So this evening I thought I’d drive up South Mountain in Phoenix Arizona and have a look at the towers and see if the HotSpot would reach. Yes it does. Worked very well. A little over 3.5 miles as the crow flies and about 30 minutes of driving at 20 mph up the twisting and winding mountain road.
Here’s a Video… https://goo.gl/photos/KzM6XXwRKhoqKXwo7
And a photo…

Word on the radio-rumor-mill tells us Bill KD0YRF has purchased the Faribault repeater from Nagi N0AGI and the cBridge from James and progress is continuing to bring Minnesota Statewide to their repeaters with the exception being the St.Cloud repeater which will become a stand alone system. Work is also ongoing to reconnect the isolated MNDMR with the original MNDMR. Good news for the most part. I’ll be happy to replace this posting once official word is available.

Reminder to all, this Saturday is the DMR breakfast. We meet every other week.

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

By request,

Here’s a photo from Lunch today here at Famous Dave’s in Mesa where I (Eric – NØNKI) have lunch on Thursdays. This is the AZ DMR crowd.  I count 24 people in the photo and there were 5 in a booth out of view. one of the largest turn outs as I can remember.

It’s coming this weekend, the MinnesotaDMR HotSpot Workshop at the Maplewood public library is just days away. Note the change in time. We are now able to get in early for setup so we will begin sharply at 2pm. Please arrive by 1:45 to get comfortable or 1:30 if you would like to help setup.

Please visit this survey to let me know if you are interested in attending. I need a good head count so I can prepare handouts for you. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/YV776ZG

Location: Ramsey County Library – Maplewood – 3025 Southlawn Dr, Maplewood, MN 55109

The Presentation is available at: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1b9JXCMXYOVGXSE0_xZ7jYVDZOTpaNgmxYIRJ29m8CxA/edit?usp=sharing

Here’s a list of things you should be prepared to bring with you.

1. Pen and notepaper if you wish to take notes…
2. Raspberry Pi 3 or 2.
3. SD flash card for your raspberry pi computer. You might want to bring a spare, just in case. 16Gb or larger recommended. 8Gb minimum size. You may also need an adapter to connect the SD card to your laptop to copy software for the first time.
4. Power supply for your raspberry pi computer.
5. DVMega radio board. (Note that I have them available for $105, but the library prohibits sales in their meeting spaces so we need to meet before hand.)
6. You may wish to bring a case with a hole already in place for your antenna or I can sell you a case in advance (no sales allowed at library) for your Pi and the DVMega radio board. A case is optional if you are careful handling your Pi computer. I have them for 10 bucks.
7. An antenna with an SMA Male connector for the DVMega radio board. I have antennas available too. Shorter ones for $7 and longer for $10. Most MD-380 and MD-390 radios were shipped with two antennas which are compatible. The two antennas I stock are identical to the stock TYT/Tytera UHF radio antennas.
8. Extension cord 7 to 15 feet in length, preferably with an outlet bar so you can power your neighbors extension cord, a monitor, a laptop, your pi computer and maybe the same for the person next to you who didn’t bring one. The meeting space has very few outlets around the outside of the room. We need you to bring plenty of cords so everyone can power up. Please label your cords if you want them back.
9. Keyboard if you have one you can bring. I may have a couple to loan, however you might want to use one without waiting.
10. Laptop computer to connect with your pi for setup, to flash the SD card and to reprogram your DMR radio. If you do not have one, it’s OK, it is not absolutely necessary, but will delay things for everyone else.
11. Your DMR handheld radio. Please bring a radio so you can test things out.
12. Your programming cable for your DMR radio (If you don’t have a cable, I’m sure someone in attendance may be able to assist.
13. Video cable? I will be bringing a dozen computer monitors which have a DVI video input. The Raspberry Pi computer has an HDMI output. I have 5 cables to connect the 12 monitors. We should only need a monitor and keyboard briefly to setup our network and WiFi settings… After these are known/configured, you will use a laptop if you have one for the rest of the configuration.

What you should preferably know and bring with you before you attend:

1. Your DMR radio ID, they are 7 digits long and in Minnesota start with 3127???
2. Your WiFi SSID Name (It is case sensitive and you should double check)
3. Your WiFi Network Password
4. If possible, find out if or what type of authentication/encryption your WiFi uses: WPA2, WPA or WEP.  Next find if you have AES or TKIP… This information may be needed if you want to preconfigure your hotspot to connect with your wireless network at home, work, school, car, where ever.

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

As your host, I will be there around 7:30 AM for the early birds

John- KA0KMJ

 

Today my repeater located in Minnetonka at Don Rice’s house was replaced with a Motorola XPR8400. Don wasn’t satisfied with the selectivity or purity of the Yeasu Fusion DR-1X repeater I modified for DMR use and he switched it off a couple weeks ago. That changed today as it’s now a Motorola rig and appears to be performing very well. The Fusion systems just are not as good in locations with multiple radios or high levels of RF present. Thank you again to NØBVE for hosting both the Chaska and Minnetonka systems. Of course Don also provides his own DMR equipment at his sites at RiverView (Some refer to this as MSP) and his other system at the MSP airport. Someone buy him lunch as without his support we would be short 4 of the best performing locations in town. Thank you Don!

PS: Thank you to “Scanner” again as well for checking up on the new duplexers I’ve added to my collection of equipment. What you are looking at here is a couple paychecks. 3 quality duplexers and the new repeater.

Back in the good old days, radios used crystals to control the frequencies, and sometimes had internal jumpers that were set for the various options. Some time later on, they moved the internal jumpers to a jack on the back of the radio. They configured plugs with wire jumpers in them that plugged into the jack to enable certain options. These became the original code plugs. Later on, more things were controlled by these code plugs, such as tone encode/decode selection.

As radios became microprocessor controlled, the external code plugs moved inside the radio as programming information. The term has, unfortunately, remained with us, although there’s not much that still plugs in. The code plug contains the operating frequencies, tone selections, timeout values, system IDs, etc. In some instances, there’s even some parts of the program itself in the code plug which defines a radio’s personality. These days, the code plug is just a relatively small binary file that’s managed by software a program and transferred to or from the radio via several proprietary means.

Credit to kcbooboo from the batboard @ batlabs.com for the original text.

Anyone ever wonder who’s doing all the yacking on Minnesota Statewide. Brandmeister can provide some beautiful statistics and I thought I’d share the top50 ID’s from the past 2 months. I see all 3 of my radio ID’s made it into the top 20. Yikes.

ID	Call	Name	Last TX	TX Count
3127202	N0NKI	Eric J	2017-03-06T13:41:52.846Z	2474
3127087	WA0CQG	Carl	2017-03-07T14:03:04.770Z	2390
3127027	KA0KMJ	John	2017-03-07T06:23:14.221Z	2106
3127007	KA0KMJ	John	2017-03-06T21:43:34.989Z	2062
3127053	KC0CAP	Dan	2017-03-07T12:15:53.865Z	1722
3127008	N0BVE	Donald A	2017-03-05T20:54:12.834Z	1641
3127036	KC0BBK	Galen L	2017-03-07T10:25:53.742Z	1492
3127035	KC0DGY	Kent	2017-03-06T20:33:27.600Z	1491
3127235	KQ0RS	Dwight	2017-03-07T00:24:25.056Z	1464
3127147	N0BVE	Donald A	2017-03-07T03:10:12.264Z	1330
3127099	KE0EXC	Johnwayne Erickson	2017-03-07T06:26:32.650Z	1325
3127048	WA0CQG	Carl	2017-03-06T20:00:31.500Z	1313
3127265	N0SBU	George D	2017-03-06T20:29:41.499Z	1247
3127004	N0YNT	Matt	2017-03-04T22:07:04.107Z	1232
3127106	N0NKI	Eric J	2017-02-14T03:42:22.307Z	1221
3127033	KQ0RS	Dwight	2017-03-07T13:09:08.516Z	1003
3127104	KC0BBK	Galen L	2017-03-07T08:20:08.255Z	993
3127050	KD0BEV	Robert	2017-03-06T18:57:42.475Z	735
3104410	N0NKI	Eric J	2017-01-12T01:19:13.226Z	721
3127021	KD0TLS	Todd	2017-03-07T00:11:53.290Z	718
3127360	WB0POQ	Robert S	2017-03-07T05:04:58.874Z	673
3127010	KC0VRV	Matt	2017-03-07T00:31:13.261Z	584
3105035	KD5DLJ	Denny	2017-03-06T15:52:24.486Z	579
3127009	N0VZC	Mike	2017-03-03T13:46:58.561Z	497
3127146	N0GOI	Terry B	2017-03-04T23:31:25.605Z	478
3127160	N0DZQ	John P	2017-03-07T00:39:20.665Z	473
3127253	KD0DWV	Brandon E	2017-03-07T01:12:31.144Z	355
3127337	KE0N	Eliot A	2017-03-06T14:55:48.240Z	329
3127135	K0FCC	Daniel D	2017-02-26T04:51:09.257Z	293
3127220	KD0IWA	Max	2017-02-20T21:42:05.773Z	283
3127150	KE0EMB	Lee	2017-02-26T21:31:16.322Z	226
3127072	KD0YRF	William	2017-02-04T23:42:29.562Z	209
3127276	K0BEN	Benjamin	2017-03-03T18:55:51.812Z	209
3155059	N9OIG	Drissel	2017-02-26T18:30:29.886Z	198
3144010	N1JBC	Jed	2017-03-05T18:15:19.085Z	193
3127280	KB0SVW	Terrance R	2017-03-06T00:10:27.085Z	189
3127017	NK0M	Brandon M	2017-02-28T22:56:01.453Z	182
3155022	N9OIG	Drissel	2017-02-27T01:11:43.783Z	175
3127212	KD0TTG	Wesley F	2017-01-31T09:30:14.858Z	157
3127219	KC0VCT	David L	2017-03-01T03:29:16.371Z	157
3127370	KC0QNA	Don	2017-03-05T02:34:55.157Z	144
3127049	KC0HCP	Brad	2017-03-05T05:32:02.638Z	118
3127040	W0JPJ	Jarod	2017-03-05T01:24:36.591Z	111
3127215	N0TNL	Matt	2017-03-04T18:52:59.726Z	111
3127153	KC0RKH	Andrew	2017-03-03T21:47:05.102Z	105
3155155	N9UPC	John J	2017-03-04T16:45:18.228Z	103
3113011	W2XAB	John	2017-02-25T04:06:08.451Z	100
3127172	K0BBC	Matthew T	2017-02-23T23:26:34.244Z	93
3127094	KD0PNQ	Trygve N	2017-02-11T13:24:03.004Z	92
3127307	KC0BHS	Steven J	2017-02-17T16:58:03.706Z	86

If you are interested in the Travis GoodSpeed “Hacked” or Patched firmware for your TYT or Tytera MD-380 or MD-390 radio, Let me know on the MinnesotaDMR mailing list. This evening at the Bloomington Communications Group monthly meeting, I had the opportunity to update a couple radios and I would be happy to lend a hand updating yours.

73, NØNKI – Eric Osterberg