Radar plugin v5.0.0 released

[iv3wjr]

I'm running radar plugin v5.14-ov51 dated 2020-05-24 with OpenCPN 5.2.0. and a Garmin RADAR xHD on a Raspberry pi 4 with raspbian buster kernel 5.4.51-v7l+. If I select only the xHD RADAR among the radar types I get no PPI window at all, must select both. I was able to start the Garmin and I played with the settings to configure it for my installation that has a bearing alignment of +90 degrees but I could not set the no transmit sector: seems that values less than 0 are not accepted.
Now the bad news: I cannot start the Garmin any more! The start/stop radar button does not work and I do not know how to debug thi problem. The Garmin is conected to the eth0 interface and data are flowing to the raspi 4 but the PPI window shows always "Garmin xHD - Standby".
This happened also last weekend but today, a few hours ago, I was able to start/stop the RADAR many times without probem.
So this is a question for the developers: what could have happened? How to debug this behaviour? Is this the right place to post these questions?
And again thanks for your excellent work.
Roberto

[merrimac]

@iv3wjr: " If I select only the xHD RADAR among the radar types I get no PPI window at all, must select both. "


What do you mean exactly with "both"?


You can increase logging as explained in the manual to see in more detail what goes on, maybe this already gives you a hint.


Note that it is possible that your computer loses its IP address in which case it might still be able to receive the broadcast data coming from the radar but not able to send commands anymore. Try checking that you still have the same IP address.


As to the offset, this was reported and fixed for xHD2, see https://github.com/opencpn-radar-pi/radar_pi/issues/118 but maybe you have a xHD "1" / "old" and that fix actually broke it for xHD? We are really unsure of the Garmin product history as none of the core developers use Garmin.

If you have more information or are willing to find out more, please come over to github (see above) and help us out.

[iv3wjr]

@merrymac:
I got the PPI window for my Garmin xHD ony selecting the Garmin HD *and* the Garmin xHD in the "select radar types" dialog, but probably this was caused by an old opencpn.conf.
Now I removed all sections with the word "radar" in their name, restarted OpenCPN and this problem disappeared.


As you suggested I set VerboseLog=1 in the [PlugIns/Radar] section of opencpn.conf
and this produced a lot of output in the opencpn.log file.

Today after a reboot of the raspi I could not start the Garmin any more even if the IP was correct and tail -F opencpn.log showed that RADAR and raspi were talking to each other.

I will try to get more info from the logfile and then I think I should come over to github.

[sylinea]

I am just checking my radar before a couple of days at sea and for some reason the option to start/stop radar is greyed out. The dome is powering up, my pc is establishing a network connection and the radar dialog box says it is scanning interface 169.254.128.253.
Everything worked fine a couple of weeks back. I have tried my backup pc and get the same situation.
Anybody any ideas where to look?

[sylinea]

This makes no sense, for some reason that proably made sense at the time i connected the red and yellow wires together in the connector box and the radar has worked fine for 2 months. Today I didn't have the option start/stop transmit, I separated the red and yellow cables and it works. Weird.

[sylinea]

Can anyone tell me what units to enter the height of antenna, feet, inches, metres, nautical miles?

[anoexc]

Hello everyone,

I am in possession of Navico Halo-3 radar.
I thought it would be nice to use it via OpenCPN + radar_pi software.
I use the following scheme:

LAPTOP <-> USB to Ethernet adapter <-- ethernet --> Halo-3 scanner

My laptop, where Opencpn software is running, is directly connected to the HALO3 radar scanner (no RI-12 interface box in between )
My laptop is running a DHCP server which gives addresses in 192.168.2.0/24 network range.

Unfortunately, I am facing some issues.

Firstly, HALO-3 radar can be successfully detected on opencpn using radar-pi plugin.

But, when I send `Transmit` command to the radar, I see only "Spinning up" message and radar doesn't seem to start up (not even start spinning, nor transmitting.).

So I did some packet dump with wireshark on Laptop's ethernet interface which goes to the radar. Using radar-pi source code as a reference, I can see that report 0x01C4 gives current status of radar itself.
- When radar's power is turned on, I can see that 0x01C4 report gives 0x01 status, which means, radar is in stand-by.
- When I press Transmit button on OpenCPN, I get 0x05 status, which, according to the source code, should mean that radar is spinning up.
- But, as mentioned before, nothing really happens afterwards and I start receiving 0x04 or 0x00 status codes, which are not defined or their meaning is unknown.

When I look in example halo3 pcap files provided with source code, the next status code after 0x05 should be 0x02 (Transmitting).

Has anyone who used HALO-3 faced any similar problems or 0x01C4 report status codes ? Any ideas what could be missing ?
Maybe my radar itself is somehow "damaged", but... if I connect HALO3 to RI-12 interface box with Chartplotter, radar seems to be working fine without any issues.

Any comments or thoughts are appreciated !

PS: I am attaching a .pcap of transmit on and off procedure, where those status codes can be seen.
I also attached opencpn.log file with verbosity=15.

[Douwe Fokkema]

You say: My laptop is running a DHCP server which gives addresses in 192.168.2.0/24 network range.
But your interface address is 192.168.1.18, which may not be on the same subnet. This is strange, but might not be important.

It seems that the radar_pi software does not match the received radar address information with the radar you defined. This looks like a bug in our software, though in comparable cases this always worked. I now lack the time to further debug this, may be later this week.

You can try to manually patch your opencpn.ini file as follows:
Radar0NavicoInfo= /236.6.7.100:6132/236.6.7.102:6134/236.6.7.101:6133
Radar0Address=192.168.2.101
Radar0Interface=192.168.1.18

I think there is a good chance your radar A will work after that.
You could do similar with radar B.


Douwe Fokkema

[anoexc]

Douwe, thank you for your reply.

The 192.168.1.18 came from laptop's WiFi network, which of course does not have any radars connected.

I double checked the log file and also noticed that a radar was found not only through 192.168.2.1/24 interface but also through interface with 192.168.1.18/24 address, as you have mentioned.

But it seems it may only be an insignificant bug. I have disconnected my laptop from wlan and left it only with ethernet interface connected to the radar, but the result was the same.

I have also tried to connect the RI-12 interface box in between my laptop and the radar scanner. Laptop is connected directly to interface box ethernet port using ordinary ethernet cable (4 pairs). That port is usually is used to connect a chartplotter via 5-pin cable. In this way, radar is detected in Opencpn and transmission starts and stops without any issue.

Is that RI-12 interface so significant for HALO3 scanner to work properly ?
I wonder, has anyone made HALO3 scanner work using radar-pi without RI-12 box in between ?

[Douwe Fokkema]

Originally Posted by anoexc

Douwe, thank you for your reply.

Is that RI-12 interface so significant for HALO3 scanner to work properly ?
I wonder, has anyone made HALO3 scanner work using radar-pi without RI-12 box in between ?

I studied the RI10 interface a few years ago. Only thing it does is pass the Ethernet to and from the radar directly (hard connected) to the Simrad Ethernet. And if a heading is connected to the RI-10 it will convert this heading to a serial format and put it on an unused pair of the Ethernet cable to the radar.

I do not know about the RI-12, but expect it to be similar.

These boxes might however switch receive and transmit pairs, like a cross cable, may be the radar is sensitive for this.

[Hakan]

Originally Posted by anoexc

I have also tried to connect the RI-12 interface box in between my laptop and the radar scanner. Laptop is connected directly to interface box ethernet port using ordinary ethernet cable (4 pairs). That port is usually is used to connect a chartplotter via 5-pin cable. In this way, radar is detected in Opencpn and transmission starts and stops without any issue.

anoexc..
I don't have a HALO3 but if I understand the above correct all is working in OCPN when connected through the RI-12?
If so Douwe's comment about switching RX/TX is interesting.
If you don't want to use the RI-12 for OCPN, but for a plotter, test a normal IP-network switch in between the scanner and the RI-12. (e.g.: port 1 - scanner; port 2 - OCPN; port 3 - RI-12)
Or, if you don't have a switch at home, just test the same thing using a switched IP-cable between the scanner and OCPN-PC.

[Mathias81]

Hello everybody,

i am asking for help because I cannot get the radar to work.
I habe a Garmin GMR 18 HD and would like to run it with my MacBook Pro.
I bought the Amphenol plug, soldered the switch as described.

Tried to creat a new ethernet port as described but nothing works.

It shows me No interface found.
Interface must match 172.16/12

Does anybody have a clue what I could do????

Thank you so much for your help!!!!!

[SamH]

IP and mask for interface where radar is connected?

[Mathias81]

IP and mask looks like this:

[SamH]

Change your mask to 255.240.0.0