We’re on Brandmeister talk group 3126 statewide Michigan for the DMR Tech Net on Monday, June 3rd from 7:30pm ET – 8:30pm ET.
Join us Monday as we discuss “Zero Configuration Radios – Why are we still programming radios?” with William Franzin VE4VR. He moderated a forum on this topic at the Dayton Hamvention two weeks ago. Dustin N8RMA and the MichiganONE DMR Net covered this on November 18, 2021. https://www.michiganonedmr.net/2021/11/zero-configuration-radio-lets-put-end.html
We’d like to hear your comments and questions about Zero Configuration Radios.
Join us as we demystify and have fun with DMR (Digital Mobile Radio) every Monday night!
You can always chat with the DMR Tech Net team on TGIF talk group 31268, the DMR Tech Net channel or Brandmeister talk group 31266, the Michigan Nets channel.
If you have a comment or a DMR topic idea for the DMR Tech Net, please share it with any of us. Send an email to: steve@dmrtechnet.net, stan@dmrtechnet.net, tom@dmrtechnet.net, dana@dmrtechnet.net, brian@dmrtechnet.net, or brad@dmrtechnet.net.
If you want to subscribe to this newsletter, send an email to subscribe@dmrtechnet.net and we’ll get you added to the list. If you want to see previous newsletters, check out our website: https://dmrtechnet.net/
Here are the Michigan DMR nets we know about. Please join in & participate on them.
Saturday:
- 7:00pm Arrow DMR Net on BrandMeister talk group 3126
- 7:30pm DMR Trivia Net on TGIF talk group 31268
Sunday:
- 6:30pm UP (Upper Peninsula) Net on BrandMeister talk group 31268
Monday:
- 7:30pm DMR Tech Net on BrandMeister talk group 3126
- 8:30pm Michigan One DMR Net on BrandMeister talk group 3126
The DMR Tech Net team is branching out with a monthly show called DMR Tech Net TV on Zoom the third Tuesday of each month from 8pm-9pm ET
- We have Matt Genelin N0YNT and Jeff Hochberg W4JEW to present their Dayton Hamvention Forum discussion on “DMR – How the Packets get your Voice from Here to There” on the next DMR Tech Net TV on Tuesday, June 18.
- We’re working to schedule Corey Dean N3FE to go over the BrandMeister USA network, how to get the most out of using it, and best practices.
- We’re also working to reschedule Steve Miller KC1AWV and Ed Wilson N2XDD to discuss the M17 Network Project.
- Stay tuned as we work on finding a time and date convenient for them.
- If you missed previous DMR Tech Net TV broadcasts, you can watch them on our YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq4TAnA-_yE7kdcuaKzw8rQ - If you have a topic or issue you would like discussed, let us know.
Join the DMR Tech Net team on Telegram and Discord
Feel free to share this link with anyone interested in joining the ZCR Discord group. https://discord.gg/TXERK6gN
Thank you
William VE4VR
Zero Configuration Radio – Let’s put an end to programming radios, codeplugs and all that stuff.
Update after Dayton Hamvention 2024 – Join the discussion at / discord where we’re looking for individuals to assist with protocol development and platform deployment. I’ve been working on prototypes and proof of concepts to make provisioning radios possible over digital protocols. The idea is simple – here’s by grid square, what’s yours? Do you need a copy of my home zone? Here it is. Welcome to the beginning of the end of programming radios. Donations to buy hardware are always appreciated.
Here’s the link to watch William’s presentation about Zero Configuration Radios: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9nuKnfMxuQ
hi there, it’s William ve4vr i recently did a presentation to the
Winnipeg amateur radio club which is our local radio club here in Winnipeg Canada
i thought I’d record this similar presentation and post it here on YouTube
So I’ve been working on something that I call zero configuration radio and it’s
actually driven by a pain point that I think is common for a lot of amateur
radio operators i got into this hobby in 1994 and ever since then I’ve been
programming radios to the keypad serial cables you know with windows 95 or usb
cables with you know what is it windows 98 windows 7 windows 10 and other operating systems
So over the years radios have you know gone from keypad programming to usb
programming and now what I’m seeing is actually the problem is getting worse
because as we get into digital radio the configuration that you have to program
for each radio is a different software application incompatible programming
files it’s a real mess and if you think about the world of cellular phones they
figured out how to do roaming 40 years ago so how can a group of radio nerds
that you know can talk to the space station about signals off the moon why
are we still programming radios manually when the rest of the world figured this
out like 40 years ago so my goal here is to actually show you some proof of
concept and prototype work that I’ve been doing and hopefully inspire the
right people to make this happen on a massive scale.
so first of all you start off with how do we how do we how do we actually
build this we’ve got so many different incompatible formats right now we’ve got
d-star they can’t talk the system fusion which can’t talk to dmr or nxdn or any
of these digital formats but we’ve got a few digital formats that are hugely
popular and totally incompatible so I’m probably looking at the mmdvm project
which is a fantastic piece of development work and really this is an amazing tool in itself
so, i could start off with something like a hot spot so i asked my radio buddy dan v for drk said hey
can i borrow a bunch of stuff from you I want to build some prototypes and i
poked around with hot spots and then I looked at the mmd vm that repeater
builder offers the stm32 which is fair you know it’s highly regarded and you
know that plus a mobile radio or repeater I’d have a high power unit and
then i started digging further and I landed on if i want to build a prototype
or a proof of concept that i can show the world
I’m going to use the opengd77 firmware on the gd77 handheld and the reason why i would go for that I’m going
to dig into that right here this radio I honestly think is perhaps the coolest
ham radio these days it’s not the most expensive it doesn’t have a fancy color
touch screen on it or anything like that what it has is the ability for ham radio
operators to build custom firmware images for it adding features to it and
i saw a Facebook post in the last week where someone had uh i guess added
satellite doppler shift correction to this handheld radio which is really cool
i don’t recall seeing that kind of a feature in any of the big name products
that are out there you know for myself I have an Icom ID51 a Yaesu ft70 and
AnyTone 868 and for the most part while those radios work they’re kind of boring
they can’t do anything with them other than
what they’ve been built to do out of the box and you have to spend a ton of time
programming these devices before you can actually do anything
in fact the least programming probably goes into the system fusion radio where you just type
in a frequency and say i want digital but that doesn’t solve some of the core
problems here amateur radio operators are spending a huge amount of time
programming radios and then the moment you travel you know even an hour away
from your home location that programming code plug or whatever you’ve loaded in
there’s almost useless so what i was looking at here is if i want to solve
this problem i need a provisioning server so if i go with a hotspot or if i
go with stm i need a radio still and I need to be able to get some coverage out
of this thing gt77 is a 5-watt radio all i need to do here is i need to go get
the source code for it and add some functions to this thing and basically
throw it up on the roof here of a tall building and all of a sudden this radio
can hand out whatever zone i program into it to any visitors in the area so
I’m like this is perfect that’s what I want to play with so this is to me uh
the perfect prototype to build on.
now let’s dig into how this thing works you have a gd77 radio you’re running modified firmware opengd77 with more
functions that everyone’s adding to it every week so now i have my function
that can send and receive data so first of all here’s my radio id 302 4043 call
sign v4 vr and where i live is important because this is how we’re going to
determine who’s at home and who’s roaming or traveling my home grid square
is en19kt and the version that i have of my home zone is version one because i
later on if you come and visit multiple times i might have an updated version
with different frequencies or color codes or whatever and you need to know
that i have a new version of that and you want to grab it from my radio so i
have a second radio In this case i used my dad’s call sign for an example.
he has a different radio id and he’s across the river from me so he’s in a
different grid square so right away these two radios say hey i am I’m different from you
maybe can you send me your roaming zone and they can store that so basically I’m just
using I’m using grid square to determine uh am i a visitor to your area and if so
can you send me your zone that you have so all it takes is one radio
programmed and that can offer it up to everyone else now here’s the idea
right i pulled this from dhcp and i was thinking about how would dhcp solve this
problem when i was building this dhcp when you’re on a network in the
computer and you plug in a laptop or whatever desktop Xbox doesn’t matter
it’s basically looking for a server to hand it addresses so it knows how to
communicate with the network that’s really what I’m trying to do here so
these other radios that receive that request they can then offer here’s what i have
and i can choose from that on the radio and pick the one that i want and
provision the radio so all we’re doing is you start with that
bare radio and we’re asking the neighbors nearby what do you got and
then if so can you share your programming with me.
the purpose of doing this is we make the concept of having to program a radio
ever totally obsolete now we have one radio in the city that can serve all the
other radios so it could be a handheld radio mobile radio repeater as long as
it can handle that provisioning request and hand it out in the form at the radio
understands we’re good to go so this really got me back to something
that was hugely popular 15 years ago Linksys released the wrt 54g router and
it wasn’t anything special really in its day it was just another router you could
go to your store and buy for your internet at home but what happened is
people found it contained gpl software and as a result the source code for how
to build firmware images for that router got released it turned into probably the
biggest deal in networking ever this thing was used with firmware images
like open wrt ddwrt tomato people had this thing running vpn servers and even
we’re building robots and all sorts of stuff controlled by this because once
you’ve got a little computer you can open it up and hook up to its serial
ports or its gpios and the LEDs and you can do anything it turned it into the
modification platform for routers and open wrt and other firmware just still
live on to this day on hundreds of other routers now
This thing sparked a revolution and i think that’s where this thing is too you know ham radio
for the most part doesn’t really allow for a lot of modification anymore i have
a Icom id51 of yes to fd70 and any tone 868 a few handhelds and they’re
great but they’re kind of boring because you can’t do anything with them all you
can do is program them and say well that’s the way the company shipped it
that’s the feature in the firmware I can’t do anything about it i think that
needs to change and this is the proof right here so the gd77 was reverse
engineered and now there’s an open source gd7 built for it which means i
can go download that source code so I did i can go compile custom images for
the gd7 and try crazy ideas like building a provisioning server for it
and that’s exactly the point of this video really i just want to get your
attention and i want to talk to the right people and say how do i go from
crazy ideas to rolling this out so if you are someone that works at icom Yaesu
Kenwood or if you’re a developer that wants to help build this out we need to
talk this is a pain point for amateur radio and the first way I’m going to try and do
some actual production proof of concepts now
i have to talk to our local repeater group this is a shot i took off the roof of the building about a week ago when
we’re there doing maintenance all it’s going to take is a gd77 handheld with a
custom firmware image a filter and a uhf antenna up on the roof of this building
and I’m offering provisioning requests to all the gd77 radios that are able to
receive that so that’s how simple this is to solve and it doesn’t have to be
that handheld it could be software updates to a Dstar repeater a system
fusion repeater could be a dmr repeater or it could be something as simple as
just a cheap hundred buck handheld radio plugged into an antenna on the roof of
the building and you’ve covered a city of 700 plus thousand people you’ve
covered that whole area with provisioning
so that’s what i want to solve here i need your help to do it if you’re watching this video there’s a
good chance you probably understand what’s going on here and might be
interested in helping take care
The DMR Tech Net team is helping Dustin N8RMA with NCS duties on the Michigan One DMR net on Monday nights. If you would like to help with our schedule of Net Control Station operators, send an email to dana@dmrtechnet.net. Here’s the upcoming list of upcoming NCS’:
- June 3 Steve KC8WXM
- June 10 Dustin N8RMA
- June 17 Brad KE8WNV
- June 24 Bob KB8DQQ
https://www.michiganonedmr.net/
If you want to donate to BrandMeister to help them run their DMR network, Corey Dean N3FE shared the following links:
3102 and 3104 donations https://www.nfoservers.com/donate.pl?force_recipient=1&recipient=n3fe%40repeater.net
3103 donations https://www.nfoservers.com/donate.pl?force_recipient=1&recipient=w7xm%40w7xm.com
Robert Bretzman K4WZV of the TGIF network mentioned this if you want to donate to their network:
The servers that run the TGIF Network draw money from a coffer fund. We pay for much of it out of our own pockets, so we very much appreciate any donations. If you wish to donate, you may do so by clicking the donation link: https://www.paypal.com/donate/
If you want to donate to RadioID.net, Glen Bizeau VE9GLN said you can subscribe to his website for additional features: https://radioid.net/account/membership.
You can also purchase RadioID.net merchandise at https://store.radioid.net/.
Garrett Down KD6KPC of Repeaterbook.com shared this if you want to donate to his website:
To run a website like Repeaterbook.com, revenue is needed to keep it active on the web. There are bills to be paid, hosting companies to be paid, SSL certificates to be purchased, and other expenses that go along with the research and development of the data. The costs add up.
Repeaterbook has committed to keeping access to its data completely free. Since we don’t charge for the data or access to the site, we decided to incorporate ads into the site. The ads generate revenue that has been sufficient to pay the bills (most months). With the advent of ad-blocking technology, we began to see ad revenue slip. We get it. Many people don’t want to see ads and our stats indicate that up to 30% of our site visitors are using an ad blocker. Some say the performance on the site has even suffered waiting for ads to load. And come are concerned about Internet tracking through the ads (yes, Google does it).
We think we have found a solution to meet in the middle.
You can now subscribe to Repeaterbook and obtain a membership that will silence the ads on Repeaterbook. This form of obtaining revenue while quieting ads is used on qrz.com.
So now we have two option to fit your preference:
- Enjoy Repeaterbook completely free, while enduring the ads that appear.
- Sign up for a Repeaterbook subscription and silence the ads.
To take advantage of this offer, you must be a registered user in good standing. Look at our Subscription Plans:
https://www.repeaterbook.com/index.php/en-us/ad-free
Finally, join and become a member of your local amateur radio club. They can use your dues to help defray the costs of running the club and repeater.
Topics for future DMR Tech Nets:
- Go over the Digimon feature to explain what it is, how and why to use it.
- Private calling on your DMR radio. How to set it up on your equipment.
- What’s involved with being a NCS (Net Control Station)?
- Do you contribute to the DMR networks/modes you utilize? Why or why not?
- Firmware and software radio updates.
- Hot Keys. What are they, why use them, and how to set them up.
- DMR tips. Like what Steve KC8WXM mentioned to better (and faster) utilize DMR features.
- Adding or changing DMR channels via keypad programming.
- How to update your DMR digital contacts via https://radioid.net/
- Asking check-ins what they know now that they didn’t know when they started with DMR that would be helpful to other beginners (Elmering).
- A timeline to get started of essential things to do with DMR and why.
- Which DMR radio do you use the most & why?
- Proper DMR practices & procedures to use on-air.
- DMR text messaging
- Advanced features of the Anytone 878 handheld and 578 mobile radio.
- Going over the different DMR networks (Brandmeister, TGIF, M17, DMR+, YSF, etc).
- Useful radio accessories to use with your DMR equipment.
- Unique names used instead of the amateur radio alpha codes.
- Antennas for handheld, mobile, and home radios.
- Logging software.
- QSL cards Do you send them out?
- Repeaters, hotspots, or both? Which do you use and why?
- WPSD hotspot dashboard.
- APRS & GPS setup and usage.
- Custom call signs.
- What are your predictions for the DMR world in 2024?
- What networks and talk groups do you use, and why?
- What features do you wish your DMR radio had?