WiFi & Profiles Strange Behaviour

[g4swx]

Hi All,

I have encountered an issue with the way in which WiFi SSIDs and keys are stored and recalled in the RRC-1258.

I have several remote stations with different capabilities; TS2000, K3, VHF and 144MHz EME all using different ports etc and therefore have set up my control RRC with a number of different profiles. I sometimes run from different locations and apart from some hotel systems where they insist on authentication with a HTTP form all is fine with wired Ethernet. This authentication problem caused a demonstration that I had set-up for my talk on remote operation at the RSGB convention a week ago to fail:-(

I have recently tried running using WiFi access from a number of places where I have not known the SSID and key in advance. These are 'normal' WiFi systems with no additional authentication. If the SSID and key are known in advance there is no problem dropping them, beforehand into the WiFi settings of the respective profile using the web interface, preferably whilst the RRC-1258 is connected to a wired Ethernet system.
However if you go to a new location with working WiFi and then use the set-up manager via the USB interface to a PC to set up the WiFi parameters, these seem to be all are stored in the 'default' profile whichever profile has been selected beforehand. I suspect that this is a minor error in addressing the memory location from this form.

If you then change the RRC-1258, using the Setup manager to the correct profile to enable you to connect to the remote station whose parameters are stored in that profile it will no longer have a WiFi connection as the SSID and key is not stored against that profile.
This is very frustrationg as it seems that the only way to switch radios in this situation is to edit all of the parameters in the default profile.

I hope this all makes sense. If anybody has found an easy way around this please let me know.

73
John G4SWX

[Jan (Microbit)]

Hi John,

What you are seeing when trying to use the Setup Manager is not an "error" but a "limitation" of how it works. Setup Manager has always worked against the default profile as it was from the beginning meant to be used to get the RRC running and then to do the rest of the configuration from the web interface. After that we added profiles and WiFi and so this has become a problem in situations like yours. Our intention is to fix this issue in the future but it is a rather tricky thing so we have not had the opportunity to do so yet. In version 1.21 of the Setup Manager a pop-up message box is displayed when doing setup and/or WiFi with the message:

Note that the setup data is always loaded and saved from/to the default profile regardless of currently active profile! When saving the setup data the active profile will be changed to the default profile.

trying to inform about this limitation.

[g4swx]

Thanks Jan,

I have now upgraded my version of the setup manager. It is a shame as I have a set of demonstrations that I can run from my various ststions but not easily without the simple switch by changing profiles.
I am wondering if it might be possible to keep the current way that the WiFi works on the default profile but add an option on the 'save' to enable the SSID & Key entered to be stored within a particular profile.
If you are interested in a copy of the talk which I gave at the RSGB convention please drop me a direct email.

73
John G4SWX

[Jan (Microbit)]

I think that the "least difficult" way for us is to implement a way to work against any profile when changing IP or WiFi settings.

[Jan (Microbit)]

John,

If you give RRC v2.75 and Setup Manager v1.24 a try you might be lucky and find out that saving to all profiles works