Skylark 5.5 for Dreamcatcher 3

I had a similar problem with No sessions available and finally was able to overcome the problem (not fix it) with a different method.

I re formatted my micro SD card, and re downloaded the zipped Skylark 5.5 image and unpacked it. I re wrote the cleaned micro SD card.with the Skylark 5.5 image. After successfully going thru the AP connection, I reset my Dreamcatcher to the Client mode, and brought it back up.

Brute force conquers all :rofl: Ken

At this time after you brought up the audio again on Wednesday Jan 9 2144 UTC, the audio is not stable - - very herky jerky. Ken

I like using VLC for audioā€¦ (I have no afilliation: Official download of VLC media player, the best Open Source player - VideoLAN )

using network stream http://192.168.xxx.xxx:8090/othernet.mp3

Just curious if there are any recommended settings. my player
has tons of options to set: first one is: Cachingā€¦ default is 1000ms
then stuff like an equalizer

vlc works fine with default settings - increasing caching is probably not a good idea, it will just extend start and stop times. As far as equalizer settings go, Iā€™d say thats a personal preference, though given the low bitrate of the transmitted audio, you might have best results if you set the equaliser to enhance frequencies below 4-5KHz and attenuate ones above that - thats where most of the audio artifacts will be.

Personally, I found smplayer handles periodic packet loss-related interruptions much better than vlc does on this stream.

Just an update: the beam is now sending out Audio in the new format. For 5.5 users, things should be running as normal, but audio will no longer work on 5.4 or older releases.

As a side effect of this, in the tuner status, the correct packet rate is about 10.3 and the correct bitrate is about 20,200 bps (used to be 20.5 and 17.6k, respectively).

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The audio sounds good and is seems to be of good quality! The specs you quoted readout appropriately on the Tuner App (Packet Rate 10.37,bitrate 20,217) 1554 UTC 11 DEC 2019. Good job again, Abhishek!

Audio is excellent now! Thanks to all the Othernet staff. Ken

My Port Forwarded Skylark 5.5 is temporarily down for maintenance. Ken

Is there another way to get back into Skylark? I reset my Client Wifis, and canā€™t get back into the AP mode to set up the Client address. Perhaps thru the SSH? Ken

Am I dumb or something - - the easy solution in Firefox is to turn off Captive Portal Detection in the about:config file. Then I can get into Skylark in the AP mode and make all the necessary changes.

Iā€™m back up port forwarded to http://73.200.58.18 Ken

captive

The Log Viewer - Diagnostics screen is nice. The important point

I have now exceeded uptime wonderful up 4 days !!! no lockups

After my recent network adjustments, I have removed port forwarding of my Skylark 5.5 on-line.

I am developing another plan to open up my terminal to universal viewing. Ken

Abhishek noticed on my Tuner Status tab that my Valid packet % was low at 60 % although I had Lock, an SNR of +4.5, and an Rssi of -98 dBm. He suspected it was due to Wif interference created when I rearranged my port forwarding gear.

He was correct - - my USB power cable was straddling one of the Wifi antennas. When fixed, my Valid packet % went up to between 95 and 100 %. This issue seems new on the Forum, so I thought I would mention it for others to check. Ken

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I have updated my Dreamcatcher with Skylark 5.5 for On-line viewing. It is now at:http://71.206.20.63/

Ken

Screen Contrast Suggestion

After several of my colleagues viewed my on-line Dreamcatcher Skylark 5.5, they commented that the contrast within the frames was too weak making it hard to differentiate back and forth arrows and other elements.

contrast

Perhaps Iā€™m too familiar with the frames not to notice the problem. If others agree this should be fixed, I believe it is a simple matter for Abhishek @Abhishek to change the style file in the HTML web page to something with stronger degrees of contrast. What do you think? Ken

Now at 16 days uptime. no lockups.

I have about the same results. The upgrade is working great. I now have about
two weeks straight up time. The problem I had was that the board would either
lock up or if you taped on the display it might come up bit it was frozen and I could
not change menus. At first I thought it might be a heat or power supply issue.

Its nice to look at the board and see all the LED activity again. My LNB is inside
leaning up against the window and working great. My next step is to make a small
frame or box for the board with an arm that flips out to mount and aim the LNB.

Mike

Wifi Interference

Iā€™m revising the post regarding Wifi interference and adding it to this Forum Topic.

After re configuring my local routers, close proximity to the router Wifis caused considerable interference to my Dreamctcher.

packet

Even with good SNR and Rssi, my Valid packet % was down to 92 % from 100%, and my Bitrate (bps) was down from 20000 to 16624. Moving the Dreamcatcher 20 feet away was one solution, but to keep all my gear together I put the Dreamcatcher into its foil shipping bag - -

This improved performance back to optimum levels - -

sleeve

If you donā€™t have the foil shipping bag, you can use a New York Style Bagel Crisps bag

image which is foil lined - - I prefer the garlic variety :heart_eyes: Ken

Just to clear things up for everyone else:

at the present moment, the ā€œcorrectā€ value for Packet rate is about 10.3, Bitrate is about 20200, and Audio bitrate is about 8100. If you see your reported values significantly lower than these you are losing packets. This is true even if the Packet Error Rate value is low/zero.

Packet Error Rate (or equivalentlym the Valid packets %) reports packets that were received by the radio, but failed integrity checks. It does NOT include packets which were not received by the radio at all.

For example, in the screenshot posted by @kenbarbi, his Tuner reports 8% packet error rate. But the reported packet rate is 8.57 which is about 20% lower than the nominal value. So whats happening is that his radio is entirely missing about 12% packets and then additionally 8% packets are failing integrity verification.

So its important to match the packet rate against expected value, just looking at the PER or Valid % is not enough.

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Is posible download all updates from othernet?
I think about update Linux

$apt-get upgrade