Need help with softAP as access point for multiple cliens

Firmware
1

I’m attempting to make race timers using two photons and an iPhone. The photon based timers send a UDP keep alive every one second and another one when the beam is broken. The master timer should also be the WiFi access point. I can’t figure out how to use WiFi.listen and system_mode and system thread to make this work. I used wireshark and never saw a packet sent from the times… Here’s the code

int led = D1;               // This LED will flash every 1 second as to signify that a keepalive sent.
int onboardLED = D7;        // This built-in, tiny LED will flash when a beam break is sent
int BEAM_BREAK = D2;        // This is the input for the button pressed.
uint8_t buf[8];             // buffer to send beam break
uint8_t ping[8];            // buffer to send keepalive
uint8_t inbuf[80];
uint8_t assoIpAddr[4];      // IP address of the iPhone in order to send UNICAST as opposed to BROADCAST
UDP Udp;                    // UDP control
byte mac[6];                // the MAC address of your4+ Wifi shield

volatile bool isAssociated; // if TRUE, the iPhone has responded with it's IP address. From that point forward,
                            //   then this app sill used the destination IP addres listed in assoIpAddr
IPAddress destIP;           // the IP address to send keep-alives, and beam breaks
volatile bool beamBroken;   // When, true, the beam has been broken.
int counter;                // generic counter for counting the number of delay times.


SYSTEM_THREAD(ENABLED);     // Really don't understand what this is or how to use it.

void setup() {
  pinMode(led, OUTPUT);                             // keepalive LED indicater
  pinMode(onboardLED, OUTPUT);                      // signal break was sent
  pinMode(BEAM_BREAK, INPUT_PULLUP);                    // signal when button pressed signaling beam break
  attachInterrupt(BEAM_BREAK, brokenBeam, FALLING); // This sets microswitch as an Interrupt.

  WiFi.listen();

  Udp.begin (8496);         // use this port must differe from sending port
                            // get the MAC address of this device. It will be used in the
                            // protocol to identiry which device is sending the message
   WiFi.macAddress(mac);
  while ( (mac[0] == 0) && (mac[1] == 0) && (mac[2] == 0) ) {
    WiFi.macAddress(mac);
    delay(250);
   }
    
  ping[0] = 0x1;            // Initialize keep alive buffer, with command 1 & 1 as the 
  ping[1] = 0x1;            //    first two bytes.
  ping[2] = mac[5]; ping[3] = mac[4]; ping[4] = mac[3]; ping[5] = mac[2]; ping[6] = mac[1]; ping[7] = mac[0];
  
  buf[0] = 0x1;             // Initialize beam break buffer, with command 1 & 2 as the 
  buf[1] = 0x2;             //    first two bytes. This is used until association then swithed to 1 & 3
  buf[2] = mac[5]; buf[3] = mac[4]; buf[4] = mac[3]; buf[5] = mac[2]; buf[6] = mac[1]; buf[7] = mac[0];
  
                            // IP address storage, first for broadcase, then uicast
  assoIpAddr[0] = 255; assoIpAddr[1] = 255; assoIpAddr[2] = 255; assoIpAddr[3] = 255;
  destIP = IPAddress(assoIpAddr[0],assoIpAddr[1],assoIpAddr[2],assoIpAddr[3]);
  
  isAssociated  = FALSE;
  BEAM_BREAK    = FALSE;
}

void loop() {
    digitalWrite(onboardLED, HIGH); // Signal the process has begun
    
    // Delay for 1 sec, checking every 10 msec to see if the beam was broken.
    // If the beam was broken, send a UCP message and then delay for the rest of
    //   the 1 sec
    counter = 100;
    for ( int i = 0; i < counter; i++ ) {
        delay(10);
        if ( BEAM_BREAK == TRUE ) {
            BEAM_BREAK = FALSE;
            Udp.sendPacket(buf, 8, destIP, 6948);
            digitalWrite(onboardLED, HIGH); 
            delay ( 10 * (counter - i));
            break;
        }
    }
    // Send a keep alive message and turn off the processing LED
    Udp.beginPacket(destIP,6948);   // Create a broadcast UDP packet
    Udp.write(ping,8);
    Udp.endPacket(); 
    digitalWrite(led, LOW); 

    // If we are still in broadcast mode, check to see if the iPhone has sent it's IP address
    //    which will be used to assoiate this communication and move to UNICAST. The UDP
    //    message is started with a single command byte of 0x11 followed by 4 bytes of an IP address
    if ( ! isAssociated ) {
        int packetSize;
        // wait for an incomming packet
        for( int k = 0; k < 25; k++ ) {
            if( 0 < (packetSize = Udp.parsePacket())) break;
            delay(20);
        }
        // If you got a packet (> 0), read it and process it
        if ( packetSize > 0 ) {
            Udp.read( inbuf, 5);
            if ( inbuf[0] == 0x11 ) {
                assoIpAddr[0] = inbuf[1];
                assoIpAddr[1] = inbuf[2];
                assoIpAddr[2] = inbuf[3];
                assoIpAddr[3] = inbuf[4];
                ping[1] = 0x3;
                isAssociated = TRUE;
            }
        }
    }

    digitalWrite(led, HIGH);
    digitalWrite(onboardLED, LOW);
}

//
// This function sends a broadcast message each time the button is pressed
static void brokenBeam(){
    BEAM_BREAK = TRUE;
}