Retevis RT-95 VHF/UHF

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Daniel Wee
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Retevis RT-95 VHF/UHF

Post by Daniel Wee »

This is a 25W dual-bander. The EU version of this radio fits nicely within the IMDA requirements for such radios. There are 3 output power levels:-
LO: 5W (drawing around 2.1A@13.8V)
MID: 10W (drawing around 3.5A@13.8V)
HI: 25W (drawing around 5-6A@13.8V)

The MIC port has an 8-pin interface that looks like this:-
RT95-port.jpg
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What is not apparent from this diagram is that the radio has an option to output the received audio through the port as well. This audio is amplified by an internal 1W-amplfier (LM4890) in the handheld unit. This audio is somehow multiplexed into the "UP" line - pin-5 (fourth from the top in the diagram.) When the "UP" button is pressed, there is a noticeable drop in the audio coming through the mic speakers, confirming our theory of the double use of the "UP" line.

*update: This does work and the audio is coming through with a DC blocking 0.1uF to 1.5uF capacitor.

The PTT line is pulled to ground through a 1k resistor to activate TX.

To interface to a sound-card TNC, the lines that are needed would be:-
RX audio (pin-5 UP)
TX audio (Mic pin-3, Mic-ground pin-4)
PTT (pin-2)
GND (pin-1)


That calls for a 5-pin connector. The RX audio will need to be coupled through a DC-blocking capacitor before being passed on to the sound-card input.

We will use a standard Ethernet cable for this with colour assignments as follows:-
GND - brown
PTT - white/brown
Mic - green
Mic-ground - white/green
Audio - blue
Attachments
RT95-English-manua.pdf
(2.47 MiB) Downloaded 1245 times
lm4890.pdf
(2.04 MiB) Downloaded 1335 times
Daniel Wee
Site Admin
Posts: 2449
Joined: Wed 25 Feb 25 2009 8:00 pm

Re: Retevis RT-95 VHF/UHF

Post by Daniel Wee »

Based on what we built, the RT-95 should be set to output audio on the hand mic:-

(1) FUNC -> (16) SPK -> HAND (or M&H)

VOL is 8
SQL is OFF
CDT is OFF
BND is W


On the Rock64, alsamixer has the CAPTURE level set to 76.
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Daniel Wee
Site Admin
Posts: 2449
Joined: Wed 25 Feb 25 2009 8:00 pm

Re: Retevis RT-95 VHF/UHF

Post by Daniel Wee »

USB sound card used is a Vention VAB-S13&VAB-S17 sound card, based on the HS-100B chip.
AKERS19112586tEH.jpg
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This enumerates as plughw:0 in linux.
Daniel Wee
Site Admin
Posts: 2449
Joined: Wed 25 Feb 25 2009 8:00 pm

Re: Retevis RT-95 VHF/UHF

Post by Daniel Wee »

Attempting to use USB tethering through an Android phone to the rock64 board. The connection needs to be made and then USB tethering can be enabled on the phone. Note that a reset of either the phone or the rock64 board will turn this off and requires manually re-enabling.

In order for the usb0 interface be recognized for use:-

Code: Select all

sudo ifconfig usb0 up
sudo apt install dhcpcd5
sudo dhcpcd usb0
Daniel Wee
Site Admin
Posts: 2449
Joined: Wed 25 Feb 25 2009 8:00 pm

Re: Retevis RT-95 VHF/UHF

Post by Daniel Wee »

This has now been upgraded with a Raspberry Pi 4. The RT-95 volume setting is still set to 12 but the alsamixer L-R mic capture is set to maximum, while the RPi4 volume is set around 56.
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