Today was a fantastic day for a Hamfest in St Joseph Minnesota, just West of St Cloud. Both the MNDMR group and the MinnesotaDMR group made their appearances and shared knowledge with the Amateur community. Trygve filled a room upstairs at 10:15 with his excellent presentation about DMR and the available resources online. The presentation is attached to this posting.

We had plenty of visitors and updated the firmware of quite a good number of radios. The MD380-Tools updates were installed and new users walked through the many capabilities of these devices and the new features available after patching (hacking). The MMDVM and DVMega Hotspots were demo’ed and nationwide QSO demos made to Florida and New York on low power.

Over at the MNDMR table, Nagi was selling the MD380 radio at his cost. I understand he sold 18 radios today, so I’m looking forward to hearing all the new hams joining us on DMR.

I really enjoyed catching up with people and having those full duplex eyeball QSO sessions. Radios are fun, catching up in person tops all that technology.

DMR Radio 1702 <– Presentation from Trygve <–

Credit and Thanks to John, KAØKMJ for sharing this candid photo!

The 3 newest repeaters are all Brandmeister network connected.

The locations are:  Minnetonka @ 443.300+5 CC1, and Bloomington @ 443.100+5 CC1 and Chaska @ 443.950+5 CC1

Some things to note when designing your codeplug is that several TalkGroup ID numbers are slightly different. For the most part, 3 and 4 digit talk groups like 3127 (Minnesota), 3169 (Midwest), 310 (TAC310), these are all the same with no changes. However TG1 and TG3 become TG91 and TG93. You can find a list of supported talk groups here: https://api.brandmeister.network/v1.0/groups/

73 – NØNKI – Eric Osterberg

I’ve noticed that the majority of subscribers to the Google Groups page are not configured to receive updates.  You can check or update these preferences by logging into the google groups page https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/minnesotadmr , then finding in the upper right corner the “My Settings” icon.

Choose “Membership and email settings…

Then choose to have email messages delivered for every new message.

After saving, you should begin receiving updates as they occur.

73 – NØNKI – Eric Osterberg

I just received an email I wanted to share. I’m actually getting dozens of emails and would love for everyone to benefit from the knowledge. I’ll see what I can do about sharing these.

===

Eric,

I just loaded the latest code plug and finished doing some customization.  But I noticed a new repeater system called SHARK.  Where is this machine?  The remaining new sites make sense by name, but this one doesn’t.

Thanks!

=== AND My Reply ===

It’s hotspot zone you can modify when you have your own hotspot to travel with or otherwise.

https://minnesotadmr.com/hotspots-and-radio-dongles/
https://minnesotadmr.com/free-presentation-building-a-personal-hotspot-with-a-raspberry-pi/

Here is a friendly reminder that there is a DMR Breakfast gathering this Saturday morning (February 11) Same time, same place (8:00 AM, Fat Nat’s Eggs, St. Anthony Village).

Here is a reminder that there is a Minnesota DMR Breakfast this coming Saturday at Fat Nat’s Eggs in St. Anthony Village (hosts will be there between 7:00 and 7:30 AM) but officially starts at 8:00 AM.

Here is why it is called Fat Nat’s Eggs (now don’t get me wrong 🙂 ):

See you there!

Your hosts Dave Ventura and John Czech

Construction continues on 3 new DMR repeaters to be installed sometime this week.

Several of the sites are temporary to fill in holes in coverage. If you know of a location, please contact me. I have repeaters available for installation. The following photo shows the duplexers from the Benson Airport White Bear Township Site being tuned for installation in Chaska. The Benson project is on hold awaiting a fresh coat of paint for the township water tower this summer before installation continues.

Several other repeaters are awaiting fresh coax jumpers and a check over before being loaded up for installation.

I know this can be confusing so I wanted to add a simple post about it.

MNDMR.net was the original site Nagi built in early 2016.

MinnesotaDMR.com is the new site built to reunite the community and communicate about the actions recent taken by presumably Nagi, James from StCloud and possibly others which appear to split up the network and censor access.

Sometime today, Nagendra Punyamurthula AKA Nagi (NØAGI’s) website returned after being down a little more than 5 days, (since this last Saturday). His website apparently was still available early Saturday morning, January 28th and was then offline sometime shortly after the bi-weekly DMR morning breakfast. The Minnesota Statewide Talk-Group 3127 was noted to be unavailable between several repeater sites through the day with several users attempting to discover what was actually happening. Around 6pm James Kantor, KCØARX posted an email to a smaller Google mailing list titled the “MNDMR Leadership Team” (mndmrlt@googlegroups.com) announcing a new cBridge would be connecting Repeaters in KC0ARX-Saint Cloud, N0AGI-Medina, N0AGI-Buck Hill, N0AGI-Faribault, KD0YRF-Rochester and KC0CAP-Litchfield. Furthermore it was their intention to remove Minnesota Statewide Talk-Group 3127 on all these repeaters with an exception for Rochester for the reason of the Mayo Clinic Health System. This announcement then provided some insight into all of the technical problems reported through out the day. It was intentional to break off these repeaters from the original cBridge and create a new network and to exclude not only the Statewide talkgroup, but actually begin filtering or blocking/excluding specific radio ID numbers. The email simply says “Members that have been identified as trying to be disruptive” will be blocked so that “This will allow us to have a friendly, safe and clean  system”. Finally the email says they are not accepting new repeaters to their new network due to technical reasons but you could apply via email if you wanted “to be adopted” at some point in the future.

I’d like to answer a couple questions that might come up in the next few days…

Q) What’s the difference between MNDMR.NET and MinnesotaDMR.COM.

A) Nagi registered and created the original domain and website at MNDMR.NET sometime in February of 2016. Over the last year I’ve noticed a change in the content from a voice of building a community to one of protecting an asset. This is purely my impression and personal opinion. I on one occasion via telephone discussed with Nagi the inclusion of copyright statements and ownership statements on the website and learned that Nagi did feel a need to make this clear as he felt there were people out there wanting to copy his content. He stated anyone can create their own website and if they feel they can do it better, they should as long as they don’t steel his content. I don’t recall exactly when this was, but I saw a couple domain names still available and figured I’d secure them for future use. In about October, I could tell there were tensions building and I decided to begin developing some content of my own. I created the MinnesotaDMR.COM domain and site as I want to stick to Nagi’s original statement of building a community. I’ve largely kept the website to myself with only two people I’m aware of stumbling into it and registering. I promptly contacted both of them and told them the main website is at MNDMR.net. That changes today. Welcome here!

Q) What’s with the postcard and this new site?

A) I’ve wanted for the last several months to provide a workshop on building hotspot’s so you can use any talk group you want and take it portable with you using a simplex frequency. With the weekend separation of the networks and drastic coverage change for the Minnesota Statewide Talk-Group, it seemed like there was an immediate need to have just such a thing right now. I started preparing content. I contacted the hardware maker for the (Incredibly Awesome) DV-MEGA UHF radio board and ordered nearly a dozen of them to be shipped to the United States immediately. I went to the mailing list (Hosted by Google and owned by Nagi) and noted it’s now moderated and nothing has yet been announced to the greater community about the network split and in fact nothing at all had been posted since January 22nd when Nagi asked for a list of people who used his repeaters as their primary repeater. I went ahead and posted a message announcing my workshop and awaited news that my announcement was either sent or rejected. After 24 hours, it didn’t seem the mailing list was active. I located Nagi’s cell number and sent off a text asking if he would approve or if we could discuss any issues he had with it. Not sure what to expect, I merged the DMR-MARC database and the FCC database to produce a list of postal addresses and started designing a postcard to announce “OUR” new website. In the mean time, a day after my original post, Nagi did respond and asked me to send my announcement to him again in another email. (It was originally entered in the Google Groups Web Interface). With the deadline approaching for final mail pickup in Arizona, his website down and the Wednesday night Minnesota Statewide Talk-group Net starting at 7pm Central time, I took the postcards to the post office and frantically applied stamps and dropped them in the mail. The Website was down, Nagi wanted from me what I had already posted online a day earlier, No one had communicated with the larger community yet and I felt better doing something.

I WANT TO BE CLEAR, I do not want to see our community divided. I want to see us UNITED. I want this to be FUN! This site was built here to represent our inclusive community. I did not feel Nagi’s MNDMR.NET site was serving that purpose any longer. Certainly not Wednesday night when the postcards were deposited in the mail. Nagi’s site had been down for days, no emails from the mailing list reflector in nearly two weeks and no announcement from the Google groups service to the community about the network split. These actions this past week appear to have happened in a vacuum and to the exclusion of several repeater operators. The actions on Saturday appear in my opinion to be intended to divide our community. Now that Nagi’s webiste is back up, it’s including License agreements, User Terms and Conditions, more copyrights, Applications for membership or access, Rules, Regulations and Requirements, etc.

Welcome ALL to the new MinnesotaDMR.COM website.

If you would like to contribute content, please request an account. There are a few ground rules. Be kind to one another, respect others opinions, show off your “Minnesota Nice”.

73, nØnki – Eric Osterberg

CQ, CQ, CQ…
Hello Everyone,

I’m excited to share with you that I will be presenting in the new few weeks a 2 1/2 hour session on building a personal hotspot with a Raspberry Pi computer and a DVMega radio board.
I’m still looking to secure a meeting location. I have a couple ideas, but would love your assistance if you know of a place.
I’ve made a bulk/club/reseller purchase on the DVMega boards and will have nearly a dozen available. You can also buy your own at HRO or GigaParts online, but I can assure you I will have a better deal for you in person.

We will spend about 15 to 20 minutes talking a little more about DMR, the technology, networks available and any limitations to setup a foundation.
Next we’ll demo a working hotspot and show you why you want one (assuming your were not yet sure you really needed one yet) and talk a bit more about the advantages of using a hotspot.
You’re invited to bring in your personal computer and your raspberry Pi computer with a 8GB or larger SD card (16GB recommended) and we will download or copy a Linux distribution onto your flash memory card.
I’ll show you how to remotely connect into your Raspberry Pi system from whatever computer you regularly use, or we can even just connect a monitor and keyboard (Your choice, not everyone has a laptop to bring).
We will install the MMDVM software, show you how to update your system to keep everything current and then walk through the configuration of your hotspot and radio.
I’ll share a codeplug and even talk about programming your own. We’ll talk about the problems you might encounter if everyone around you boots up a hotspot with the same settings! (Gotta watch out for that at an event like this).
I’ll demo some of the cool features available on Brandmeister and the sysop dashboard and show you how you too can be your own network sysop and you will leave this event with a working hotspot so you can enjoy whatever talkgroup you want, where ever you are!

Please, if you can host or know of a location, contact me right away.  Everyone else, stay tuned as I hope to secure a location before the weekend is over!
This is a free event!  You’ll get the most out it if you can bring a laptop, SD card, Raspberry Pi computer, Pi power supply and optionally an extension cord or outlet strip, a monitor with HDMI in and a keyboard. You can get a headstart by Googling MMDVMHost and/or contacting me about the DVMega radio board for the Pi.  I recommend MicroCenter in St Louis Park for the Pi computer and MicroSD card. The Pi version 3 is what I’d use as it has WiFi built into it. If you already own a Pi2, that will do too.

Hope you can make it,
73, Talk to you soon on DMR
NØNKI – Eric Osterberg

On Saturday evening, January 28th, the following email was distributed to a limited mailing list titled the MNDMR ENTHUSIASTS leadership team.

It seems James (KCØARX) is unhappy with DMR as it was and has taken Nagi’s 3 systems and a couple other systems on the South end of the coverage area into it’s own network to the exclusion of others and will not be carrying Minnesota Statewide on this network. Even going so far as to block access to a couple unnamed hams. It’s not yet known who’s been singled out. The claim is these people are being disruptive to DMR but I wonder who’s actions are actually the most disruptive?

Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2017 16:00:55 -0800 (PST)
From: kc0arx <kc0arx@w0sv.net>
To: "\"The MNDMR ENTHUSIASTS\" Leadership Team" <mndmrlt@googlegroups.com>
Cc: mndmr@mndmr.net
Message-Id: <f3bf53fc-c0af-486a-8aa4-43060a92ffed@googlegroups.com>
Subject: MNDMR-LT:: MnDMR Network Redesign

Minnesota DMR Leadership Community,

Since our last meeting someone informed us that we still had people that were not happy with the meetings and furthermore, the wishes of repeater and / or talkgroup owners.

As many know, I have thought about selling my repeater. After meeting with some DMR friends, I have taken the further action of purchasing a C-Bridge and bringing it online.

Repeaters in KC0ARX-Saint Cloud, N0AGI-Medina, N0AGI-Buck Hill, N0AGI-Faribault, KD0YRF-Rochester and KC0CAP-Litchfield will be moved to the newly formed “MNDMR.net” C-Bridge. With that we will no longer carry the MN-Statewide 3127 talkgroup except on Rochester due to the Mayo Clinic Health System. The MNDMR (1127) talkgroup will be moved over to the MNDMR.net C-Bridge as well.

Members that have been identified as trying to be disruptive (on the radio and on google groups) will be blocked in the MNDMR.net C-Bridge. This will allow us to have a friendly, safe and clean  system.

I would like to point out that I am not the only one running the C-Bridge. Everyone is working together on the system and we are all getting along. The repeater owners will decide how their repeaters will run and we hope to offer a rich, safe, healthy experience to our users.

The process has already started and we are working for a goal to have everything complete over the next few days.

Currently we are not accepting new repeaters while we are working to finetune the software. Openings to add additional repeaters will be announced on the newly redesigned MNDMR.net website.

New repeater owners that would like to be adopted onto the MNDMR.net CBridge and website should contact John Rowan with a written request at mndmr@mndmr.net.

We would like to sincerely thank John Burningham-W2XAB for his support of our repeaters. For inspiring us to host our C-Bridge. Without John, DMR nationwide would not be where it is today.

Thank you,

James Kantor, kc0arx