The State of the Art of Digital Radio In Pennsylvania...

WA5LEE
UPDATE: January 8, 2019

DMR Check Ins for 1/8/2019 (41)

 

KC3LEE Net Control

AB3SU
K0PB
K3NXU
K3ZED
K4KAH
K5TGS
KA3VEI
KB3HGJ
KB3JC
KB3VXB
KB3ZID
KB7THL
KC2LEB
KC3HOJ
KC3HSM
KC3LYZ
KC3RV
KD5OLE
KE3UC
KE4BMR
KZ3MW
N3ASO
N3BLS
N3EXA
N3FE
N3GLZ
N3GTH
N3KCR
N3NCG
N3VAN
N3YFO
N3YGH
W0ROY
W2JPG
W3COD
W3OKU
W3UAV
WA2CCN
WA3YMM
WB2HJQ

PA DMR Check-Ins 2 Jan 2019

Published on

33 stations counting Check-In Control & Alternate

K0PB Check-In Control (Welcome, Bob!)

  • KZ3MW Alternate Check-In Control
  • AA3VZ
  • N3BAH
  • KE3UC
  • KB3HGJ
  • KB3JC
  • N3JPP
  • KB3ZID
  • KC3HOJ
  • KA3E
  • KC3LYZ
  • K3DQB
  • N3XHS
  • N3YFO
  • N3JPP
  • N3SSL
  • N3NCG
  • N3KCR
  • N3RTB
  • N3NXC
  • N3VAN
  • WA2CCN
  • W2JPG
  • W3COD
  • WA3YMM
  • WO3S
  • KE3JH
  • W3XOX
  • K3BYC
  • K5TGS
  • KB3LR
  • K3ZED
WA5LEE
UPDATE: December 26, 2018

DMR Check Ins for 12/25/2018

KC3LEE – NET CONTROL
KZ3MW – ALT NET CONTROL
W2JPG
KB7THL
N3YFO
KC3KVC
KE3UC
K3BYC
KA3VEI
KE3JH
K3ZED
KC3KPE
K3DQB
K3NXU
N3JPP
N3BLSN3RTB
N4YKQ
N3KCR
N3GLZ

Sorry if I missed anyone! Merry Christmas!!!

WA5LEEDecember 25, 2018

We had to make a bit of a change for new member registration. It seems the same folks who tried to ‘hack’ the 216 election also have been spamming/spoofing us with new users. New User Applicants now need to verify their account through email. So, now there is RECapcha and email verification for new users on the website.

12/4 Check-Ins

Published on
WA2CCN/NCS     KC3LEE
KZ3MW/Backup NCS     KE3UC
KN4OZN/M     K3XH
N3BAH/M     KB3RBW
KC3LYZ/M     KA3E
N3SSL     KC3KXP/M
N3MEL     WB2HJQ
AB3SU     WA3YMM
N3VAN     WA3CPO
N3KCR     W0ROY
N3RTB     N3FE
N3BLS     WB3GZE
N3NCG     W3ADP
N3YGH     W3YR
N3PNF     KB3HGJ
KE3RG     N3FIX
KC3VEI     KC3KPE

DMR Contact Manager for Managing Codeplugs & Contacts

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As I mentioned on this week’s PA DMR Check-In, the DMR Contact Manager software by N0GSG has advanced it’s capabilities significantly in the last year.  At some point most of us end up needing to modify a codeplug for another radio, transfer a codeplug from one radio type to another, add or modify Contacts in a radio…. or many other “maintenance” tasks related to your DMR radio configuration.  Contact Manager can be a huge help by saving a lot of keystrokes and frustration.  It does direct downloads from RadioID.net making import of Contacts very simple.  It’s available at http://n0gsg.com/contact-manager/ and is described as follows:

Updated 11-04-2018 – VERSION 2.61 RELEASED – NOW SUPPORTING DUAL-BAND MD-UV380, EXTENDED DMR DATABASE CAPABILITIES, EXPANDED ZONE WIZARD FUNCTIONALITY

DMR Contact Manager is a custom-designed software package designed for use with Connect Systems CS700/CS701/CS750/CS800/CS801/CS800D radios, as well as the Tytera MD-380/390/390GPS, TYT MD2017/MD9600, AnyTone AT-D868UV and AT-D858, Retevis RT3, and similar radios that use the RDT/RDB file formats. These units are MOTOTRBO-compatible DMR mobile radios suitable for both commercial and amateur radio applications.

Contact Manager makes it easy to maintain channel, zone, contact and call group information in these radios. It is fully compatible with the Ham-Digital and RadioID database systems and allows instant codeplug updates from a wide variety of sources.

The latest Contact Manager release supports channel editing (both individual and mass), importing, and exporting, as well as zone and scan list management for RDT and RDBfiles. It’s now a snap to move channels and zones between codeplugs – – and with Contact Manager’s built-in IntelliPaste functionality, associated contact information is always imported right along with channels whenever it’s needed – – so that your imported channels work right the first time!

Contact Manager also supports direct CSV contact data export to support radios that require a separate CSV file for contacts, such as the MD-9600, MD-2017, MD-UV380, and so forth.

WA5LEE
UPDATE: November 1, 2018

New Wayne County DMR Repeater UPDATE

Hey y’all! Just a quick update. The KC3LEE repeater, located in Lake Ariel, PA, is now up and running with the following frequencies:

IN: 443.7250  OUT: 448.7250 Soon to CHANGE TO:

IN: 445.05625  OUT: 440.05625 CC8 (Change will occur after New Years.)

Color Code 8

NOW BRIDGED TO THE NEPA CLUSTER OF REPEATERS ON TS2/TG Local 2.

ALSO LOCAL COMMS ON TS2/LOCAL 9

Range is (So Far) Newfoundland to Damascus. East/west has not been extensively tested. Works just fine at McDonalds in Hamlin. LOL

Full-time Brandmeister Connection, all TGs available 24/7. 3142-PA State and 31425-PA Cross Mode are the two static TG’s, everything else is PTT.

 

We will be adding 20′ to the antenna in the next week or so, as soon as we can get the bucket truck to the tower. Enjoy… Hope this helps a few of you out there to free yourself from your HotSpot!

73 de KC3LEE

“Can anyone hear me?” or “Polly want a cracker?” Use Parrot!

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We all hear it multiple times every day on nearly every talkgroup:  “[callsign] testing.  Can anyone hear me?  Just need a quick test.”  I’m not writing about stations that are looking for someone to talk to… if you’re doing that then an efficient and accepted thing to say is “Listening on PA statewide, this is [your callsign]”.  It’s best to END with your callsign, not start by saying your call.  Why?  Lots of reasons:  the DMR networked repeaters all take a moment to come up when you Push To Talk and if the first thing out of your mouth is your callsign… it may be cut off.  Also, many of us have scanning enabled across several channels / talkgroups, and if you don’t say what talkgroup you’re on, other stations that are not looking at their radios and hear only your callsign have no idea what talkgroup you are on… .and don’t know how to reply to you.  (And please don’t use “CQ”…. save that for the HF bands and SSB.)  But I digress…
What if you really just want a “quick test”?  There’s a much better way than asking if any stations are around for a quick radio check.  If you really are looking for a contact / QSO…. follow the procedure in the preceding paragraph.  But if what you are looking for is a RELIABLE audio report… and not simply a “Yeah, sounds good” reply from another station… use the Parrot.
Wouldn’t you rather hear your own voice played back to you… and only you… a few seconds after you transmit something like “This is [your callsign] testing.  1, 2, 3, 4…. test.  [Your callsign] test out.”?  The DMR networks and systems have a Contact called “parrot”.  Actually, there are multiple parrots… more on that in a moment.
So what does “parrot” do for you?
  • Records your voice and sends it to a DMR network server, and then plays the audio back to you… and only you… about five seconds after you unkey your microphone
  • Provides not only an indication of whether you are “making the repeater” or hotspot, but also at what degree of audio quality
By now you’re asking, “So how do I use Parrot?” and “What’s this about more than one Parrot?”
Basically, you make a Private call to one of the “parrots” (described below) by either creating one or more “parrots” in your configuration for each repeater or hotspot in your radio’s codeplug (configuration) – OR – go to Contacts on your radio and Manual Dial with your keypad one of the parrot Contact numbers (e.g. 9990).  Press PTT (Push to Talk), identify and say testing or whatever, then unkey the mic and wait.  You should hear your voice played back to you.  On a repeater you may need to key the Parrot more than once before you hear a reply… some parrots are UA (User Activated) and require a key-up.
Here are the most widely used Parrot Contact numbers and a brief description of each –
  • 9990 – (aka Parrot 1) This is the most widely accessible Parrot and will cause your voice packets to be transmitted by your repeater / hotspot up through the network to a DMR server and then back down again to your radio during replay
  • 9998 – (aka Parrot 2 / Connect Query) This is used by the popular SharkRF openSPOT and some other hotspots to trigger a synthesized voice that will provide status details of the network connection
  • 9999 – Echo (aka Audio Test) This is used by the popular SharkRF openSPOT and some other hotspots to produce a local “echo” of audio transmission.  It does not transmit anything onto the DMR network.
  • 9001 – Not a “parrot” but if sent to a SharkRF openSPOT will cause the openSPOT to speak its IP address… useful if you lose IP network connection from your web browser
TIP:  When you configure a Parrot in your codeplug be sure to set the Contact as “Private” and DO NOT enable “Private Call Acknowledge”.
– Mark KZ3MW

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73
WA5LEE
WA5LEEWebmaster & NCS

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