Spent a lot of time last month finishing the closing on our new home and preparing for the big move. As I write this I’m sitting on the couch in our new place in Noblesville with some seriously sore muscles. A lot done, but still work to do. Despite all of the house action, I still found time for the hobby, so here we go:
Assisted a local amateur who tracked me down via my website with some DMR radio configuration. With a little nudging in the right direction, he was able to program some channels on his own as well as the DMR Simplex configuration.
Continued work on the IRC website…. We continue to make improvements and have received a lot of positive feedback.
Bought a Yaesu FT2DR HT to play around with the Fusion repeater I purchased late last year. Very interesting HT, and the touch screen is pretty slick. Still working on learning the nuances of the Fusion Network. I horse-traded for the HRI-200 box, which is required to connect the repeater. After dealing with software issues, etc., I was finally able to get connected and stay connected. Ed (K3HTK) and I are keeping our UHF systems connect via Fusion for the time being while we explore the options available.
Provided some DMR support for a new user out of Hartford City. He had enough questions that we decided to get together on the phone to discuss. Of course the questions he came with ended up spawning other questions. I think we spent about 90 minutes on the phone, but he walked away from the conversation with a better understanding of how things work.
Received a comment via my website from a Canadian Ham. He’d found my post about the EF Johnson 5100’s on 33cm and had a software question. Pretty cool to get requests for help from outside our country!
Participated in a VE Session with the Boy Scouts on 2/13. Shortly there after I was ask to teach a class in April for the Radio Merit Badge. So if you’re a scout and are attending this years University of Scouting, look me up, I’ll be there!
Received my MMDVM board, which when combined with an Arduino Due will allow me to build a DMR Repeater out of two analog mobiles. Due to our move, I unfortunately did not get to dig into this project in time for this report, so hopefully I’ll have something to share next month.
During the Month of February the NA Hytera DMR repeater owners split off of the German written and maintained DMRPlus network. They are hopping on board with the BrandMeister folks, who have a vendor agnostic solution for DMR networks. This changed the way some talkgroups were carried from the DMRPlus network. I’m still hearing traffic from that side, so I guess time will tell what the future holds.
Setup a new email server for the IRC. Once we’ve moved everything over, this will complete our transition of all online resources from the previous host/webmaster.
Answered some Motorola DMR Radio model questions from a Pennsylvania Ham. He was confused by the various band splits available and was looking to get some answers before he made a purchase.
Started looking into AMPRNet who provides public IP blocks from a Class-A IPv4 address space that was set aside for amateur radio operators. I requested and was granted a /22 block of IP’s that I plan to use for part of my IP network that are ham radio related. You only have three options for delivery of your granted IP space and those include Radio, Tunneling or BGP (border gateway protocol). I’m currently working on the tunneling optioin, but may setup a linux based BGP router and go that route.
Answered some questions from an NC Ham who discovered my work with the TransTRBO dispatch software. I was able to answer a few of his questions and referred him back to the software author for the remaining ones as they were regarding a manner in which I have not used the software.
Learned about a new Raspberry Pi model coming out which has built in Wifi and Bluetooth! And it’s still only $35. Amazing. Perhaps I’ll find enough time in March to try and pick one up and can share more next month.
Answered some questions from one of our very own Technical Specialists regarding DMR. Answered them as well as additional questions that came up as they often do. So we’ll see if we hear him on the digital side, but what am I saying he’s a big CW Op… The Original Digital Mode…..
Started the process to move my analog machines to Noblesville. Unfortunately the >20 mile move has moved me within the 100 mile radius that the IRC likes to keep between machines, so I’m looking at having to change frequencies on both my 70cm analog and 33cm analog machines…. The 70cm frequency I’ve had since the late 90’s…..
That’s it for February…. 73 until next month!
