Antenna Switch not updating (V1.667)

Comments

• jks

  April 13

  If I could get access to your Kiwi to help debug that would be great. Please email support@kiwisdr.com and we can discuss the details. Thanks
• jks

  April 14

  I'm pretty sure this is a timing problem. But I need to be able to test on a system using the actual hardware.

  The ms-s4a switch requires some clunky, iterative curl commands to advance to the selected antenna. If the new antenna switch code is somehow overrunning those commands then that could be responsible for the unreliable operation. I didn't see anything obvious in reviewing the code. But I had to rewrite most of the antenna switch code given that it no longer has the Kiwi extension framework available to support it. So it is quite likely this is somehow the cause.

  But I really need access to your (or someone's) system to check.

  Thanks
• M0LMK

  April 16

  Thanks! I'll get it set up for remote access and send you an email.

  
  

  Matt - M0LMK
• jks

  April 16

  I was just looking at this using another Kiwi that has an ms-s5a-web switch. Even the stock ms-s4a-web backend script that comes with the original antenna switch extension is not reliable (using the frontend script to issue backend script commands).

  In many cases you have to issue the antenna selection commands twice in a row before the readback from the "status" command gives the correct antenna. It's often off-by-one.

  So I don't believe this is only a problem with the integrated antenna switch code. More investigation needed..
• jks

  April 16 edited April 16

  Oh, ha ha, I know what's wrong.

  The command structure for these switches requires sequential commands to step to the desired antenna (a result of the web-based interface having a simple "up/down" button interface). But this means the backend script has to know the total number of antenna ports available on the switch to do the proper calculations.

  Well, the s4a has 4 ports and the s5a has 5 ports. So you can't use the s4a script with the s5a!

  I'll fix this in the next release. I see on eBay there is an s6a switch as well. So I'll include a backend for it too. There's an older s7 (not s7a) model the switch code has always supported. But it has a different command set where you give it the antenna port number you want instead of stepping to get it.
• eric_j_johnson

  April 16

  This seems right to me. I had to change the number of ports in the s4a driver to 5 for my s5a on my kiwi1 and it worked, slowly (as noted in past posts). It interesting that using the web server built into the box is much quicker. Perhaps it 'knows' the current switch position? Or maybe its just network lag?

  Thanks John for all the effort.

  Eric J
• jks

  April 16

  I didn't write any of the backend scripts. And how the "ms" script works still doesn't make sense to me.

  So the switch is now selecting the correct antenna. But the new antenna switch interface isn't showing it correctly. So something else wrong..
• jks

  April 16

  Does anyone have an ms-s4a-web (not s5a) hooked up to their Kiwi that I could connect to and do some experiments? The s5a script is taking almost 10 seconds to a simple antenna switch and I'd like to know if the s4a behaves the same.

  Thank you. Email details to support@kiwisdr.com please.
• M0LMK

  April 17

  I made a copy of the s4a script, named it s5 and adjusted the number of ports available. It's still not behaving itself. I'll have it set up today so you can take a look @jks