Uniden Scanners, DMR ham repeaters, and the RR database...

Hello all,

We have a thread going on in the Uniden Tavern on entering ham repeaters into the RadioReference database. I'd like to ask a question about that specifically regarding DMR repeaters.

I have a few DMR repeaters nearby. I'd love to add them as single-frequency trunked systems, but there are some problems with that.

Ham radio DMR has about ~500 fixed talkgroups, but also has several thousand talkgroup IDs available for "pick up" or short term use groups. If I made a TGID to text string lookup table for those then I would be looking at ~5ish MB of text uncompressed for that lookup table. This table changes very rarely.

The ham DMR network has ~118,600 users across both systems, with each user having a DMR ID (number) that can be converted into an alphanumeric ham callsign. This lookup table is about 2MB of text uncompressed. This table changes weekly as more users are added to the system.

There are two different DMR ham radio systems that don't (usually) play nice with each other. They use different talkgroups between each system, however all the repeaters within a system share the same talkgroups.

A link to this data can be found at https://radioid.net/ if you ignore the site's badly configured ssl certificate.

Adding all that data to just a single repeater is far more then the 1mb limit for a single favorites list, so even if I were to get it into RR, it wouldn't fit into a Uniden Scanner.

Understanding that it isn't feasible to add the reality of the system into RR, how do folks suggest I add a usable subset of the data to the database so that it can be preloaded into my scanner on the next system update?

I added all my repeaters as single freq trunked with the DMR-MARC talkgroups. Don't display user id because that's useless due to database size.

As far as talkgroups, you can always keep that system in ID SEARCH mode to catch any and all talkgroups.

I even went in and set generic geo-data for each repeaters city.. Works great with GPS while traveling.

n9mxq said:

I added all my repeaters as single freq trunked with the DMR-MARC talkgroups. Don't display user id because that's useless due to database size.

As far as talkgroups, you can always keep that system in ID SEARCH mode to catch any and all talkgroups.

I even went in and set generic geo-data for each repeaters city.. Works great with GPS while traveling.

Click to expand...

This is pretty much how I do it as well. I added all Michigan DMR ids because that's what I hear most.

As far as all TGs loaded, at least in Michigan, most amateur DMR have a limited number of TGs. It's usually 5 or 6 per time slot. So that's what I have programmed.

On my hotspot that's a different story.

I did submit the Cass County DMR repeater for the RR db. Still working with them to get it correct.

Hit_Factor said:

I did submit the Cass County DMR repeater for the RR db. Still working with them to get it correct.

Click to expand...

Excellent! I was hoping that someone had already submitted one.

If you let me know when it's live (maybe by posting in this thread?) then I can use it as an example for the bunch of them around here.

I just looked - it's in the latest Sentinel download and here is the page https://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?ctid=1240&tab=ham

It's an incomplete listing, I have asked them to add the other TGs and remove the 'indiana based' comment. It's wrong and makes the display too wordy.

Just noticed, I don't use DMR trunked as stated earlier in this thread. I use DMR one frequency. Somewhere in the last week or two I posted how to setup non-trunked DMR. I don't think trunked is in the scope of ham DMR.

Wouldn't a single trunked system for DMR-MARC (and another for brandmeister) with multiple sites be more accurate of a model?

I'm also completely cool with submitting single system points for each one, but they are actually linked in the backend.

The difference would be that hitting "avoid" on a talkgroup on a single linked system would continue to avoid that group as you drove around hopping from different repeaters, while that same action with a bunch of one-system-per-repeater models would need to have the same talkgroup avoided once per repeater.

The potential challenge with a single linked system is that there are ~1300 repeaters on DMR in the USA and Canada, split between DMR-MARC and brandmeister. I'm not sure if it makes sense to have a cross-nation single linked system. Hrm...

Amatuer radio isn't ever going to orgainze in a way that listing DMR-Marc as one trunked system and Brandmeister as the other will work. The backend link (the internet) is not a trunked system, it's as a repeater.

The hotspot (DVMega, Zumspot, SharkRF2) is the solution for what you want to do. It won't be trunked, but you will have access to thousands of TGs. "57 Channels (And Nothin' On)" by the Boss, just came to mind.

Minimal information for a DMR ham repeater should be frequency and color code.

The rest could go on a Wiki page.