Category: HAM

Digital communications for HAM has never been so phenomenon, thanks to the development of the MMDVM boards and pi-star software which let us use the MMDVM/pi-star as a hotspot/gateway to BRANDMEISTER network, hence connect to all over the world in talkgroup (TG) has never been so easy.

Digital mobile radio (DMR) is an open digital mobile radio standard defined in the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) Standard TS 102 361 parts 1–4 and used in commercial products around the world, but in HAM world, we are making use of DMR on amateur radio band, mainly on UHF.

If you are on DMR but may want to contact Malaysia talkgroup, please join TG50210, where YSF/Wires-X/DMR are being bridged into one single “zone”, sometimes you may have some oversea stations that connect to the DMR brandmeister TG50210 from YSF or Wires-X Malaysia-Net room, if you are the lucky one. If you do not have a hotspot, you may also connect via 9M2RKL around KL or 9M4RMU by using wires-x on Yaesu digital devices.

There are several good to go options for HAMs which wanted to try out digital communication, especially there are very good reasonable HT around which can be purchased only, most famous HT which is TYT MD380 because it has good customized firmware which can be loaded into its firmware for HAM use (because the device is initially design for commercial use)

TYT MD2017 has dual band (V/U) which also a good choice but now lag of custom firmware (loading userdb is a function which loads all the DMR-ID /callsigns into the HT) and one of the picture above shows that Baofeng RD-5R also could be a nice purchase because up-to-now when writing this article, the firmware of RD-5R connects MMDVM with no problem at all, hence proven the new firmware can be compatible with the dual timeslots (TS) that use in DMR, which previous DM-5R could not support.

TG50210 Lastheard Dashboard: – https://pistar.lucifernet.com

Please register yourself a DMR-ID now, at this URL :- https://www.dmr-marc.net/cgi-bin/trbo-database/register.cgi , it is free

Note:

If anyone wants a good MMDVM board, please contact 9W2SVT, he made a good MMDVM board, he has a good blog over here: –

http://9w2svt.blogspot.com

What is AllStar Link?

The AllStar Link network consists of a number of large (and small) individuals and groups who wish to provide efficient large-area communications to the Amateur Radio public in their respective local areas, which utilizes VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), basically using asterisk as a backbone and codec like G.711, G.722, G.729 etc for the radio communication backbone.

Unlike other ROIP (Radio Over Internet Protocol) like Zello and Teamspeak, Allstarlink does not promote the replacement of radio (RF) equipment for telecommunication but only as the “backbone” provider as to connect for other radio stations/repeaters and stations.

Please read on details on powerpoint file below:-

Powerpoint Link – Direct download

Now the only connected nodes are 47259 9W2LWK, 47711 9W2KHN and 9V1KB 47771

The video below is the usecase scenario of how Allstarlink works, at the end of the video, it even calls via SIP (VOIP), as it is an asterisk box anyway.

and a sample of some Allstarlink node which bridge to DMR via AMBE3000 hardware and analog-bridge software (https://github.com/N4IRS/Analog_Bridge)

Newly updated my R1-2020 (BH7NOR build) interface to my Yaesu FT-7900