Preliminary results with D75 + BB Link + Radiomail

RadioMail
1

Aloha Georges,

FYI, I spent some quality time with my new D75 last night and today. It’s helpful to note I’m about 22 miles from the only PACKET RMS gateway I’ve been able to reach via my Icom 7100. Fairly flat terrain, but also densely populated and PLENTY of RFI during the business hours especially. Still, I can about 90% of the time get an RMS connection using VARA FM through my 7100.

Today, I did some testing with the D75. I am using a 1/2 wave “survival” antenna on a mast that extends to about 25 feet above ground. And, I did a bit of parallel testing using my Wouxun 9 HT tethered via a TNC4 bluetooth TNC.

A few early observations:

- The BB Link connection is fabulous. You can almost forget it’s there, once the pairing process is done. I will probably go ahead with the 3D case and solder on a battery

- Once in a while, when I connect to the D75, the KISS connection initiates and then the D75 reboots spontaneously. It comes right back up, bluetooth is re-established, and I’m then able to connect again.

- Early this morning, before the RFI got intense, I was able to connect to the RMS a few times. I could hear the traffic (using a monitoring HT) and it was clearly bi-directional. (YAY!) But, due to noise or whatever, the connection did not finish. (Same results with the Wouxun + TNC4 through the same antenna.)

- Rarely, but twice I had to re-find the Bluetooth connection. RadioMail saw the TNC and started to connect, but nothing was happening on the D75. I reset the TinyPICO and restarted the D75 and it was fine again.

The one that worries me a bit is the D75 rebooting. I don’t know what’s going on there, but it’s always at the very beginning of a KISS TNC connection.

Overall, though, it’s a great setup that I’m looking forward to testing on trips. I’ll make it a point to try to connect to that PACKET RMS on Kaua`i when we’re there in May. I also have a couple trips to PA and NJ coming up, and I’ll bring my D75 on both. Will report back successes or failures. Oh, and I’m going to be in Raleigh, NC next week, but there don’t seem to be any nearby RMS gateways at all. (Odd, as I’ll be in the area known as the “research triangle”.)

Cheers,

Ken van Wyk
Armata Scientia

2

Thanks for the comprehensive report Ken.

I did experience occasional D75 reboot. I don't recall seeing those with the D74. I'll have to double check perhaps it's related to timing of commands to toggle modes, etc.

3

Another observation. I believe my D75 is sending an APRS packet at the beginning of a KISS session. (At least, I see it TX on a different frequency before switching to that of my targeted PACKET RMS.)

I’ve never paid much attention to APRS, so I’ll dive into those options and see if I can disable it easily enough. I’ll report back if the reboots go away.

Cheers,

Ken

4

I published a firmware update 0.7.5. I relaxed the detection to determine if the radio is already in KISS mode. In some cases I observed that the response was not returning fast enough and B.B. Link wrongly assumed that the radio was already in KISS mode, which caused all sorts of problems.

You can field upgrade the firmware via the B.B. Link Configurator app.

5

Merci beaucoup, monsieur!

I did the 0.7.5 upgrade this morning and have not seen any more reboots at this point. Will do more field testing in the next 2 weeks.

Cheers,

Ken van Wyk
Armata Scientia