Topics

1

PDW Support / email SMTP authentication not working

« on: 03 Apr 2017, 20:49:42 »

This is an interesting one - I'm sure I have had this working before....

My SMTP email currently uses my ISP's SMTP mail server that doesn't require authentication. I've recently experienced delivery delays, so decided to use my own domain's SMTP server (which required authentication). When sending a test email I get an error "503 AUTH command used when not advertised".

My web hosting company has investigated and advised that PDW didn't sent HELO to the smtp server before AUTH, even though the Monitor window indicated that it had (see attached screenshots of monitor window).

Anyone else had this problem?

Does anyone else have authenticated SMTP email working?

TIA
Cheers
...Steve

2

PDW Support / PDW email "recovery on send fail"/improve send reliability

« on: 14 Jun 2016, 08:48:07 »

Hi all,
Generally, my PDW all works fine, sending emails when it needs to via my ISP SMTP server. Occasionally, my ADSL is busy with uploads/downloads and it seems that PDW's attempt to send email in these conditions fails without any indication. I can search the specific record logs and manually search for 'un-emailed' pager message(s), but that isn't [near] realtime and is an additional overhead on me.

I'm looking for a solution to overcome this (assuming that PDW doesn't have any error recovery/retry for emails).

I can only think of setting up a local SMTP server running on my NAS, but that then needs to hook into the Internet mail server network with all the risks, complexities, support and traffic associated with that.

Any other suggestions?

TIA

Cheers
...Steve

3

Data Slicers and Interfaces / 100% decode, seeking true 100% capture of messages

« on: 12 Aug 2015, 01:57:06 »

Hi Rene,
My setup uses the USB interface fed by a discriminator output into PDW (actually x4 but for the purpose of this post I'll keep it simple ). It decodes POCSAG 512 and 1200 messages.

PDW reports 100% decoding, but I know it misses between 5 and 10% (eg my pagers go off but PDW misses them).

I had the opportunity recently to speak to the technical guru in the commercial paging network supplier who told me that they use offset to reduce overlapping transmitters interference.

The offset causes spikes at the top and bottom of the binary signals - visible on the spectrum analyser.

The transmitters also operate on 25khz bandwidth, and I'm pretty sure my scanners are 25khz (Uniden BC60XLT and Realistic PRO-34).

In addition, when I program the scanners, it truncates the frequencies (presumably because of the frequency steps in the scanner), ie 148.5625 becomes 148.5650 and 148.6375 becomes 148.650.

Two questions in my search for true 100% capture of messages:
1. How do the USB interfaces cope with offset signals?
2. How does Programming the scanners to frequencies 148.5625 and 148.6375 affect the decoding capability?

I can put you in touch with the technical guru in the commercial paging network supplier off list if you want to talk more technical speak with him.

Thanks!

Cheers
...Steve

4

PDW Support / Any sign of a new release of PDW?

« on: 28 Apr 2015, 05:37:15 »

Hi all,
PDW 3.12 has been around for July 2013 now, and PDW has been open source for about 2 years.

Looking at the development forum there seems to be many requests for tweaks, features and enhancements (including a couple from me:-)  ).

Are there any plans or interest in releasing an updated PDW? or are there any development versions around?

Cheers
...Steve

5

PDW Support / Changing the window title bar

« on: 19 Aug 2014, 03:11:11 »

Hi all,
This may be a development request, but someone may have a simpler solution.

I run 4 instances of PDW on the one PC (one for each combination of 2 frequencies and 2 speeds).

All 4 windows display "PDW v3.12" in the title bar, making it hard to identify which window is monitoring which Frequency/baud combination.

Is there any way that the title of each window can be set to a customisable value set in a varialbe in, say, the PDW.ini file?

Thanks!

Cheers
...Steve

6

PDW Support / ?Random Multi-instance PDW freeze

« on: 28 Nov 2013, 23:45:04 »

Hi everyone,
I have a setup consisting of 4 USB interfaces powered by an old Notebook 12v PSU feeding six power cords (4 for the interfaces and 2 for the scanners). Then connected up the 4 USB connections into a cheap ($4 on ebay) 4 port USB hub into my old IBM Pentium PC running XP SP3.

The two scanners have two discriminator leads from the one tap - in parallel. No impedance matching or protection.

This setup allows me to monitor two POCSAG frequencies with two baud rates each (512 and 1200) - 4 streams.

I have 4 instances of PDW, configured them to match the ports, running on old IBM Pentium PC running XP SP3!

The system runs 24x7.

The problem I have (and I don't know whether it's PDW or an Windows OS issue) is that at every few days at seemingly random and variable times, any one of the PDW windows freezes - no meter movement, no decoding. All other PDWs continue normally. Lights are flashing on the data converter.  It's only been one window at a time (although that could be just because of the frequency of failure and two haven't yet failed at the same time).

I've worked around this by forcing a daily automatic reboot to reset the applications, but that doesn't prevent the freeze - just makes sure they are all restarted and working once a day.

Anyone experiencing the same issue, or have any thoughts?

Cheers
...Steve

7

Data Slicers and Interfaces / More than one interface on a single PC

« on: 06 Aug 2013, 20:22:06 »

Thanks Rene,
The restriction that the USB interface only monitors one bit rate is an issue for me because I need to monitor two bit rates on each of the two frequencies. I suppose I could have 4 scanners and 4 PCs running PDW, but that's getting a bit cumbersome:-)
Cheers
...Steve

8

Remarks and Suggestions / Email notification of new posts

« on: 04 Aug 2013, 09:26:08 »

Hi Rene,
Is there a option in this board to send an email notification of all new posts? Or at least replies to a post I've selected as being interested in?

This will save time having to remember to check in every few days (and at my age I'm bound to forget!).

Thanks!

Cheers
...Steve

9

New Members / G'day from Australia!

« on: 04 Aug 2013, 09:22:27 »

Hi all,
Actually I'm English but have lived in Australia for about 23 years, so I guess that's nearly Australian:)

Have two PCs monitoring two POCSAG frequencies via 2-level discriminators from the discriminator taps on two scanners. Both are decoding 512 and 1200 baud transmissions. External antenna is a Yagi directed at the transmitter which is about 6km away line of sight, with the antenna feed going through a splitter. This setup still misses about 10% of messages, but I'm resigned to it now!!

Love PDW and am also the moderator of the Yahoo PDW-Forum group list.

Big thank you to Peter Hunt and Rene for continuing to keep PDW alive.

I wonder what the future holds for PDW and 'free' decoding as Windows XP moves further out of support, and PCs with native serial ports become extinct?

Cheers
...Steve