Tuesday 24 May 2016

Make your DMR text messages work between various radios.


One of the first things you may notice when playing with different DMR radios of different brands is their inability to exchange text messages, in most part this is because the most high end manufacturers like Motorola and Hytera use their own format for sending data over the air, this has always been the case since DMR radios started appearing on the market however things are starting to change... In the latest Motorola CPS (version 11 upwards) there is a setting for each digital channel that allows you to select if you want Motorola format text messaging or DMR standard. To use this feature you need to make sure the radio itself is running the latest firmware. You need to also set the UDP data type to DMR Standard, this checkbox is above the text message type drop down box. For Hytera radios to exchange data using the DMR standard and not Hytera's own format you need to first update your firmware and CPS to the latest version and then in the CPS from the conventional - digital common - basic menu scroll down to the bottom to miscellaneous - data bearer service and change the setting to DMR Standard. After updating the firmware and cps for both radios you will need to read back the code plug from the radio into the CPS and save it as a new code plug. Also please note that changing these settings allows cross communication of data between radios in simplex mode, for repeaters it will probably be a different story. If you are on a Hytera network and use repeaters then I don't recommend changing the data bearer service as it will likely prevent text messaging between other Hytera radios and break things like GPS and forwarding to APRS.


Thanks very much to Andy M6JKA  

Saturday 21 May 2016

Trilogy *Easy Access* Radio Beta testing phase now on

The club has been working on developing a well priced DMR hand held radio for use with the exiitng ham radio network both phoenix and brand master.

The project is being called TRILOGY and we will be testing 2 radios which will be known as *big* and *Small* Please help us by sharing your signal reports and let us know what you think.

After a few weeks of testing we will release a handful into the wild for real world testing.

If you are interested in these radios, or want to help test please do let us know.

See the page tab at the tob of the blog for the latest information (more end of next week)