative value is by putting the red probe to ground. And not sure what value this gives you as I read the rest of the comments. Look forward to more videos on this radio. Thanks.
We'll figure it out for sure!
That monster he drives gets 11 mpg , don’t think we getting cheeseburgers 🍔, much less royalties 🎃😂
I get that reference.
@@temporarilyoffline Maybe the lab might donate a little something to the kitty in between ex wife’s payments 😂🎃
Steve, you should probe all those pins using the battery connector black wire as common. You could maybe even locate the correct ground pin on the RJ45 connector with a continuity test with the battery connector black wire. I feel the pin you were using for return was not actually return. 😊
I agree, I think the pins are backwards - but mostly because I used the "cable end" and not the "socket end"... more work is needed.
I found the audio out and the UP signal (if I remember correctly it has been a while) were multiplexed. Needed a filter to decouple the audio from the gpio. Audio level was low and I needed an amp to boost. Got tired of trying to reverse engineer so I got the DigiRig mobile cable for the radio. Well the AnyTone version of it. It uses the speaker jack on the back and the RJ45. Ugly yes, but it works.
Yeah, I have dreams of a single non-y cable solution... I will probably get the digirig cable just to play with though.
@@temporarilyoffline I ended up selling all but one of my AnyTone Radios and buying 2 of the FTM-6000(s). So much easier to work with.
@W3DMJ yeah. But where's the fun in that? (I like my 6000 too)
Wow intriguing
Mornin' Chris
@@temporarilyoffline well you know I worked last night
MIC GND and GND are probably two different grounds. MIC GND will be analog and, as there is a serial data line, GND is probably a digital ground. It is pointless trying to use a volt meter or oscilloscope on a digit signal. You need a digital signal analyser. The Up, Down, etc pins may use the MIC GND as ground return and not the GND digital ground.
My scope decodes digital because at the end of the day everything is analog.
Sweeeet! Been looking forward to this one..
It's gonna be great! Soon ...
I have the same radio and I would like to connect Kantronics modem to it. I have not read the comments but is it possible that you mistook PIN 1 for PIN8? You never tested PIN1 against the actual body of the radio. Or I have missed this part. The "differential voltage" makes me think that you are measuring against the DATA PIN8. Please let me know. I have found a diagram for the Digirig cable and I will make my own with appropriate modifications. We will see what happens.
I had a play with one of these to connect a headset. it was a while ago. I think the jack numbers were inverted. 1 was 8 and 8 was 1.
I really, honestly, should have that of that! Appreciate the tip. I'll go try it.
I would start with finding the obvious stuff and work from there. Ground should be easy to find (test continuity from the ground side of the PL-259 jack and find the one pin that's got no resistance. That's ground. That's one pin down. Once you have ground, +5V should be easy to find - it'll be the only one with +5V all the time (regardless of PTT or other button presses.) O-scope should give you mic and speaker audio. That's five of the eight. Should make figuring out the last three fairly straightforward.
Great tips! I don't know if you saw the previous videos, but the proof of concept has been done, now I'm just trying to perfect the interface a bit more and make a more "consumer safe" cable.
If that diagram applies at all, the guy who drew it (almost certainly) numbers RJ-45 pins differently that your breakout board does, and I am not surprised.
Thus the pin that you're using as a ground reference probably isn't, making all your meter readings useless. With power off, use an ohm meter between the shell of the SO-239 (a for sure ground) and each pin in turn to locate the ground pins (mic and logic) on the cable. Be sure that the probe that sources current (is positive) is the one that you are probing pins with, lest diodes in the circuit confuse you. (It's probably the red probe, but you can verify that with a separate volt meter.) Make several second measurements, to allow, for example, an electrolytic capacitor, say on the 5v line time to charge and stop looking like a short. Now, still using the SO-239 shell as ground, switch the meter to voltage and find all the pins that look like 5V. Now add a 1k to 10k resistor across the meter and find the one that still looks like 5V, which is (probably) the +5V pin.
Now identify PTT, Up, and Down. Sorting out Mic and Keypad you should probe with a scope, since a meter, especially a digital meter, just isn't going to react.
Sorting out mic ground from (logic) ground is tougher. Maybe with other things settled a pin number ordering will make sense.
BUT if you are expecting audio out on that connector, i.e.; if that is a speaker mic that actually speaks, then THAT PIN-OUT DIAGRAM IS CLEARLY WRONG since there is no pin for audio out.
I would have disassembled the mic to ring out the pins.
Too bad I'm not closer. Playing with it together would have been a great birthday present for me.
Happy Birthday! Those are great ideas. Where are you located?
@@temporarilyoffline New Hampshire. Thanks for the birthday wishes.
@@KeepEvery1Guessing New Hampshire is not close to New Mexico! Dang!
@@temporarilyoffline Even though they're both "New"!
Make sure to send that royalty check for the cameo!
Good idea, I'll make sure Ape gets the credit.
@@FEPLabsRadio Happy Halloween 🎃 Jimmy 🎃👋☕️
Radios Radios Radios, let’s talk about who’s going to fire up the grill ,, ITS STEAK NIGHT and some jumbo shrimp on the grill for Mr. T.O. 👋🍔🍤🥩 ( watch BIG BOY in Texas looks like he can eat up some shrimp ) .🍤🤠😂,,,,
I made some bacon wrapped jalapeno poppers yesterday on the grill. Turned out excellent!
So is the board in the radio reading 5v at the mic pin?
Dunno, need to check!
The mic looks like it has a rs-485 with a bridge and cap for power off of that.
Thanks for the tip, I'll have to see if I can decode that.
FEP 🤷♂️
Who? 😇
Did they upgrade the firmware? You already got the mic gain setting before shipping? Don't loose the chance to make a video if you don't have the mic gain setting. Another great chance to brick and send it back to the far end of the world again. Jokes aside, wondering if mic gain could be useful for this project.
I didn't have problems with the audio levels before... But you're right, this is a great radio for $120, more people need to know about it!
My problem with my RT95 is that I sound "like I'm behind a door" say my fellow hams
I heard that there's a new software that suddenly introduces a MIKE GAIN that you can adjust from 1 to 3, and that fixes everything.
So, i was hoping you were dealing with this commonly seen problem.
Hey Peter... I rarely talk on the radio, don't get many signal reports - I'm more of a tinkerer/builder. I'll take a look for the firmware update!
Same issue, tried at first enlarging and aligning better the mic hole with no avail. The firmware did fix the reports. Two tips: I tried using a virtual machine at first to avoid running the .exe directly on my PC but it used to fail around 50% (with no damage to the rig). It is probably a very time sensitive transfer. Running directly on a PC solved this. Also please note the PUSH button isn't the PTT, it is pushing the rotary encoder wheel, like you do to enter menu and confirm. Reports are now fine at level 2 but if you keep the mic too close you will get some echo (don't know if this is related to the bigger hole mic). Hope it is useful, but YMMV. Finger crossed 🤞
@peterhume3474 I'm getting word that the firmware in the radio already supports mic gain, you'll just need to turn it on in the programming software. Give it a shot!
Guess who's back? Back Again. Guess Who's Back? Tell a friend.....M@M lol
Take care Mr. Steve. KO4HPC :)
Will do Mr. Adam!
try using an osciloscope not a multimeter, or a logic analizer
We did, the multi meter was easier to show in the video.
New channel theme song…th-cam.com/video/qfZVu0alU0I/w-d-xo.html
Seems like...