I have a Radioddity DB-50B as my primary “base station” VHF/UHF radio at home. Radio Messenger, of course, has great support for this radio; however, I’ve noticed that the app often connects to the DB-50B and initiates KISS TNC after I’ve disconnected and/or closed the app. This creates a few problems: it prevents other apps from connecting to the radio via Bluetooth, and it can cause the frequency to change while I’m listening to another frequency.
I suspect this has something to do with the DB50-B being “always on” to some extent, so that it can be powered on from the HT app or a BT handset. I haven’t found anything in the DB50-B settings to deal with this; the only surefire way to prevent it from happening is to cut power to the radio, which obviously works but is inconvenient if my handset is in one room and the radio is in another.
Is there something about Radio Messenger that would cause it to automatically attempt these connections after the app has been closed (i.e. swiped off the app switcher screen)? If so, could something be added to turn this off so RM doesn’t monopolize the radio?
I’ve been able to reproduce/narrow this down a bit, and I think it has something to do with how RM is handling multiple devices.
Install RM on multiple devices (I had it on an iPhone, iPad, and MacBook)
Launch RM on the iPhone, connect to the DB50-B, let it run a while
Disconnect from the DB50-B and close the app on the iPhone
After a while, the iPad connects to the DB50-B. Launch RM on the iPad, let it connect to the DB50-B, then disconnect and close the app
After a while, the MacBook connects to the DB50-B. Launch RM on the MacBook, let it connect to the DB50-B, then disconnect and close the app
At this point, nothing is connected and it seems like there are no more automatic connections until RM is launched on any of the three devices, after which it will cycle through all three in similar fashion to above
Could something be added to make Radio Messenger behave more like RadioMail, where connections to the radio are done explicitly and not automatically? Perhaps it could be an option, so those who don’t have issues with the current behavior can keep it, but it can be switched off to avoid the situation I’ve described here? I think this fits with the philosophy you’ve taken with RadioMail v2, where the important thing is to deliver the message and care less about whether it’s an RF path (i.e., if automatic connections to the radio are off, Message Continuity becomes the default, but once the user has connected to the radio, RF takes over.)
In the meantime, I’ve removed Radio Messenger from the iPad and MacBook, so if I have to hunt down which device has taken over the radio, I only have to check one Bluetooth control panel.
What you describing matches how Radio Messenger works. If you pair a radio with an instance of Radio Messenger, that instance will attempt to connect to that radio when the app is running.
Because only one app can connect to the BLE KISS TNC service at a time, app wait until they can connect. From what I understand it appears that you paired all 3 instances to the same radio. So they all compete to get the “shared” resource.
The reason why Radio Messenger is more “greedy” trying to connect is that unlike Radio Mail which is session oriented (e.g. you control when you connect), messaging is real-time. Meaning you never know when you will get an incoming message, therefore the app assumes that if it’s running and has been paired with a radio, it needs to listen for incoming messages.
Here are a couple of ways to “solve” this:
Only pair the radio with instance you truly intend to use with that radio. For example if that’s an HT, pair it with iPhone because you’ll be “mobile” most of the time. The other instances can either pair with different radio, or with message continuity and iCloud will get all the messages and can still participate in messaging.
Pair the radio with all your instances. When you’re “done” with your session tap Disconnect at the top of the screen. Radio Messenger will disconnect from that radio and remember that setting and no longer attempt to reconnect automatically. This is different from removing the radio from pairing altogether because Radio Messenger still knows about the radio and you can easily tap Reconnect to xxx when you want to use the radio.