So, things have been busy for us. Bob and I have been living life, I have been avoiding DMR because my former employer decided to pass out my email and phone number like candy mints to their customers who they could not and would not give support to (you think about why- it is not too tough to work out), and he and I had decided that we have accomplished what we wanted in DMR- to build a reliable repeater network so users radios did not sit and collect dust.
So run the clock up to present days. I have been working part time for a new employer who sought me out after the divorce from my former employer. Things are going great and I work with a couple of manufacturers in China directly (yes one is Anytone). I speak via chat with them a few times a month overall (Anytone more than the others). So things are going great, and I can honestly say I now own more GMRS radios that I had ever imagined. But that is how the market seems to be heading. Oh, and lets not forget the repeater….but enough about that.
I am asked to lead a new radio development project. It is by Anytone, and it LOOKS and acts just like the 868/878 line and the BTech 6X2 series of radios. BUT it has an additional mode- NXDN. Now notice I did not say NEW, because it is not. It was developed and has been marketed in the commercial world by both ICOM and Kenwood. Personally I and others feel the audio and operation is MUCH better than DMR. Simpler, and basically just plug and play. Now you SHOULD go to radioid.net and request an NXDN number because it will help in your operation in the future. While I am traveling down this rabbit hole, I decide Bob needs to follow me, so we get him to BETA test also. And he is riding along also. SO, yes Digital modes are coming back to the forefront at the BYRG, BUT Allstar Link is also returning. And we have decided to take it a step further. We are merging the 2. Yep, Allstar will be linked to Digital (NO and I mean NO DMR linking- don’t even ask). DMR is good enough and well established enough to stand on it’s own 2 feet. Plus, we designed the repeater placement so that there was no need for us to have a repeater on EVERY repeater pair, and EVERY street corner. Anyway, back to what has been brewing.
In my developing items to assist in testing the new mode, I not only spun up a NXDN reflector, but decided to throw in a P25 Reflector, and an M17 reflector in the mix. And yes there are talks about additional M17 radios being created (Besides the fine unit CSI has on the market). SO I got the reflectors built and decided to jump a bit further into the mix. Those reflectors are now tied over to Allstar analog nodes. Before I get too far into the talk, think of reflectors as Talk Groups- except there are NO time slots to contend with. M17 has an interesting concept- on that one reflector you can have up to 26 ROOMS (a to z) or modules. BUT to speak between 2 users they must be on the same reflector and in the same room. Honestly I am still learning about it myself. So at this point and in the foreseeable future M17-BYG reflector has only Module or Room A available. Keep in mind this is a VERY new and developing mode. I have spoken with the M17 guys a few times directly and are working with them also. I actually had to ask what the hell was going on with the reflectors and the modules in each. That’s when I had to concept of Modules explained.
SO Bob and I made it to the Mission Site, and while there we swapped out the UHF DMR and placed a HP EliteDesk PC (Thanks MUCHO Lucky) . and made an initial connection to the 927.5875 repeater. At this time there is only one way traffic 900 traffic is still only on the repeater, not going to any linked or digital modes. What will happen is Mission 900 Node will be hard tied to a single Allstar node which has a DVSwitch Build (so picture 2 nodes at Mission). THIS DVSwitch is linked to the 31201 NXDN BYRG reflector. So when traffic on the 900 repeater (node 27077) is active, it is tied to the NXDN 31201 reflector (Node 2325) which joins NXDN to the mix on 900. Anything on 900 is on the 927 Tx and also any repeaters tied to the NXDN reflector and any traffic on the 31201 NXDN talkgroup/reflector is coming out 900Mhz- ya’ll confused yet? System diagrams will be coming in the future. But keep in mind, any and ALL links to digital can be dropped in a heartbeat and just leave the analog devices to play amongst themselves. That is why each repeater site will have 2 nodes- one for analog and the other for the digital node. SO moving on……
Next we have the Midtown site 442.55 repeater- yes it is returning. Bob has been repairing/replacing the TKR repeater that died. We are also placing a dual node EliteDesk PC at that site. BUT the digital link there is to P25 mode. It is hard tied on node 27132 to 31201 BYRG P25 reflector. The 2180 UHF repeater node will be connected to 27132 and yes we can drop this also. At this time, as for M17, it is only going to my Simplex Hotspot node here my house.
Plans are to have the 900 MHz and UHF repeater nodes running a script that will do 2 things- 1) it will announce the time and weather at the top of each hour, and 2) it will automatically fire off any Weather alerts which come out of the NWS. I am presently testing these scripts here on my Allstar node. Also we can put whatever digital mode on which ever repeater (or ALL of them linked together. )
SO are we dead??? DOES IT LOOK LIKE IT??? When Bob and I agree and ONLY Bob and I agree the BYRG is dead then take it as gold. When you have other other parties announcing we are dead and when it seems to stem from a comment a NON-REAL ham (one who has a TON of radios but NEVER uses them- REAL hams use their radios), then do not believe it .
We have spent a lot of time building out this phase of the BYRG, we hope you like it and while we are MUCH older, it will take us some time to get everything up and running, and changes WILL happen. so please we ask to bear with us….
Until then- 73
de Chuck K0XM