Minnesota’s got another repeater on the air -Check the listing out for Wyoming Minnesota.

Mobiles
XPR 4500 Low Power (Model M27QNH9JA1AN)
XPR 4550 Low Power (Model M27QNH9LA1AN)
XPR 4550 High Power (Model M27QPH9LA1AN)
XPR 5550 Low Power (Model M28QNN9KA1AN)
XPR 5550 High Power (Model M28QPN9KA1AN) (NEW)
XPR 5550 High Power (Model M28QPN9RA1AN) (NEW)
XPR 5550 High Power (Model M28QPN9WA1AN)
Hand-Helds
SL 7550 (Model H81QCN9NA2AN)
XPR 6500 (Model H55QDH9JA1AN)
XPR 6550 (Model H55QDH9LA1AN)
XPR 7550 (Model H56RDN9KA1AN)
XPR 7550 (Model H56RDN9RA1AN)
XPR 7550 (Model H56RDN9WA1AN) (NEW)
VHF
XPR 4550 High Power (Model M27JQH9LA1AN)
XPR 5550 High Power (Model M28JQN9KA1AN)
XPR 5550 High Power (Model M28JQN9WA1AN) (NEW)
XPR 6550 (Model H55JDH9LA1AN)

Here is a summary of the revisions in this release:

• HANDIHAM Brandmeister TG added to SHARK and DVMega Zones
• Zones with missing contacts for WW and WWE replaced
• RX Group for BM USA fixed
• RED WING Goodhue County Emergency Management Contact ID’ed
• Added IA and WI TG to RED WING (RDW) zone where supported
• Removed tone for Red Wing UHF Analog repeater RX
• Faribault 444.625 analog repeater replaced with 444.700 
• Willmar CTCSS tone fixed

The following Subscriber ID’s have been added to contacts:

• 3128607 KE0RHU Gabriel Saint Paul Gabriel F Thompson
• 3128959 AD0SN Richard Lake Elmo Richard Smith
• 3129944 KE0UDB Preston Byron Preston Satzke
• 3129969 KA0CWK Lucian Nowthen Lucian Vittori Jr
• 3130192 KE0LVS Brian Woodbury Brian Kirby
• 3130246 KE0PBI David Rochester David M Iott
• 3130379 KN1Z Keisuke Rochester Keisuke Nagase
• 3130578 N0PKZ Clarence Luverne Clarence R Miller Jr
• 3130605 WD0END Ronald Chanhassen Ronald J Martin
• 3130649 KE0CRR Mark Isanti Mark Blood
• 3130676 KE0UGP Jesse Lake Park Jesse Erickson
• 3130765 KD0TIV Gerard Eagan Gerard P Horgan
• 3130833 WB0RSJ Taylor Rochester Taylor Bauman
• 3131426 KD0YST Karl Bayport Karl Tyrrell
• 3131432 KE0TPZ Orion Bayport Orion C Tyrrell

MN DMR code plugs and FLEET MAP can be accessed at this LINK.

It’s been discussed on this evenings net that some services on Brandmeister have been limited because “there’s no free ride”. I’ll disagree that money has anything to do with removing services. This is a hobby for all of us. I have repeaters on the air because I enjoy the technology. It’s unlikely I’d stop doing this with money being the motivator. But in any case, supporting your local repeater and network is a great idea. One issue to understand is we are each operating independently. I have 3 systems on the air and two under construction. Duluth is often delayed because of the shear distance, weather, tower limitations, lack of internet… White Bear Lake Township was delayed for water tower painting and this happened to also include the disposal of about $4500 dollars of hard-line being placed in the trash. Maybe Money is a factor??? Minnetonka and Chaska are my repeaters but the site and Internet are provided by Don Rice. The Bloomington system is hosted by the City of Bloomington on their radio tower. The duplexers are valued at $600. (You can buy cheaper, but there are significant performance differences). The repeaters are $2500 new and I have been buying second hand equipment at about 1k.

I’d like to leave a list of people who support DMR in our area, but I’m sure I’d forget someone. You can paypal myself at ejosterberg@gmail.com
I don’t have paypal addresses for anyone else. Dave KE0NA supports our Motorola users with his programming software and codeplug assistance. Galen KC0BBK supports the community by buying dozens of china radios and creating codeplugs for the community. Nagi N0AGI has a couple of repeaters? Had a couple? Hennepin Co provides a site and maybe owns that repeater now. Bill KD0YRF owns a repeater or two and provides a CBridge. Adam is administering that Bridge… (Largely I’m guessing here)… Matt N0YNT with a couple partners runs the system at the UofM and maybe one or two additional sites? Terry has two sites, one in St Paul, another North East of there? Maybe another? Don N0BVE has systems at the Airport and Downtown Minneapolis. He’s had a hand in other installations. He provides locations and Internet for two of mine. Carl has a repeater at his home in Bloomington that’s portable and available for disaster support. Dan KC0CAP has Litchfield. there’s plenty of systems outside the metro. There’s on going expenses for activities like the BBQ, the HamFest appearances… There are 3 significant networks involved. Brandmeister, K4USD and MN.DMR(KD0YRF). They each have on going expenses. If you can provide financial support, please contact those who are providing the services you use.

So it seems certain people in the DMR community have it in for the DV4Mini. I’m a prior owner and have had my fill of problems. I was happy to have sold mine. For some, they’re happy with it. I didn’t have a good experience. Anyhow, on this evenings Wednesday Night DMR net at 7pm on Minnesota Statewide, there was discussion about recent problems and it appears the US managers of the 4 nodes in the United States disabled support for the TG4999 reflector service.

Here’s a link to another article with some additional information:

Brandmeister USA Team Kills DV4mini

2019 The St Cloud Amateur Radio Club is having their Annual Hamfest February 9th 2019 at the St Cloud Armory

General admissions $8.00
Large Swap meet with radios, antennas, computers and more. Ham Radio testing will be offered and your admission enters you into a chance to win Door Prizes!
You can visit their website for more information https://w0sv.club/hamfest

Information provided by Chad Gross. You can email the club @ w0sav@w0sv.club

Details are scarce, but rumor from Bill KD0YRF is that the court house may be the location for a new DMR system.

Bill KD0YRF shared on the Wednesday night at October 24th that Nagi has sold his repeater located at the Medina site to the County.

• Telewave 450-B Antenna
• New hardline installed
• 120ft above ground in RedWing
• N0BVE reports being able to work the system from Hopkins.
• Repeater is 50 watts.

 

Motorola Mototrbo code plugs for the following models have been updated:

• SL 7550
• XPR 4500L
• XPR 4550H
• XPR 4550L
• XPR 5550He
• XPR 5550H
• XPR 5550L
• XPR 6500
• XPR 6550
• XPR 7550
• XPR 7550e (new)
• XPR 5550H (new, VHF)
• XPR 4550 (new, VHF)
• XPR 6550 (new, VHF)

Here is a summary of the revisions in this release:

• All Brandmeister Network connected Repeater and Hotspot Zones channels have been aligned with Galen, KC0BBK’s code plugs
• Two South Central Minnesota Repeater Network (SCMN) KD0TGF repeaters, LEM1 and LEM2 have been added to all code plugs and the fleet map
• The University of Minnesota (UoM) repeater Zone had been added back as a Brandmeister repeater
• The code plug for Motorola model XPR 5550He has been refreshed from a firmware updated radio so that user radios can  load it

NOTES: 

Most DMR-MARC, K4USD, BrandMeister and DMRPlus talkgroups are available in “Contacts > Digital” for the convenience of those who want to customize their code plugs.

The “P” and “M” after your name in contacts follow the original DMR-MARC convention for Portable (P) and Mobile (M) ID assignment, they do not represent your middle or last name initial. This keeps the Subscriber ID unique for the two allowable by DMR-MARC.

The following Subscriber ID’s have been added to contacts:

• 3127618 NR0L Neill A Johnson Maple Grove
• 3127619 AD0IV Kevin M Crisp Farmington
• 3127620KE0QKYJustin L HicksNew Ulm
• 3127621 KF7PLN Kevin Robert Daly St. Paul
• 3127622 KC0VTW Theodore D Berquam Motley
• 3127623 KE0KPV Joseph M Hilton Saint Paul
• 3127624 KD0SFH Timothy Georgi Minneapolis
• 3127625 KD0WTB Jason Buckingham Chaska
• 3127626 N0GYT Riley Scott Saint Paul
• 3127627 KB0BRO Patrick J Burke Warroad
• 3127628 KE0QWW Robert W Beier Owatonna
• 3127629 K0MWB Matthew Beckwell Wawina
• 3127630 K0WFS Russell L Ramirez Otsego
• 3127631 KE0AZY Peter Zimmerman Apple Valley

MN DMR code plugs and FLEET MAP can be accessed at this LINK.

Right now you can order a SharkRF OpenSpot for 50% off until Easter or maybe supplies run out. You need to buy in Euro dollars and pay a good chunk of money for shipping. I (n0nki) would like to organize a group purchase to save on the shipping… If you buy on your own, you’ll pay 95 Euros + 24.85 Euro in shipping… If you pay use(sales) taxes as all of us legally need to do, you spend about $160 USD.

With the group buy, we’re looking at about or less than $140 combined including the sales tax which I’ll process (unless you can provide an exemption certificate for resale)… This rate assumes 7 purchases and we’re just about there… The price only goes lower if you are interested… But we need to hurry as the group doesn’t want to loose out because we were waiting on someone to commit.  If interested, contact me (n0nki) and let me know you want in the group buy. I’m going to place the order on Friday… Prepayment expected as we’ll be waiting a few days for the delivery and I can’t afford to be holding extra equipment or without the funds if someone backs out.

If you want to just buy direct, here’s the link: https://shop.sharkrf.com/

 

Here’s a jumble of calculations if you would like to try and figure out my math.

1.28	$ Conversion			Qty
euro	Qty1	USD		7	USD
Shark	95	121.6		665	851.2
Shipping	24.84	31.7952		38.11	48.7808
Sales Tax	9.5872	12.27162			71.99846
0.08					971.9793
Total		165.6668			138.8542