Setting up FXO modules on TDM410 for UK use.

Slamby

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Hi,

I've got the TDM410 in, and even set up trunks etc to work with the offices 3 analogue lines, but for the life of me I can't get them to come up in UK mode, which seems pretty important for getting them working properly.

6 hours of googling and trying has left me up against a brick wall :banghead:. I must be missing out some simple stage, but I've no idea what.

I've been editing modprobe.conf with all sorts of suggestions, including:

install wctdm /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install wctdm opermode=UK && /sbin/ztcfg

and

options wctdm opermode=UK

I edit, save and reboot, and gather I should see something like

Month Day Time pbx kernel: Port 1: Installed – Auto FXO (UK mode)

in /var/log/messages, but instead grep “AUTO FXO” /var/log/messages gives

Jul 17 11:05:25 pbx kernel: Port 1: Installed – Auto FXO (FCC mode)
Jul 17 11:05:25 pbx kernel: Port 2: Installed – Auto FXO (FCC mode)
Jul 17 11:05:25 pbx kernel: Port 3: Installed – Auto FXO (FCC mode)

However, cat /sys/module/wctdm/parameters/opermode gives response UK

Am I missing something fundamental here? An action I need to perform to get the changes detected/actioned?

I've fired off an e-mail to Digium, and the people I bought the card off, but neither have got back to me yet, and I'm keen to do some more testing over the weekend.

I think this is (hopefully) my last major hurdle, so any help/suggestions gratefully recieved.
 

Alex728

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TDM410 does not use wctdm driver. This is only for the old TDM400 card and its clones.

The driver used by TDM410 is wctdm24xxp

You could try the option there, but TBH I've found setting opermode=UK doesn't make much difference to echo levels and even breaks "short" caller ID such as recived on featureline (Centrex) extensions.

What does matter is having these lines in /etc/asterisk/zapata.conf to get UK caller ID

usecallerid=yes
callerid=asreceived
cidsignalling=v23
cidstart=polarity
 

Slamby

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Thanks Alex, that did the trick. Due to my inexperience I never realised I was calling options on the wrong driver.

My "last major hurdle" quote was kiss-of-death though, as now I appear to have echo ratios in the 0.3 and higher ranges, and can't get fxtune to reduce it. :D

Ah well, I am making progress, slowly but surely. Thanks a lot for your help, and I'll add the lines suggested to zapata, even though CID seems to be working OK so far, based on the little testing I've done. There's bound to be some little quirks, and these might help iron them out.
 

jroper

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Hi

I had to ring Digium with my first 410 install, because there was no good information on the internet regarding this. i've found that Digium are far more responsive to a call than email.

As per a previous post today, I'd purchase the EC module to make the echo go away, but as you say, only after you have run fxotune and rebooted

Joe
 

Slamby

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It didn't help that Digium's own help page regarding opermode only uses the example wctdm, and doesn't even mention the possibility of other drivers.

I'm a bit confused about fxotune, as it runs, creates the file, sets values (all to 5,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0), and loads them at startup, but the measured echo pre and post tune is exactly the same, so it's had no effect.

So is that saying that's as good as it's going to get without hw echo cancellation? I'm getting scores in the 0.3 range, so is that 30%? Can that be considered normal-ish for a UK landline without hw echo cancellation?

Would a sw canceller like Digium's or oslec make a dent in a score that high?

I'm just not sure what I should be expecting to achieve with the various options available to me.

Sorry, I've dragged the thread off on a tangent.
 

Alex728

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how are you getting those echo "scores?"

TBH I've found OSLEC to do a good job of removing the echo on the lines. its not perfect but better than MG2 (supplied with vanilla asterisk) but does take a bit of compiling etc.

its up to you and your projects budget whether you wish to experiment with this or pay for the hardware echo cancel card.

bear in mind the OSLEC chaps are very approachable and willing to help (signing up to their mailing list is worth it..)
 

Slamby

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Tuning:

#amportal stop
#modprobe zaptel
#modprobe wctdm24xxp
#/usr/src/zaptel/
fxotune -i 1 -t 2 -b 1 -e 3 -l 1 -m 18 -vvvvv

I know some of the above switches are the defaults, but I wanted to make sure it was doing it how I wanted.

Measuring results:
#
fxotune -d -b 1
#
fxotune -d -b 2
#
fxotune -d -b 3

Module Pre-Tune Post-Tune
1 0.3098 0.31

2 0.3385 0.3389
3 0.341 0.3413


I set up oslec yesterday, thanks to jdaustin's very helpful post here, and it seems to be functioning from the little testing I've done, so I'll see how it goes I guess. I've done nothing with txgain and rxgain yet either.

I'll go for the hw echo canceller if necessary, and I specifically went with a card that would take one over one that wouldn't (they tried to talk me into Openvox) , I just didn't want to spend the extra for no reason. There are some claims that hw echo cancellation isn't necessary nowadays, though one problem with t'web is you don't know who's making the claims and whether they know what they're talking about or not.

The project is to replace our steam-driven Panasonic analog pbx in our main office, that can span our office and two home workers, while giving us more functionality like MoH, IVR and voicemail etc, none of which the existing system can do. We looked at traditional pbx hardware, which was a little expensive for our tastes, and also looked at Swyx, which was quite impressive, but I baulked at not only the initial cost, but the ongoing support fees you had to pay. This lead me to looking at Asterisk, which a business associate mentioned. We haven't got a huge amount of money to spend, but I've done pretty well so far, getting 95% of the functionality of Swyx, at perhaps 20% of the cost, with no ongoing fees (this would have been less if I'd used some old existing hardware we had lying around).

£120 odd quid (or whatever it is) for hw echo cancelling is fine if it achieves an objective, I just didn't want to spend extra if I didn't need to.

Thanks a lot for all your help btw, I appreciate it.
 

jroper

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Hi

So in respect of your Analogue lines, the main thing is, after you have done the fxotune - (fxotune -v -i 4) how do the lines sound - do you have echo?

If so, have you adjusted the balances in rxgain and txgain while watching ztmonitor.

I wrote a step by step guide in the early days of these forums how to tune FXO devices for minimum echo, but I just cannot find it ;-(

Joe
 

Slamby

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I haven't done that many test calls yet, but it seems to be OK, from my untrained ear anyways.

I'm a little loathe to let the system loose during office hours just yet, as I'm not 100% sure it's set up right and will function as intended. I'm not sure how else I can simulate enough traffic though to find out how it will behave "live".

Are you saying that if I don't get echo, don't worry too much about the figures? They just seem awfully high compared to the recommended target of under 5%.

I haven't touched tx and rx gain yet. From what I gather, I should be using fxotune to reduce the echo as much as possible, then tweak tx and rx gain, then run sw echo cancel to take care of the rest. As I haven't quite given up on fxotune yet, I haven't moved on to the next stage.

I'm trying to do this in a methodical way so that I don't arse anything up, rather than my usual style of "let's mess around with this and see what happens". :D
 

Alex728

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if OSLEC is installed and working then you won't hear echo in actual use, but fxotune is showing raw figures still

cat /proc/oslec/info

will show if OSLEC is functioning correctly, also there is a shell script using dialog which gives you a control panel to turn OSLEC on and off (as I think the zapata.conf entry isn't actually used) - you will need to install "dialog" using yum..

this will give you an idea of what it sounded like before OSLEC.

NB: if you haven't done this already, make sure any line with "echotraining=nnn" has a semicolon before it in /etc/asterisk/zapata.conf

or you will find your audio disappears!

once OSLEC is working I've found that using rxgain and txgain is more for the benefit of users and the people you are calling so they can hear you properly (I found I needed to turn the gain up a bit otherwise people you called said the telephone was very quiet)
 

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