Hello, I am attempting to setup Radiomail with Mobilinkd TNC4 and I have not been able to establish a connection reliably. Occasionally it will work but the majority of the time I just get "Could not establish connection." I have tried multiple tweaks based on suggestions from the packet station owner as well as other information I have been able to glean from Groups.io. The station I am attempting to connect to shows as 11 miles away and I am using a Yaesu FT2800M with 60 watt output. I have also tried connected via a digipeater that's located near me on a mountain top. This method has never works.
My question is this: Does anyone know the best settings for the Mobilinkd TNC4?
I found that RadioMail , depending on the radio you are using and the radio
at the gateway, sometimes needs a higher TX delay and try reducing your Max
Length setting to 128, max outstanding to 3.
For instance, I have an RMS gateway that I run using a btech UV50x2. In
order for me to connect using radio mail from my iphone, my radio mail tx
delay needs to be 900. My gateway soundmodem needed tx delay of 1200 in
order for it to work with the btech gateway radio! Betech gateway station
radio is really slow to key up.
Setting a TX Delay of 900 or good grief, 1200, may be good for problem determination, but you should never leave a station operating that way. TXD of 1200 can literally add minutes to your session times and really bog down a network. If you showed up here with a station like that, I would be blocking your access to the network. If your radio requires that much delay, do not use it for data!
There are no "best settings" for Mobilinkd, settings will vary depending on the station setup. Your FT-2800 does not have a dedicated data port, so you are using the mic and speaker jacks to connect to the TNC4. Transmit and receive levels will be more critical with this setup, and will be affected by the radio volume control. You should be running open squelch on the radio, and a fairly low volume setting (do not change the volume once you get it set right, and mark the front panel in case it gets bumped). Adjust the RX and TX levels using the Mobilinkd app and their instructions. Listen to your transmissions on another radio and compare them to other stations on the air (use the APRS frequency, 144.39, to listen to a lot of traffic). If your station sounds much louder, or much softer, or is distorted, you need to adjust the TX level and twist appropriately, this is not plug-n-play. The manual walks you through this with a good procedure. The default TXD of 33 should be fine on the 2800 (my guess is it could go lower, maybe as low as 20).
Did you ever find a solution? I too am unable to establish a connection. I tried several years ago with Mobilink and a vx-6 and was never able to establish a connection. There are two stations 2 miles from me.
I got all excites when Radiomail announced the BB link adapter with iphone and the Kenwood TH-D75. So I purchased both.
Super disappointing to still be unable to make a connection. It appears that BBlink is doing its thing and my signal is going out. Every once in awhile i get a response from a station but then it shuts down and times out without any test message being sent.
If anyone has any suggestions, I would sure appreciate it. Otherwise I am going to sell my radios and take up fishing. That’ll be slightly less frustrating.
Hello Steve,
May I ask if you are able to get out on APRS with the same setup that you have ? Asking because that would allow to narrow down the search of where might the issue be.
I use Mobilinkd and iOS radio mail without any issues. If your TNC is
configured and the radio will transmit, then it might just be that the
winlink node is too far away and you need more power/higher antenna.
Steve,
If you paired the radio to your phone successfully, have your KISS TNC mode on, GPS on, frequency in Bank A/B set to the frequency of the Winlink gateway station you try to use, you’re able to TX, I can only suggest to play with the Radiomail’s Packet KISS TNC modem settings, starting with reducing the “Max length” parameter of the AX.25 protocol, then maybe increase or decrease the Tx delay [ms] and see if that changes anything.
Also you can see if Josh’s video will give you any additional information https://www.youtube.com/embed/a44SZTM91gg?width=1179&height=664