does anyone have OI and RC radio issues

[waialua359]

so whatever the technical jargon is, these new radios are not as efficiently "strong" as the old ones when other potential interferences occur.

That's so strange. I dont know what it is about our new radios, but we didnt follow anyones advise about where to place them (away from motors, etc.). Our objective was to put it somewhere convenient first. In fact, our's is laying down with the antenna sideways to fit under our ramp platform. We also have a lot of "cell-phones" around including our open house.
Conclusion: NO problems with our new radios.
Must be some non-uniform device inside our radios that vary between teams.

[Gary Dillard]

Originally Posted by Swampdude

We DID contact IFI, they kindly directed us to the forum and said that should fix it, have a nice day. In other words we got that same sentiment I'm seeing other people recieved, its not our equipment its how your using it. And that was about 2 weeks ago.

Mike:

I did the same thing as Dan and got the same response from IFI - read the forum and try all the fixes and have a nice day. I even told them that our radios were cutting out in a small closed room sitting on a table a few feet from each other, while we were bench checking the electrical system. No cell phones around, no metal from the robot, direct path between antennas. Never an indication from them that there is a systemic problem. The only reason I called them at all was I saw the hundreds of posts on CD from teams who were having problems, and the advice from one person who had received an RMA number. I did not post my problem here - it looked like it was pretty well covered. I believe your estimate of 10 calls is grossly low.

[Danny Diaz]

Originally Posted by Doug Leppard

We didn't see the problem until we tested heavily this week. I think a lot of teams are having the problem but just don't see it yet.

We just had our "pre-ship mini-meet" here in Central Texas, and we had a number of issues that were very, very strange - I would say they all could be related to the radio modems. It seemed as if when our robot got near our team coach, the robot would be very unreliable. In one event the drivers were pushing the joysticks to make the robot turn, but the robot suddenly became completely nonresponsive, though there was no indication on the LEDs that the radio was out.

Our shop just isn't large enough to do any kind of really decent radio modem tests, though we never had any problems in our shop with the OI and RC between 5 and 10 feet from each other or near our team coach or other sources of interference. This is making us very concerned, we've followed all the regular best practices specified by IFI but there were too many instances of radio unreliability this weekend.

-Danny

[UlTiMaTeP]

I'm so pro-First and pro-IFI its crazy. But, I don't like the fact that IFI is taking the defense that it is our problems, mounting etc. It is obviously a FIRST-wide problem, and a radio design problem. Ignoring the fact that it is a faulty design won't make this go away. Some teams say their new RMA'ed radios have worked better than their first ones.

Our radios lose packets at 3 feet away sitting on top of a wooden table. This year we have a new communications engineer mentor who basicly said, if the connections are tight, and it is still losing sync at that distance, nothing is gonna fix these radios.

As I stated a week ago: IFI will solve these problems, Go First.

[waialua359]

Letting veteran teams use old radios should be allowed in this situation. FIRST is all about sharing and caring. I am sure it wouldnt be unfair for teams that dont have access to them because others would share during the matches.
No one would blatently let a team suffer because of malfunctioning radios.
This would actually help IFI with the demands to fix the new radios.
Even though ours works now, I am still advocating for others.

[N7UJJ]

At our scrimmage in AZ yesterday, there were several incidents of odd radio modem communications loss. Not sure why. It could be because of the radios but then again it can be battery problems, lose wiring, etc.

I think the real problem, for us anyway, is we don't trust the new radios because of all the bad reports. We kind of expect to see radio problems.

I would feel more confident if we were using the older radios. The problem with that, of course, is rookie teams do not have older radios, but veteran teams, who have been issued a radio set every year, have multiple sets and there should be plenty in the FIRST pool to provide everyone at competitions with a pre-2007 radio modem.

Actually, at competitions we only need 6 older radio sets, one for each robot competing. Another dozen or two for the teams in the queue and it seems the radio problem would be solved for this year.

[Doug Leppard]

We had our practice match yesterday, only about 4-5 robots really moving.

There was at least two of us having the radio problems. It goes like this:

1. Radio modem lights flash rapidly back and forth (Standby and Receive)
2. RC lights flashing wierdly.
3. OI lights flashing wierdly.
4. Lasts about 5-15 seconds not enough time to capture what exactly is happening.
5. It seems what ever the robot controller mode it was in stays in. Yesterday it was in fast forward and went into that radio drop out mode and it stayed fast forward and bot climbed the rack to a 45 degree angle. Didn't know it could do that. VERY DANGEROUS, YOU CAN NOT STOP OR CONTROL ROBOT WHEN IT DOES IT.

Does do it more when cell phones are around.

Needs to be fixed or we will have dangerous situations with robots out of control.

[Racer26]

Alot of people are commenting on Cell Phones causing problems with the radios.

I really don't know what they think is gonna happen when they throw 6 robots on the field on flaky wireless connections in a hockey arena full of people with cell phones. Seems like asking for trouble. Our 07 radios seemed to work sort of, but the latency is even an issue. The pre-07 radios were awesome, and I still want to know why we changed. You say they couldn't build another 1300 of them... why not? These are far less reliable, MORE difficult to mount (what was that about equivalent technologies getting SMALLER as time goes on?). I think that the problem is very few teams actually assemble and test their controls in an environment similar to competition, BEFORE the week before ship. THIS is the problem. If this had been construed to IFI they might have been able to fix the situation, or tell FIRST to allow pre-07 radios. I know 1075 has 3 different sets of pre07 radios, and they're all infinitely better than these. We've been testing with 06 radios... supposed to put 07 ones back on it today. Mounting them as good as is possible may still not be enough... there's no way we can mount them 6-8" from any metal.

[Dave Campbell]

We followed the "best practices" from IFI forum for mounting and have the correct version of code, and it still drops occasionally. We'll contact IFI today and make them aware of our difficulties, too. The old radios - which we have 6 pair, work fine!

[Cody Carey]

Originally Posted by 1075guy

I still want to know why we changed. You say they couldn't build another 1300 of them... why not?

From what I understand, some of the parts in the old radios were from older cellphones and were obsolete. They had to redesign because they couldn't get a hold of the older parts any longer.


We have Radios from 9 years of competition at our shop... and we would be more than glad to bring them to a competition to lend out to people. I wish FIRST would allow this, because if things continue on as they are with the newer radios... People can expect to be in control of their robot less than half the time during competitions.

[cnat03]

We had our pre-ship scrimmage yesterday and experienced the same issues. I had taken the precaution to download the U14 beta mastercode but it did not seem to solve the problem. We didn't have any issues with run-away robots but we did experience the dropouts and glitchy operation. All of the teams running saw the same issue.

Steve Stark

[triggerhappy336]

Nice to see everyone having this problem, I was worried it was our electronics. Being a rookie team, when the robot cuts motion for not reason, it freaks us out. We had no idea what was wrong.

[Ben Englert]

We are finally system testing (driving + arm + everything else), and we are having the same or similar issues - robot stops moving for about 1/2sec, OI light "No data/radio" flashes, and then everything goes back to normal. Seems to happen with increasing frequency as we slowly add in more and more of our software (presumably putting a higher load on the PIC), which is bizarre because the radio is handled by the master processor, which has nothing to do with us.

[EHaskins]

I was at the Sussex, WI mini-regional today, and everyone there had radio issues.

[Swampdude]

We did cell phone tests tonight. BINGO! Make or recieve a call within 30 feet of the bot and it starts glitching bad (this distance may be greater but I was on the phone and walked away from it and it seemed to get better after I was in the next room). Then also just hold it near the bot (while not in use) and every 15 seconds or so it starts fluttering.
So whats the answer, ban cell phones from the competitions? Can someone get IFI to read this thread? Someone said if it is a cell phone issue, you can't fix it. Which I gather those frequencies can't be altered out of that range? I contacted the FIRST Florida rep (Charles Kennedy), and he's waiting to hear back from FIRST. The way I see it, this is a bigger issue than the banebot problem because we all need to use these radios.