Tail Message

Tail Message / Station Message

A tail message is a short recording your node plays at the end of a transmission, every so often. It's a good place for your callsign, your node name, or a net reminder. Click any command line to copy it.

Setup

Make a folder for your messages called StationMSG inside /etc/asterisk/local/: mkdir /etc/asterisk/local/StationMSG
Record your message in Audacity and save it as a .ulaw file, for example tailmsg.ulaw. See “Making the audio file” below for the exact export settings.
Copy the file into the folder on your node, e.g. with WinSCP, or from a terminal: scp -P 222 tailmsg.ulaw root@<NODE-IP>:/etc/asterisk/local/StationMSG/
Open your node config: nano /etc/asterisk/rpt.conf

Scroll down to ; TAIL MESSAGE and remove the ; from the front of these three lines:

tailmessagetime=5400000     ; play a tail message every 90 minutes
tailsquashedtime=300000     ; if another user talks over it, try again after 5 minutes
tailmessagelist=/etc/asterisk/local/StationMSG/tailmsg   ; message(s) to play

Save and reboot (or run asterisk -rx "rpt reload"). reboot

Your node will now play the message after a transmission, every 90 minutes.

More than one message

Add more files to tailmessagelist, separated by commas with no spaces. The node cycles through them in order, one each time a tail message plays.

tailmessagelist=/etc/asterisk/local/StationMSG/tailmsg,/root/nameofsecondfile

Use the full path to each file and leave off the extension: write tailmsg, not tailmsg.ulaw. Files can live anywhere on the node, but keeping them all in StationMSG makes them easy to find.

Timing calculator

The times in rpt.conf are in milliseconds. Pick your minutes and copy the lines.

Play the message every If talked over, retry after

Minutes	Milliseconds
1	`60000`
5	`300000`
15	`900000`
30	`1800000`
60	`3600000`
90	`5400000`

Making the audio file

HamVOIP plays telephone-quality audio, so the file needs to be in a specific format. In Audacity:

Record your message, or open an existing recording.
If it's stereo, choose Tracks → Mix → Mix Stereo Down to Mono.
Set the Project Rate (bottom left of the window) to 8000 Hz.
Choose File → Export → Export Audio.
Set the file type to Other uncompressed files, the header to RAW (header-less), and the encoding to U-Law.
Name it something like tailmsg.ulaw and save.

Normalize the audio (Effect → Normalize) before exporting so the message plays at about the same level as people talking on the node.

Tips

Keep it short. A few seconds is plenty. The node stays keyed while the message plays.

It only plays after activity. A tail message rides on the end of someone's transmission. If nobody keys up, the node stays quiet.

To turn it off, put the ; back in front of the three lines, then save and reboot.

File names are case-sensitive. StationMSG and stationmsg are different folders. If the message never plays, check the path in tailmessagelist matches exactly.