I am a newbie who had a little trouble programming my radio / no way to really verify I did it right because no one answered (due to little use of the repeater?)

Are there Nets or times where more people are on so I can test my programming?

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John frequently attended Pacificon, including representing Northwest Digital Radio and later representing ARDC - ? ?- which sold a number of IP addresses and uses the money to fund amateur radio-related projects and scholarships. ?

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The moving tribute below is written by Jonathan Naylor, G4KLX, author of many digital radio open source programs (including what MDARC uses on our MultiMode Digital Voice repeater).?

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I last saw John at Pacificon in October.?

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I remember him for so many things in our ham world, but especially for his simple suggestion to D-Star repeater owners to consider ircDDBGateway over G2/G3.? John knew a lot, but both his writing and speaking were direct and concise.? He did not waste words.?

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John will be missed.

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???? Jim – K6JM

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Trevor WA6JAU and I got to the repeater site today and fixed the digital voice repeater’s receiver problem.? The mechanism to make the receive radio power back up after power loss had broken and we were able to fix it.

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??? Jim – K6JM

Yesterday we discovered the DV repeater (145.0 +2.5) is unable to receive incoming RF transmissions.? We assume this is weather/power outage related. The Dashboard at works, connections to reflectors and talkgroups work and the transmitter works, so we can hear network transmissions.

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Weather permitting, we are planning a trip to the repeater site as soon as possible to assess and hopefully fix.? We’ll keep you posted.?

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??? Jim – K6JM

After Trevor and I visited South Peak and updated the multimode modem's firmware and the Pi's software to the latest versions, the new M17 Open Source DV mode was possible.? I enabled it, but had no way to test it.?

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The M17 developers ( ) have done a pretty complete job of developing open hardware designs and software with networking, reflectors, etc.? They are currently in talks with a radio manufacturer about making and selling a radio with the new M17 DV mode. But there is no timeline I'm aware of.

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In the meantime, and after some ups and downs, I was able to cobble together an M17 radio using an MMDVM modem, a Pi running special software and an analog FM transceiver.? Got it working now and I am able to use the W6CX DV repeater (145.0 +2.5) from here in Danville to have M17 QSOs.? My first one was with someone in SoCal using an M17 reflector.

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I realize there won't be much local RF activity using M17 until people can purchase M17 radios, but having M17 enabled does not appear to create problems for our repeater or users of modes like D-Star.? Obviously, we don't want a lot of network traffic from a little-used mode, but I am monitoring that.? The underlying goal, when M17 radios become available, is to have people to talk to, both local and networked, as an incentive to get into this new mode.

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For DIYers, there are some interesting options for getting on M17 now.? I'd be happy to give more info to any and all who might be interested.?

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??? Jim - K6JM

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Mathison,

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Interesting research you are doing.? I have been tracking from a distance the work being done by the DVSwitch and AllStar developers.?

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One thing to think about – you can actually drive people away from an open repeater if you carry too much network traffic.? I suspect if we linked our analog FM repeater and other similar analog systems, we’d end up with more traffic than our uses would want.? And it might work both ways, with digital-sourced traffic creating distractions for our analog system users.

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I do see value, though, in being able to link our various systems during an emergency.? This could allow more members and other local users to help out during the emergency.?

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But I am not sure we want to normally link in more networked traffic to either our digital or analog repeaters.? Just my thoughts on this….

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?????? Jim – K6JM

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PS Details

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In configuring the current W6CX-DV repeater, which for most of the time has supported D-Star, DMR and YSF/Fusion, I carefully evaluated if a given mode should even have a default linked reflector or talkgroup.? Talking to other multimode repeater admins, I found most try to have a default network collection point that is not all that busy with just enough users around to find someone for a QSO.?

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So the DMR mode’s default talkgroup is BrandMeister 310606 – Diablo – this has local/regional users, but is not constantly carrying traffic.? Of course, we allow local RF users to call up any BrandMeister talkgroup dynamically, and if they have QSOs there, it will stay connected.? If there is no local RF activity on that talkgroup after a period of time, it automatically drops but the default stays active.

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The Fusion configuration is similar.? The default reflector is YSF80280 – US-Contra-Costa.? It clearly is local.? It does have one interesting “feature” though.? The owner of the YSF80280 reflector (Tim K6BIV) has set up a bridge (using an OpenSpot) between this YSF reflector and authentic Wires-X room 80280.? You may know Yaesu limits Wires-X access ?and our MMDVM gateway cannot connect directly into the Wires-X network, but the OpenSpot bridges traffic between YSF80280 and Wires-X room 80280 as normal users.? But the end result is mostly local traffic.

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MDARC’s D-Star repeater has since its inception set up reflector REF014C as its default network reflector.? Admittedly, this reflector is a bit busier than the above DMR and YSF defaults, but it is still not constant.? Again, we allow users to send RF commands to link to other reflectors, and sometimes a ham will link us to REF001C or REF030C, both of which are often extremely busy.? During that time, D-Star pretty much takes over the DV repeater.? But when there is no local RF activity on the D-Star mode, we automatically drop the other link and link back to REF014C.? So far, this seems to be working out.

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Right now, we are conducting some experiments and have enabled both P25 and the new M17 modes.? I set up some temporary default network connections for each mode, but it looks to me like they are too busy.? So I have dropped the M17 default and will keep reviewing the P25 default’s activity.

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The goal, again, is to provide ways for our local RF users to find people to talk to, but to do it in a way that does not allow any mode to take over the DV repeater or to create traffic distractions that might drive away our local RF users.

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Shon,

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K6PUW is on Oat Mountain, north of Los Angeles.? But they do have some P25 users down there.

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I don’t have a P25 radio.? I was thinking we could coordinate a test where I would enable P25 for a while and you could see if your P25 radio could get into the W6CX-DV repeater.? I know there are some “reflectors” set up for P25 and ideally you could link in and have a P25 QSO with someone on the network.? Also, if you know local hams with P25 radios, perhaps you could also have a local RF QSO.?

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We have found some DV modes are very sensitive to the transmitted signal’s deviation.? As far as I know, DMR is the most sensitive, which is why Trevor and I spent most of our time testing our multimode repeater using DMR.? The thinking is – if a repeater can deal with DMR, all other digital voice modes will also work without adjustment.?

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That proved to be true of Yaesu’s YSF/C4FM mode. ?Without any testing, I just remotely enabled YSF and the repeater was able to receive and transmit that mode.? I suspect the same would be true of P25, but of course that would need to be tested.

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Let me know if/when you’d like to test P25 on W6CX-DV.? Just email me directly at jim@... .?

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?????? Jim

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You are the first to ask about P25.?

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A multimode repeater normally waits for an incoming signal, then checks, one mode at a time, to see if it’s a mode that is enabled on that repeater.? Of course, this happens pretty fast, so having several modes enabled should not materially affect how quickly a mode will be recognized.? But I guess, the more nodes it has to check will very slightly add to it reacting to the first transmission.

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After that, it locks onto that mode so that back and forth QSOs will keep the repeater in that mode.? After a given time of hearing nothing incoming, the repeater resumes checking for all enabled modes again.? All this is intended to keep another mode from high-jacking an ongoing QSO.?

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But a friend of mine, Don WB5EKU, has put up a multi-mode repeater in Los Angeles.? Wide coverage.? He has enabled D-Star, DMR, YSF, P25, M17 and NXDN.? Apparently all is working fine.? You can read about it at and you can click on the Dashboard link at the top to see recent traffic there.

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Let’s discuss this more via email off-list.? Just send me a direct email to jim@... .? We could try some experiments.

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??? Jim – K6JM ?

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