DMR Hotspot Question

[hagensieker]

I jumped on the DMR bandwagon a few years back and then summarily stopped doing it. Fast forward 3 years or so and I've just busted all my old gear out again. I have:

1. Original OpenSpot
2. Original Sum spot for Pi Zero W
3. Jumbospot Chinese clone board on Pi Zero W
4. DVMega Simplex on Pi 3 with Nextion display that I put in a fancy case.

So far I only do DMR so technically there is no reason to update, I guess.

But that never stopped me before.

Even though I only do DMR I am interested in having all the capabilities and probably will mess with D-Star or P25 in the near future. In the years I've been away not much exciting seems to have happened in DMR Hotspots, except for the prices going up.

I can't really tell what is going on with Pi-Star as there seems to be a shake up in the development leadership, so I put WPSD on a couple of my hotspots.

I'm more of a DIY guy but the OpenSpot 4 seems to do it all and it could pull double duty at home or mobile. Wish it had an ethernet option though.

If there is a question here I guess it is "what would you do"? And I'd add again that I do like to have all the capabilities even if I don't exploit them all.

I don't see any MMDVM boards that excite me but maybe I'm missing something.

 

[dickie757]

Are you John of New Bern?

If so, I have been to your site many times, and enjoy your words. If not, go to your_user_name.com

Again, if so, why bring up a mode dependant on the internet when you just wrote about outages and such?

Now, to get to the point of this thread, personally, I have a Pi 3b attached to a Radioddity GD-77 for DMR connection. I was running Pistar, then switched to WPSD, and want to switch back to Pistar. For a while, the gd-77 was connected to BlueDV. When it worked, it worked well, but would freeze without receiving more frequent transmissions from a HT.

Dont give up on your DVMega. Still has all of the power you would need for digi voice. Only thing lacking, and it applies to all of your hotspots, is power output. But, I think you can put a real antenna on DVMega, right?

As far as MMDVM goes, I have my eye on this one:

Repeater Builder STM32-DVM

That was brought up in a bunch of different threads. Just like you, I wasnt thrilled with mmdvm, until I caved in, and looked at STM32 variant. Im not sure what makes me like it. My main interest with mmdvm is P25, as I am learning it on the professional level. I have programmed a APX7000 and 6000 for ham use on analog and P25 emissions, but we dont have P25 VHF repeaters in Tidewater. My eventual plan is to hook one up to VHF mobile, or a repeater if I can find a decent site.

Have a good day,
Dickie

 

[n0xvz]

I can't really tell what is going on with Pi-Star as there seems to be a shake up in the development leadership...

There's not. There's really not. This came up last month. The developer was looking for additional support, but far from a "shake-up in the development leadership". In fact, they recently rolled out 4.2 stable release and 4.3 beta.

That was brought up in a bunch of different threads. Just like you, I wasnt thrilled with mmdvm, until I caved in, and looked at STM32 variant.

That's what's on my HS. I haven't had any issues with it other than ones I've caused.

 

[hagensieker]

Are you John of New Bern?

If so, I have been to your site many times, and enjoy your words. If not, go to your_user_name.com

Again, if so, why bring up a mode dependant on the internet when you just wrote about outages and such?

Now, to get to the point of this thread, personally, I have a Pi 3b attached to a Radioddity GD-77 for DMR connection. I was running Pistar, then switched to WPSD, and want to switch back to Pistar. For a while, the gd-77 was connected to BlueDV. When it worked, it worked well, but would freeze without receiving more frequent transmissions from a HT.

Dont give up on your DVMega. Still has all of the power you would need for digi voice. Only thing lacking, and it applies to all of your hotspots, is power output. But, I think you can put a real antenna on DVMega, right?

As far as MMDVM goes, I have my eye on this one:

Repeater Builder STM32-DVM

That was brought up in a bunch of different threads. Just like you, I wasnt thrilled with mmdvm, until I caved in, and looked at STM32 variant. Im not sure what makes me like it. My main interest with mmdvm is P25, as I am learning it on the professional level. I have programmed a APX7000 and 6000 for ham use on analog and P25 emissions, but we dont have P25 VHF repeaters in Tidewater. My eventual plan is to hook one up to VHF mobile, or a repeater if I can find a decent site.

Have a good day,
Dickie

Yep, that's me and my Tech Blog. Thanks for the kind words. Good point about the internet and outages.

Cool MMDVM board. I would also like to get into P25. My only problem around here is there just isn't a large community of users and while we have some hams and repeaters here nobody messes with any fringe stuff like DMR. I did a demo / talk at the local club once and there were only a couple other people currently on DMR. No Fusion, No D-Star, no nothing.

 

[hagensieker]

There's not. There's really not. This came up last month. The developer was looking for additional support, but far from a "shake-up in the development leadership". In fact, they recently rolled out 4.2 stable release and 4.3 beta.

That's what's on my HS. I haven't had any issues with it other than ones I've caused.

Thanks. I had read their sticky in the forum and blog and just wasn't sure what was going on. Glad to hear that further development is being pursued. That being said I am really liking WPSD.

 

[K5MPH]

There is nothing wrong with Pi-Star I have been using it for years and its running very well .......

 

[ve3rd]

I am a support guy for TGIF using pi-star and Nextion Screens. I had several calls for support on WPSD that have wrinkles on TGIF, and these people have converted back to pi-star. I also re-wrote the DMRGateway and provided a DMRGateway-6 that totally antiquates the WPSD version of the DMRGateway. Neither the pi-star or WPSD version of the DMRGateway support 7 digit talk groups. I provided three modes of operation, each of which will lock into a network, and filter out any other network, so there is no Net switching during lulls in the conversation.

1) Raw mode, send a TG 9001 to 9006 to select and lock in the desired network(yes there are 6 networks). This mode will allow 7 digit talk groups. This mode is very similar to the openspot profile system.
2) 7 Digit mode - Same as pi-star and WPSD. Does not support 7 digit talk groups.
3) 8 Digit talk groups 11x to 16x will select and lock in a network. ie: 14031665 will put you on 31665 on network 4. A special rule is provided to handle 7 digit talk groups.
sending TG9007 will lock out Networks 1 to 6 and enable XLX

Check it out on the TGIF Forum

DMRGateway-6 2024-03-10

DMRGateway-6 2024-03-10

tgifnetwork.createaforum.com

Originally written for DMRGateway-5 - Modified for DMRGateway-6

 

[rf_patriot200]

I jumped on the DMR bandwagon a few years back and then summarily stopped doing it. Fast forward 3 years or so and I've just busted all my old gear out again. I have:

1. Original OpenSpot
2. Original Sum spot for Pi Zero W
3. Jumbospot Chinese clone board on Pi Zero W
4. DVMega Simplex on Pi 3 with Nextion display that I put in a fancy case.

So far I only do DMR so technically there is no reason to update, I guess.

But that never stopped me before.

Even though I only do DMR I am interested in having all the capabilities and probably will mess with D-Star or P25 in the near future. In the years I've been away not much exciting seems to have happened in DMR Hotspots, except for the prices going up.

I can't really tell what is going on with Pi-Star as there seems to be a shake up in the development leadership, so I put WPSD on a couple of my hotspots.

I'm more of a DIY guy but the OpenSpot 4 seems to do it all and it could pull double duty at home or mobile. Wish it had an ethernet option though.

If there is a question here I guess it is "what would you do"? And I'd add again that I do like to have all the capabilities even if I don't exploit them all.

I don't see any MMDVM boards that excite me but maybe I'm missing something.

I use a Skybridge from Bridgecom systems.com which is a Pi4 hotspot which can be used on Wi-fi or Ethernet, since it is equipped with a port. If you choose, you can also crossmode from Dmr to YSF, P25, NXDN, or Pocsag. It also has a Color Nextion Display.

 

[w2xq]

For what it's worth I don't fix things that are working. Still have Pi-Star on a Pi3B and a Pi0. Last update v.4.1.8 2024-03-07, gathered up automatically overnight. No muss, no fuss. All is well in the land of Nod. Giddyup.

 

[marjam49]

You might want to think about getting the Openspot4 pro. It has cross mode features and will even allow you to talk on digital modes with your phone. You can also cross mode into dstar from dmr. If you have the original openspot, you know about the user interface. I didn't ever have the original, but the openspot 4 pro should be familiar to you at the very least.