Node-Ventures

Enhancements for USB Audio, numerous new fields in Node Setup, auto-connect to remote node at startup, automatic node software updates.

This brings the Android mobile app into line with the release 1.17 for Apple iOS.

73 … Gerry.

AllStar is an incredibly rich VoIP solution for Amateur Radio – we regularly hear from users about setup and control items missing from the ClearNode mobile app – when there is a clear need to support the personal/mobile node use case, we try to act:

In this release:

• Personalize the Supermon admin password from the mobile app
• Auto-connect your ClearNode to a remote node as ClearNode starts up
• Control the Deny/Permit List in the Echolink configuration – keep control of your node’s inbound connections.
• Added Pre and De-emphasis to the configuration items in the USB Audio setup screen
• Control status reporting to the “stats” servers
• Turn on auto-updates for the API software releases – ClearNode checks for a new version at startup and automatically downloads and deploys

Bugs fixed:

• 425.000 Mhz has become a reserved and non-selectable frequency for the 818 embedded radio – there is a significant RF output at this frequency from one of the clock chips on the Raspberry Pi 3B and 3B+ that can prevent the radio from closing squelch at the and of a receive from your HT
• Now trimming leading and trailing spaces from CallSign, Key and Password fields
• The “Disconnect” action is now blocked when the node is Idle

Keep the reports and requests coming !

73 … Gerry.

This release brings the Android app up to par with last release for iOS.

73 … Gerry.

This release is recommended for all users.

Number of important changes in this combined release

• Complete re-do of the Node Setup screen. The order of setup items had become quite illogical as individual items were added. The new screen presents setup items logically grouped according to functionality.
• The Node Setup screen now does a better job of validating the values you input to prevent bad settings disrupting your ClearNode’s operation.
• The Audio Streaming function now supports sending your stream to Broadcastify for public consumption. Several new configuration settings in the section Streaming Audio Setup. If you elect to send the stream to Broadcastify, instead of the ClearNode Icecast server, your mobile app will still be able to play the stream.
• You can now archive your ClearNode’s setup to the Node-Ventures server. Once it’s up there it’s available for download should you ever need to recover your node from an SD Card failure or some such. See the two cloud icons in the top right corner of the Node Setup screen.
• Some users found that the popup screens were unusable if they had increased the default font size on their iPhones. We think we’ve fixed most of them – if you find others do report them to us so we can them cleaned up as well.

73 … Gerry.

We took a break from new features to do some re-factoring, extensive testing and have fixed a raft of bugs.

We recommend that ALL users upgrade to this version – tap into the Node Detail page, in the “Versions” section, tap on the “RedNode Version” label and then accept the update in the “Update RedNode Software” dialog.

73 … Gerry.

Fresh batch of ClearNodes off the assembly bench in air pouches. Next stop the test and pre-configuration bench, cleaning, packing and then shipping.

73 … Gerry.

We forgot to mention in the original post that announced AutoSky, that there is a corresponding Custom TimedEvent installed along with AutoSky. By default both AutoSky and the TimedEvent are disabled. If you enable AutoSky at boot – don’t forget to also navigate into TimedEvents and enable “AutoSky Check Advisories”, then Save to commit your changes to ClearNode. If this is not enabled ClearNode will not poll the NWS for any available warning.

73 … Gerry.

(Yes we did skip release 1.14 – all rolled into this release.)

This brings the Android Mobile App up to par with the current Apple iOS release, review those release notes for details.

And a shout-out to our ‘Droid users – thanks for your patience !

73 … Gerry.

We’ve had reports that occasionally, after saving a change to the node setup and the node rebooting, the built-in radio does not initialize properly as the node starts up. The symptom would be that the radio does not announce the IP address or courtesy tones as expected and does not respond to transmissions from your HT. The immediate fix is just reboot the node once more, rarely a power-cycle is needed.

We’re looking into the issue and will report back …

73 … Gerry.

This release updates the DTMF commands in rpt.conf to include AutoSky.OFF and ON.

Two steps are required to deploy this update:

• In the Node Detail screen, in the “Versions” section, tap “RedNode Version”, in the “Update RedNode Software” tap “Update”. Your node will update and reboot. After reboot return to the Node Detail screen and confirm you now have “API Version” # 30.
• After the update, in the Node Detail page, in the “Node setup” section tap “AllStar/Echolink setup” to enter the “Setup” screen. You do not need to update anything, just tap “Save” in the top right corner. Your ClearNode will re-create the configuration files, including “rpt.conf”, from the new templates and apply the new DTMF commands. Your node will reboot.

We don’t publish DTMF commands in the public forums, so customers can email us at gerry.filby@node-ventures.com and we’ll send you the new DTMF commands.

73 … Gerry.