ID 724 and ID 751 update

Hello everyone. My ID 724 has been running for 6 years and finally became a nuisance. I eventually found, and fixed, an intermittent earthing fault feeding power to my pre amps. Sorry about that. I did some firmware upgrading, and it seems to work now. Please let me know if it doesn’t. I also built, from scratch, what was going to replace the old ID 724. It is currently testing as ID 751 with a lousy antenna, and a Version 4 RPi. I had a lot of problems getting it to work due to my mistakes, so please let me know if there are any problems. I am strictly hardware, dealing with software gives me big headaches. Furthermore, I still haven’t found where I need to set the baud rate: “9600” and framing: “ax25”}} in satnogs-setup.
Thank you
Bob, vk2byf

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Hi Bob,
thank you for keeping a station up and running for such a long time (:
724 (client 1.8.1) seems to run just fine.
751 (client 1.9.3) does not however. is this a fresh install ? looking at the observation metadata, the only thing that looks off is the rigctl-host: "127.0.0.1", , this is fine on a legacy client, but not on the new docker stack. in satnogs-setup, just clear this field out.
It is easier to help if you paste the support info from satnogs-setup.

This is not a -client setting, it is from each observation and depends on the transmitter selected from db.

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Thanks for your quick response. Yes, it’s a new install, it was going to replace the old 724.
I thought I removed that rigctl-host: "127.0.0.1", with sudo satnogs-setup. Maybe I forgot to save the new configuration or did something else wrong. I’ll try again in the morning to delete that statement.
Thanks

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Re ID 751
Thanks for your help. I ran sudo satnogs-setup and looked everywhere to find rigctl-host: "127.0.0.1", but could not find it anywhere. I think I found it before in Advanced Radio SATNOGS_RIG_IP before and deleted it. Now I find Define Hamlib rigctld IP [rigctld] which I believe is correct. I’ll put it back on line so we can look at it again. I believe there was a way to generate support information, but I can’t copy and paste it here. The copy does not work within my putty display.
Thanks for your help
Bob vk2byf

ok. the rigctl host has a default that works, so just clearing it should be the best, but I think this is what you explained.
check the logs, look at client troubleshooting and displaying the logs at
https://wiki.satnogs.org/Troubleshooting#Client_troubleshooting
and focus on what it says at observation start.

Thanks for all the help. It now works. I have switched to a spare discone antenna. Not the best choice, I know. As it turned out, removing the USB cable, RPi to RTL-SDR, fixed the problem. The cable tested OK, but the SDR did not get warm, so I plugged it directly into the RPi and now it works. This is temporary. I am reluctant now to replace the old ID724 RPi which is working reliably again, with the PRi 4 now running ID751. How high can I go with the overall gain, as I don’t have a spare preamp or another QFH antenna?
Thanks again
Bob vk2byf

Ok, I have used short usb-cables to be able to mount the sdr in a convenient way, but yeah, cables and connectors can be a source of problems.

Not sure, it depends heavily on the in- and out of band signals around your site. The input can be overloaded and degrade the signal. I always play around with this using a live view of the spectrum and use the rising noise floor method.
Preamps is the way to go, it’s such a big improvement, especially on UHF and up.

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