TYT MD380 firmware reverse engineered

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Admiral
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Re: TYT MD380 firmware reverse engineered

Post by Admiral »

This is way off topic, but before Herr Weetabix jumps in, my understanding of why VHS supremed over Betamax was the mucky vid industry took up VHS and therefore it won out. Maybe an urban myth though.
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Re: TYT MD380 firmware reverse engineered

Post by sec1223 »

Admiral wrote:This is way off topic, but before Herr Weetabix jumps in, my understanding of why VHS supremed over Betamax was the mucky vid industry took up VHS and therefore it won out. Maybe an urban myth though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videotape_format_war

;)
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Re: TYT MD380 firmware reverse engineered

Post by kr0ne »

I think there is a grain of truth in the mucky vid story... as I recall, the Beta tapes were only 60mins long and couldn't fit a whole movie on so the rental industry as a whole adopted VHS instead.

Not sure I buy Zan's theory about the looped casette but can't quite remember... I was given an old Beta machine as a kid and it definitely haf a rewind button, although that doesn't mean much. I remember the tapes had two spools as well though and just looked like a smaller version of a VHS tape.

Not sure what he's hoping to achieve by editing his earlier posts to add and remove large chunks of text that weren't there before either....... :eh:
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Re: TYT MD380 firmware reverse engineered

Post by sec1223 »

kr0ne wrote:
Not sure I buy Zan's theory about the looped casette but can't quite remember... I was given an old Beta machine as a kid and it definitely haf a rewind button, although that doesn't mean much. I remember the tapes had two spools as well though and just looked like a smaller version of a VHS tape.
iv searched all afternoon for some kind of looped cassette and come up with nothing.. i even found the philips n1500 machine that came out a year before betamax that i didnt know about.
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Re: TYT MD380 firmware reverse engineered

Post by kr0ne »

Maybe he was confused as only one spool was visible from the top of the casette?

But as an entirely analogue machine, we are now wayyyyy off topic..... unless....... yes....... didn't Sony use the Betamax video recorder as their first digital audio recording platform, with the addition of an outboard PCM adapter? :geek:
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Re: TYT MD380 firmware reverse engineered

Post by MW6ZAN »

Hi ho just calling in think you all are correct about the betamax my memory is poop i was thinking of some of the studio gear rediffusion had contract to fix so im a silly plonka if i could i would boot myself up the backside but my dodgy hip wont let me toodaloo.73
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Re: TYT MD380 firmware reverse engineered

Post by mountainpenguin »

well that deteriorated quickly ..
Back to the firmware ...
looks like its pretty limited space wise for now so probably one hack at a time rather than magiclantern style
Does anyone know if its been ported to the VHF version yet ?
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Re: TYT MD380 firmware reverse engineered

Post by cjay »

kr0ne wrote:Maybe he was confused as only one spool was visible from the top of the casette?

But as an entirely analogue machine, we are now wayyyyy off topic..... unless....... yes....... didn't Sony use the Betamax video recorder as their first digital audio recording platform, with the addition of an outboard PCM adapter? :geek:
The first cheap ones, yes, SL-F1 with an outboard PCM Digital audio adapter, the PCM-F1. The SL-F1 was an absolute *^%££*(&^£" to repair, we used to send them back to Sony in Slough if they had a problem with the tape lacing mechanism.

Pure Evil.

As for Digital radio, I don't know, UHF, VHF, both 'short' range bands, quite a bit of space on UHF and why not use digital. Doesn't appeal so much to me for my idea of radio, I like them to hiss and crackle, the feeling of hearing a signal coming up out of the noise floor and being able to work them. Digital, it's either there or not, if you can hear it then you can work it.

Takes the fun out of it I think but each to their own, I fully appreciate that digital does it for some and the technology is fascinating but it will spark a format war, whilst you can demodulate SSB or 'slope detect' an FM signal on an AM only radio you will get nothing on a digital radio that has the wrong CODEC so there will be winners and losers.

Welcome to the merry go round of new equipment upgrades every year to accomodate the latest greatest mode.

(Interesting fact about digital comms, some Voice over IP systems introduce background hiss intentionally to give users 'confidence' that they're still connected, apparently a connecton that's too quiet in the gaps between speech makes conversation difficult and users believe that the 'line' has dropped.)
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Re: TYT MD380 firmware reverse engineered

Post by Admiral »

I have no idea about the VHF version, not sure it's too popular as there's no VHF DMR-MARC repeaters and no plans in the pipeline either.

With a modest dipole I can currently receive 13 DMR repeaters of various companies and institutions on UHF, to date I have logged zero on VHF.

And what maniac decided to make no distinction between the VHF and UHF models of the 380 either on the box or radio? The only way to find out which flavour you have is to either switch it on or take the battery off.
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Re: TYT MD380 firmware reverse engineered

Post by paulears »

I've found in my neck of the woods hardly any digital repeater users, but I guess we're just noted for being a 'tight' area where money is concerned.

My Chinese suppliers are never clear on frequencies - confusing dual band with specific band versions. I ordered some and just ignored the mention of VHF 136-175 which was in the spec, because I figured they were just box shifters, and I got a couple of VHF ones. Even some of the manufacturers web sites make band checking tricky. Kirisun I have discovered have two distinct product ranges - one for Chinese consumption and the other for export, but oddly - most radios being sold here are the Chinese models not the euro ones. My contact at Kirisun persists in sending me details of Euro models and minimum order quantities of 50, when I want half a dozen, so end up buying through Alibaba/Aliexpress to get my quantity.

They're all warning about New Year - a two week shutdown happening this weekend, so orders this week have been flying out their doors!

One of my first audio jobs was recoding the sound tracks to silent dutch, er, special interest, movies onto Philips format - the first 1 hour tapes. These cost the equivalent of a weeks wages, £20 in 1976/7. In the workshop I used to repair piles of these because of the cost of new ones. The spool on a spool design with inclined path was a killer. Betamax had a maximum of 3hr 15mins max at the time when VHS only had 3. The Philips (1500 series then 1700 long play) was the first domestic machine. Sony had the U Matic (which is broadly similar in tape head wrap to Beta that came along later), which did 60 mins on a huge cassette with ¾" tape, rather than the domestic ½" tape. These were chunky, clunky and reliable in the main, and mega expensive. Sony then took the Betamax format, gave it some steroids and relaunched it as Betacam, for the first broadcast camcorder, with later on Betacam SP (superior performance) and even Digibeta coming after it.

The Sony audio system was the F1 - their portable Betamax recorder, mated to the PCM adaptor, and for a while was the standard for audio mastering, only to be replaced by Sony DAT - which hung on for years doing computer backups. Bit more history for you! We've managed to have two topics running in one here, haven't we?
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Re: TYT MD380 firmware reverse engineered

Post by kr0ne »

cjay wrote: (Interesting fact about digital comms, some Voice over IP systems introduce background hiss intentionally to give users 'confidence' that they're still connected, apparently a connecton that's too quiet in the gaps between speech makes conversation difficult and users believe that the 'line' has dropped.)
And a small amount of "echo" is also fed back to the person speaking as, for some reason, humans find it much harder to talk on the phone when they can't hear themselves faintly in the earpiece.

If you mess around with the volume and delay of this while someone is talking they begin to stutter and trip over their words, which can be hilarious! :D

Re the merry go round of new equipment for new modes though. What we really need is an open radio platform that we can develop firmware for as thing evolve. Hopefully this hack is a first step towards that and the Chinese manufacturers are watching closely.

They completely embraced the RTL SDR thing after all, so who knows?
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Re: TYT MD380 firmware reverse engineered

Post by cjay »

kr0ne wrote:
And a small amount of "echo" is also fed back to the person speaking as, for some reason, humans find it much harder to talk on the phone when they can't hear themselves faintly in the earpiece.
Yes, that as well, it's weird the way our minds work, anechoic chambers are freaky places.
kr0ne wrote: If you mess around with the volume and delay of this while someone is talking they begin to stutter and trip over their words, which can be hilarious! :D
I tried it while testing an SDR repeater, it's really difficult to talk while listening to yourself repeated back with a delay of more than a hundred or so milliseconds, a completely befuddling experience, I managed it eventually but it was useless for testing audio quality with live speech. Still 'in development' but with recorded speech.
kr0ne wrote: Re the merry go round of new equipment for new modes though. What we really need is an open radio platform that we can develop firmware for as thing evolve. Hopefully this hack is a first step towards that and the Chinese manufacturers are watching closely.

They completely embraced the RTL SDR thing after all, so who knows?
Defintely the way forward for digital but I think the problem will be that ADC/DAC chips, DSPs and CPUs evolve, so new 'protocols' will use new facilities and you'll need to buy new 'modules' at best, worst a new platform entirely.

Maybe an open standard for plug in modules for existing radios, if of course manufacturers could be herded into a room and forced to co-operate (cattle prods if necessary)

I agree it's a great way forward to have open source platform though.
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Re: TYT MD380 firmware reverse engineered

Post by Admiral »

That's a cool idea, DMR duplex, now that would get up the noses of the 'it's just a cell phone' brigade.
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Re: TYT MD380 firmware reverse engineered

Post by Admiral »

Admiral wrote:
With a modest dipole I can currently receive 13 DMR repeaters of various companies and institutions on UHF, to date I have logged zero on VHF.
And today I logged my first VHF DMR repeater, 165.425, CC2, TG1000, Slot 1, RID 103 (Kev) and RID 105 (unknown), and a right pair of bucketmouths too, I wonder if the licencees monitor any of this filth?

If you're a member here Martin W. then I have some juicy audio being transmitted on your repeater that you may wish to review.
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Re: TYT MD380 firmware reverse engineered

Post by WhiteNoisePoetry »

kr0ne wrote:I think there is a grain of truth in the mucky vid story... as I recall, the Beta tapes were only 60mins long and couldn't fit a whole movie on so the rental industry as a whole adopted VHS instead.
Why would anyone need more than 60 mins ?

I'd consider seeing a doctor if that were the case :D

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