Topic: Pro 2 Plus, not transmitting?

[Cohote Mike]

So I got my Pro 2 (Plus) in today, and because of the weather(*) I can't put it out yet. But I wanted to see if my RTL will pick it up or if I needed to do more config on it.According to the manual, I'm supposed to remove the tab on the battery in the ISS, and it will start sending data right away.

I'm not getting anything - another page in the manual says the green LED will light up every 2.5sec. It's not. The battery has voltage - measured at ~3.2v (and doesn't show any leakage).

I did read through the manual, and I didn't see anything else I needed to do to get it to start transmitting.  Anything else I should look at?

(*) -Yeah, I find it humorous that I can't mount the station because of weather. 

[SnowHiker]

I'm not getting anything - another page in the manual says the green LED will light up every 2.5sec. It's not. The battery has voltage - measured at ~3.2v (and doesn't show any leakage).

It looks like it may not be clear from the manual, but I believe to get the green light to flash you need to put dip switch 4 to the "on" position to test the transmit.  It's normally off to prevent battery drain. (Pg 14)

[Cohote Mike]

It looks like it may not be clear from the manual, but I believe to get the green light to flash you need to put dip switch 4 to the "on" position to test the transmit.  It's normally off to prevent battery drain. (Pg 14)

Ah, thanks! Appreciated!
Yeah, flipping the switch, and the LED started blinking. I read the manual to mean it _tests_ the transmission, not enabled the test LED. 

So now that it's sending, I need to look why my SDR isn't working. Arg.-Mike

[Cohote Mike]

So would appreciate any pointers. After changing RTL-SDR devices, I'm still not getting anything logged on the receiver.

Launching the following command:

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rtldavis -tr 1 -tf US -vI get the following in the log:

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18:31:01.440502 rtldavis.go VERSION=0.15
18:31:01.440623 tr=1 fc=0 ppm=0 gain=0 maxmissed=51 ex=0 receiveWindow=300 actChan=[0] maxChan=1
18:31:01.440679 undefined=false verbose=true disableAfc=false deviceString=0
18:31:01.440818 BitRate: 19200
18:31:01.440829 SymbolLength: 14
18:31:01.440831 SampleRate: 268800
18:31:01.440834 Preamble: 1100101110001001
18:31:01.440836 PreambleSymbols: 16
18:31:01.440838 PreambleLength: 224
18:31:01.440840 PacketSymbols: 80
18:31:01.440842 PacketLength: 1120
18:31:01.440845 BlockSize: 512
18:31:01.440847 BufferLength: 2048
Detached kernel driver
Found Rafael Micro R828D tuner
18:31:01.921791 tr=0 ch=0 freqCorr=0 lastFreqError=0, freqerrTrChList=[0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0]
18:31:01.921832 Hop: {ChannelIdx:0 ChannelFreq:902419338 FreqError:0 Transmitter:0}
Exact sample rate is: 268800.001367 Hz
18:31:02.112653 GetTunerGain: 0 Db
18:31:02.112664 SetFreqCorrection 0 ppm Successful
Allocating 1 zero-copy buffers
18:31:02.116489 Init channels: wait max 135 seconds for a message of each transmitter
18:33:17.929202 Init channels: wait max 135 seconds for a message of each transmitter
18:33:17.929251 tr=0 ch=0 freqCorr=0 lastFreqError=0, freqerrTrChList=[0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0]
18:33:17.929322 Hop: {ChannelIdx:0 ChannelFreq:902419338 FreqError:0 Transmitter:0}
18:33:17.929332 applied freqCorrection=0
18:35:33.741960 Init channels: wait max 135 seconds for a message of each transmitter
18:35:33.742008 tr=0 ch=0 freqCorr=0 lastFreqError=0, freqerrTrChList=[0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0]
18:35:33.742027 Hop: {ChannelIdx:0 ChannelFreq:902419338 FreqError:0 Transmitter:0}
18:35:33.742034 applied freqCorrection=0
The last 4 lines repeat until I stop the command.I've done a frequency scan -

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rtldavis -startfreq 902000000 -endfreq 928000000 -stepfreq 20000And that's come back with nothing either. AFAIK, I'm not getting any permission errors, hardware is found (in 'lsusb'), and yes, an antenna is attached to the dongle.

Any ideas on what to check next or to try? (Was going to post this in weewx forum/usergroup, but realized that this is outside of that..)
Thanks guys!

[Mattk]

Do you have a Davis console to confirm status of RTL reception?

[Cohote Mike]

Do you have a Davis console to confirm status of RTL reception?

Sadly, no. Wanted to try and save the money, since was planning on using weewx. I wouldn't be opposed to getting one, but wanted to avoid it.
(Sadly, if I have to get one, it'll be a month before I can test - Work is sending me out of town for 4 weeks, leaving a week from tomorrow. Ugh.)

[Cohote Mike]

Okay, quick question - does this indicate it's now receiving data from my VP2?

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19:03:55.768456 Init channels: wait max 135 seconds for a message of each transmitter
19:04:29.295906 m1: -0.128262 l: 224 c: 16 x: [0.20 0.09 -0.31 0.20 0.22 0.11 -0.33 -0.27 -0.29 -0.18 -0.22 -0.28 -0.30 -0.22 -0.20 -0.26]
19:04:29.295948 TRANSMITTER 0 SEEN
19:04:29.295977 tr=0 ch=19 freqCorr=0 lastFreqError=0, freqerrTrChList=[0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0]
19:04:29.295997 Hop: {ChannelIdx:19 ChannelFreq:911952597 FreqError:0 Transmitter:0}
19:04:29.296003 applied freqCorrection=0
19:04:31.859891 m1: -0.172436 l: 224 c: 16 x: [-0.30 -0.06 0.06 -0.14 0.08 -0.11 0.06 -0.30 -0.28 -0.31 -0.21 -0.19 -0.24 -0.30 -0.30 -0.23]
19:04:31.859929 8000872B49009956 2 0 0 0 0 msg.ID=0
19:04:31.859952 tr=0 ch=41 freqCorr=0 lastFreqError=0, freqerrTrChList=[0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0]
19:04:31.859968 Hop: {ChannelIdx:41 ChannelFreq:922991108 FreqError:0 Transmitter:0}
19:04:31.859973 applied freqCorrection=0
19:04:34.421807 m1: -0.132318 l: 224 c: 16 x: [-0.26 -0.29 0.32 0.28 0.21 -0.26 0.22 -0.23 -0.27 -0.23 -0.32 -0.27 -0.19 -0.22 -0.30 -0.30]
19:04:34.421838 E000878001000F46 3 0 0 0 0 msg.ID=0
19:04:34.421855 tr=0 ch=25 freqCorr=0 lastFreqError=0, freqerrTrChList=[0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0]
19:04:34.421868 Hop: {ChannelIdx:25 ChannelFreq:914963100 FreqError:0 Transmitter:0}
19:04:34.421872 applied freqCorrection=0
19:04:36.983774 m1: -0.077200 l: 224 c: 16 x: [-0.23 0.18 -0.11 0.18 0.30 0.31 -0.13 -0.33 -0.22 -0.18 -0.16 -0.17 -0.16 -0.17 -0.18 -0.18]
19:04:36.983839 500087FF7100088A 4 0 0 0 0 msg.ID=0
19:04:36.983855 tr=0 ch=8 freqCorr=0 lastFreqError=0, freqerrTrChList=[0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0]
19:04:36.983871 Hop: {ChannelIdx:8 ChannelFreq:906433342 FreqError:0 Transmitter:0}
19:04:36.983878 applied freqCorrection=0
With the last 5 lines repeating except for the 'm1' line containing different values?

Because I was unsure if the VP2 was bad or the RTLSRD was bad, I ordered two more SDRs from Amazon. One was the same model as the one I already had, and one was a different vendor/make/model, same chipset. The second one, the different make/model, seems to be picking it up now, if the above is indeed valid packets.