MinnesotaDMR hams are hosting a ham radio help video conference almost continuously since March, 2020. Join us with questions about DMR or any ham radio subject. Ask about the many fun projects we have worked on:

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Everyone starts with their line muted. You can unmute yourself when you’d like to talk.

There is a password. Ssshh, for now, it’s ‘breakfast‘

Hello, Let me introduce you to Bill W9YZI.

The Princeton repeater is alive on the Brandmeister network and will be moving to is now at 442.500 CC3. The repeater is an MTR2000 with modifications to support DMR among other modes. it’s solid Motorola hardware with the MMDVM conversions board from “rptr builders” allowing P25, D-Star, Fusion and of course DMR. It’s currently running at 50 watts and at 442.5 442.5125 but a minor move in frequency is expected. The antenna is 9Dbi and stands at about 55ft.

If you hear Bill W9YZI, be sure to say hello and let everyone know if you have worked his repeater.

73 – NØNKI – Eric

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

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.

 

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