Radioddity GD-77 & DMR

[Fubar]

So I'm trying to figure out DMR for the first time because I hear that's what all the cool kids are into these days. I have a Radioddity GD-77 that works well enough on the analog side and allegedly supports DMR. I say allegedly because I can't get the darn thing to work.

I have followed a few different Youtube tutorials that all followed the same steps, so I feel like I'm on the right track. I have my ID from radioID.net entered in, I added a "digital contact" using the ID of a talkgroup the repeater is supposed to have, then created a receive group that has that contact as the only thing listed, then created a channel that has the input/output of the repeater entered, color code 1 and time slot 2 as listed in the radioid.net listing for the repeater. The RX group list and contact are both set to the correct talkgroup I want to use. I set the admit criteria to always (since I'm having issues), and the "data call confirmed" is *not* checked.

When I hit the TX button, the red light comes on briefly and shuts off. My close call on the scanner isn't picking up any signals from the radio. If I move to a conventional channel, it works fine with both simplex and repeaters. I know I'm in range of the repeater because I can see the tower from where I'm transmitting (and I can hit the analog repeaters that are at the same site).

I've done quite of bit of googling for answers, but I'm coming up empty on a GD-77 that blinks the TX light and then does nothing. I'd sure appreciate any hints or troubleshooting ideas that you folks may have.

 

[Fubar]

Ack, I just noticed I'd wandered from the Amateur Radio area into the wrong forum. That's what I get for having lots of tabs open, I'd read a post in this forum about the GD-77 and accidentally posted in here.

If an admin can close/delete this thread, please do, I'll post my query in the appropriate forum. My apologies for the intrusion.

 

[Fubar]

[My apologies if anyone sees this twice, I inadvertently posted this question to the wrong forum earlier today]

So I'm trying to figure out DMR for the first time because I hear that's what all the cool kids are into these days. I have a Radioddity GD-77 that works well enough on the analog side and allegedly supports DMR. I say allegedly because I can't get the darn thing to work.

I have followed a few different Youtube tutorials that all followed the same steps, so I feel like I'm on the right track. I have my ID from radioID.net entered in, I added a "digital contact" using the ID of a talkgroup the repeater is supposed to have, then created a receive group that has that contact as the only thing listed, then created a channel that has the input/output of the repeater entered, color code 1 and time slot 2 as listed in the radioid.net listing for the repeater. The RX group list and contact are both set to the correct talkgroup I want to use. I set the admit criteria to always (since I'm having issues), and the "data call confirmed" is *not* checked.

When I hit the TX button, the red light comes on briefly and shuts off. My close call on the scanner isn't picking up any signals from the radio. If I move to a conventional channel, it works fine with both simplex and repeaters. I know I'm in range of the repeater because I can see the tower from where I'm transmitting (and I can hit the analog repeaters that are at the same site).

I've done quite of bit of googling for answers, but I'm coming up empty on a GD-77 that blinks the TX light and then does nothing. I'd sure appreciate any hints or troubleshooting ideas that you folks may have.

 

[k6cpo]

Compared with the ease of programming for the Yaesu System Fusion radios, DMR is a colossal pain in the you-know-what. I bought a DMR handheld mainly because everyone else did, but I've quit using it for DMR. Our ARES group has a local DMR net once a week and I don't even bother checking in.

 

[sallen07]

You can click the "Report" link and ask the moderators to move it to the appropriate forum.

 

[AK9R]

Your threads, both of them, have been moved to the Budget and Entry Level Transceivers forum and they have been merged.

 

[hill]

If the radio doesn't transmit after trying to handshake with the repeater something is wrong in your programming..

Maybe you have the wrong transmit frequency or the wrong color code. Recheck your programming to look for errors.

Close most likely won't work with DMR, due to transmitting using TDMA. Remember DMR radios don't transmit all the time, but transmit in 30 MS time blocks. So the other radio can transmit on the opposite 30 MS blocks for the other time slot.

 

[chief21]

Not sure about the GD-77, but some DMR radio softwares have a "repeater" box. Clicking that selection allows the radio to handshake (coordinate timing) with the DMR repeater.

 

[dickie757]

I have one set up as a high power hotspot. I bring that up because I think you would benefit from the firmware upgrade required to do that. The hotspot is a main reason to upgrade, but it makes the radio much more user friendly.

Go over to

Stable release (2023 03 04) - OpenGD77

and read up on the procedure to flash opengd77 firmware. See if it's something you are comfortable doing.

 

[Fubar]

Hey folks, thank you so much for your replies. It's been 15 years since I last talked on a ham radio, thanks to DMR it might be another 15 at the rate I'm going.

I did a hard reset of the radio and make a very simple configuration and entered in three repeaters. One kind of works! Two don't work at all. Did some more googling and determined that DMR has a handshake and my guess was I was in a marginal coverage location which caused one repeater to sometimes work, which was confusing because it seemed like it meant some talk groups worked and others didn't. Inconsistent test results are maddening. There is also the oddity of the one that kind works uses a positive offset while the two that don't work use a negative offset, making thing something with the firmware was wonky. There isn't anywhere to designate plus or minus, you just program in the actual TX/RX frequencies, but it seemed weird.

When I got the radio it reported a firmware version that the website showed is the newest, at least by version number. But then I checked a bit closer and the V6 series is for Part 90 while the V4 series is for Part 97. So I downloaded the V4 stuff thinking it didn't like ham radio offsets or something, nuked the radio, changed the firmware and..... nothing changed.

I was confused why I could suddenly kind of hit a repeater when I couldn't at all before and found a programming error on my part. So that explained that. Then I went back to the location I had done some previous testing where I can actually see the tower the repeater uses and found all the talk groups for that one repeater worked. About then I saw someone here mention DMR uses a handshake, so where I had been originally testing from must have marginal coverage and was causing the repeater to be inconsistently replying. So me changing talkgroups wasn't causing the radio to stop working, it was perhaps moving a half an inch to the left before trying to transmit. Argh.

Now the goal is to move to a spot where in theory the second and third repeaters I've entered should work.

I'm also very interested in trying out OpenGD77 as someone mentioned. Clearly radioddity's software isn't the best, but I do like the hardware and the audio quality.

Again - thanks for the replies, I do appreciate the support and information.

 

[W7ML]

Did you get all of your DMR working?