GB3OA

Not quite sure where to begin with this — it’s been a challenging few days! As many of you will know, the PC running Wires-X at the repeater site gave up the ghost a few weeks ago. When sourcing its replacement, we opted to take a slightly different approach and invest in a better-spec refurbished machine. We settled on a Lenovo ThinkCentre M910q Mini PC (i3-6100T, 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD) running Windows 11. Since it only needs to run Wires-X, this should more than meet the requirements.

A quick note on background: even before this recent failure, we’d been dealing with assorted Wires-X linking issues for a year or two — but frustratingly, they were always intermittent. Everything would run smoothly for days, and then the dreaded socket timeouts and connection dropouts would return without warning. We always assumed the problem lay within the wider Wires-X network, as others seemed to experience similar issues.

Once the new PC was configured and installed on-site, things took a turn — but not for the better. The problems persisted, and if anything, became more frequent. Even AI was consulted (with mixed results — some helpful suggestions, some wild guesses!). The core issue was that we couldn’t get the remote node (which handles the RF bridge to the YSF reflector) to work reliably with the Wires-X room running at the repeater. On top of that, audio received via the repeater’s input wasn’t being passed on to connected remote nodes.

After many hours of testing, troubleshooting, and yes — faffing — we realised something important: the version of Wires-X installed on the new PC was two versions newer than what was running on the remote node. Once we updated the software on the remote system, things finally started behaving.

In the spirit of caution, we asked AI whether this was likely to be the root cause. Here’s what it had to say:

1. Version mismatches are a known cause of routing failures and unstable connections in Wires-X.
2. Firmware 1.56 includes bug fixes related to node connectivity, NAT traversal, and audio stream handling.
3. The symptoms we saw (e.g. one-way audio and failure to pass RF input to remote nodes) are consistent with issues reported by others on older versions.

Sounds plausible — and the takeaway is clear: keep your software up to date.

📅 Updated Connection Schedule

We’re now back to normal operation, with a small change to the daily connection schedule:

• 06:55 – The node forcibly disconnects from any active connection (usually GB-SW-LANCS).
• 06:58 – It connects to the North West Fusion Group room (44222). This connection has an unlimited timeout and cannot be manually disconnected during this window. It’s normally established just in time for the Squirrel Net.
• 08:00 – Timeout is set to 15 minutes and the ability to disconnect is restored. The “return to room” is also set back to GB-SW-LANCS. In practice, this means the repeater will remain connected to NWFG until both it and the remote room are idle for 15 minutes, at which point it will automatically return to GB-SW-LANCS.

🗨️ Get Involved

It’s worth mentioning that GB3OA remains very under-used. We’d love to hear more activity! We’re even thinking about starting a fortnightly evening net for local users. Interested? Let us know your thoughts — we’d love to get something going.

Best regards,

The GB3OA Team

A new PC running Yaesu Wires-X has now been installed on site.

We’ll see how this works over the coming days.

The GB3OA Team.

UPDATE 13th March 2024 – It appears the PC we thought had died has an intermittent fault. For now at least, it appears to be working again. It’s now back in service but for how long, who knows. In the meantime we’re looking to source a better spec PC than the spare we have so it can be replaced with something a little more robust.

The Windows PC that supports cross linking between the Wires-X room and YSF reflector is down. Spare hardware is available but needs configuring.

Work will start on this today.

73, the GB3OA team.