If you build it, they will come is how the saying goes, right? When it comes to digital voice modes today in amateur radio, the best way to chart the growth of the most popular modes is by looking at repeater deployments.
No individual, club or group of people will invest the time, money and annoyances to deploy a repeater on common amateur VHF and UHF spectrum unless they know there are people who will use it. And, for people to use a repeater they need the appropriate radio which uses the appropriate mode or modes of communication. This means that people need to coordinate and that is not always easy.
Going into our 13th edition of the global amateur radio repeater round up over the last seven years, no one can argue where the direction of digital voice is headed, but where are the actual users today?
Please review any of the past linked articles for expanded commentary on mode specific drivers such as new radios or features related to different modes because this update will take a different direction.
As we can see in above chart, DMR continues to grow but there are so many splintered networks such as Brandmeister, TGIF and FreeDMR which make it frustratingly interesting for new joiners to figure out how to find people given that each network is separate and each uses its own talk groups/destinations unless they are content with using a hotspot.
A hotspot is under 100% control of the user compared to a repeater, so allowing your hotspot to go to different networks (on DMR) or other modes as well as any of the destinations (talk groups, bridges, reflectors, etc) is possible. Repeaters do not permit that, but that is not the intent anyway.
DMR Networks: Lessons in diplomacy
While Brandmeister is still the most popular, not every DMR repeater will support talk groups the same way which forces some users to use a hotspot. This make programming radios a challenge for some people as well as those that are experienced in keeping radio programming up to date as it relates to repeaters.
For new users who look for local repeaters that have DMR, the same talk group (Example: 31368) will not reach the same people if they are on a different network, unless someone created a bridge but that sort of defeats the purpose for different networks anyway. This frustrates people since DMR is not just DMR, its DMR that is implemented at the network level differently.
This network flexibility has proven to be a benefit and a curse at the same time for DMR, but that is ok because its still the most popular and lowest cost entry to digital voice. DMR has also proven to be the driver behind many innovations on network capability which the others did not focus on.
Any Pi-Star or the WPSD/W0CHP variant running on an inexpensive hotspot is just like having your own repeater though and you can set it up however you wish.
It is estimated by HVDN that there is 70:1 ratio of hotspots sold compared to digital voice repeaters currently online. At any given moment according to Brandmeister, there are well over 15,000 hotspots connected at any time. Currently, there are only a little over 11,000 digital voice repeaters, so that means that its possible there have been over 700,000 hot spots sold.
There are many amateurs, including myself that have had multiple hotspots over the years and those I no longer used, were sold/given to others in the hobby. Its easy to think that many interested in digital voice likely have or have had in excess of three or more hotspots so that 700,000 number is actually pretty modest and is probably too low.
Digital voice repeaters do not all need the internet
DMR also as a reminder does not need the internet and there are repeaters that provide only local coverage and users do not need to be registered via a central user database, even though it helps to have an ID linked to your callsign from https://www.radioid.net/
Yaesu Fusion and Icom's D-Star have a more tightly controlled network to connect repeaters to for those wishing to communicate via the aid of the internet, but also can be configured for local only coverage, but there are likely far less repeaters using these modes which operate that way. Registering on the Icom D-Star network can be annoying and Fusion while easier, still requires registration for internet access.
The commercial modes like P25 and NXDN can be deployed any way the repeater owner wants, but these will never reach the same scale as DMR or dedicated vendor modes because handheld or mobile equipment is not designed with the radio amateur in mind as its main buyer.
Here is the actual data for repeaters globally by mode and surveyed twice a year along with matching compound annual growth for period by period and total growth.
Eight Repeaters: And growing.....
Now lets look at the M17mode again which was designed by amateurs for amateurs, but there are no commercially made handheld or mobile radios available to support this just yet.
Instead, for the time being its easy to purchase a few auxiliary devices which connect to 9600bd capable mobile radios to allow them to transmit and receive M17 protocol.
There are also a few other devices such as transceiver capable SDR devices like a HackRF, Caribou or LimeSDR which can be used with software like SDRangel on a computer to communicate M17 mode.
Ready to purchase equipment will be available so anyone can use M17 for radio to radio communications, or radio to repeater to radio communications with or without the internet. Pictured above is the small batch run M17 board that only maybe a dozen people in the world currently have which converts any 9600md radio into a M17 radio.
Currently there are eight listed M17 repeaters on www.repeaterbook.com and this is three more since May 2023.
North America as of the time of this article has a four M17 repeaters
And the remaining four elsewhere in the world can be seen below.
The current state of M17 is the "sweet spot" for HVDN given our focusing on emerging technologies that have evolved from ideation to "beta release" easily accessible for those motivated to hands-on experiment and collaboratively discover versus appliance focused push button operators.
Over the last seven years as digital has become mainstream, those who consider themselves early adopters have moved on to other things. It appears that M17 is the going to be the new playground for those looking for something new.
M17 is also not just voice communications since it also handles text. All the digital voice modes allow for this, but not many people use them. It is this non-voice capability which HVDN will be spending more time focusing on in our build out.
Let's Just Wait: Club Excuses
When HVDN was created in 2016, it was to partially provide intelligence to the local area here in New York who needed education about the most popular digital modes and assist those with becoming familiar with what turned out to be DMR as predicted. Now seven years later, not much has changed in the region. This has been a success, but only if you add up all the people who bought DMR radios and hotspots and not who use them every day, like an HF radio or 2m analog radio.
Eventually, just talking radio to hotspot to internet to hotspot to radio sort of gets boring. Am I wrong? No.
The challenge is that still seven years later, the New York area and Hudson Valley specifically has not done anything innovative when it comes to embracing digital voice or infrastructure.
The local ARRL leadership excluding a few recent changes and leading clubs in our area continue and constantly fall back on "low effort" activities like HF contests, actual hamfests that do not get cancelled, recurring entry-level presentations, etc and ignore the fact that in order to attract and retain members, various leading edge activities and the infrastructure to connect them are needed
Amateur radio is different things to different people and many clubs complain about dwindling membership, lack of treasury or lack of engaged members. None of them actually try to fix this known issue or make it hard for those willing to fix them. Events and new technology are needed to maintain and grow.
HVDN started off strong but only to be overwhelmed by some who just wanted the same thing, so now we will further distance ourselves from the general interest community's instead of being forced to embrace the failures by other clubs.
Tell me where the freaks at!
As 2023 now comes to a close, the seven year experiment ends and moves to the next phase. HVDN will be focusing on building out its network in order to put the Hudson Valley on the map even more so and to attract like minded individuals to its membership ranks.
Our first experiments with membership driven models did not allow us to target the right people, so those who were paid members have not been asked for dues in about three years to bring us back to zero and move to our new membership model.
Between technologies such as M17 and LoRa, there will be some interesting things ahead for HVDN. Our suggestion is other area clubs better get ready or get left in the analog dust.
The member rates for HVDN will also be changing to raise the bar even higher and to act as a nice filter to retain and reward our contributing members in current standing. Let the rumble begin!
Each May and October going back to 2016, HVDN has analyzed repeaterbook.com data for digital amateur radio repeater deployments.
Today being the 1st of June and now officially in the "End of COVID" era according to United States Center for Disease Control, lets have a look at the latest data to kick off summer time in many parts of the world. Lets celebrate with some pie of all digital flavors!
Yaesu Fusion - Still the 2nd most popular (by volume) digital repeater with an impressive 9.97% growth over the reporting period. New radios like the FTM-300 and FTM-500 by the single manufacturer of Fusion equipment help drive reasons for more fusion repeaters around the world, with a total of 6 current production radios on the market. The least expensive Fusion capable radio is the FT-70 handheld for around $180 USD.
Icom D-Star - The good news is that Kenwood has the TH-D75 handheld radio ready to go to market later this year and will support D-Stat much like its earlier relative, the TH-D74. However, Icom is still the only main supplier of D-Star handheld, mobile or base radios. While the new Icom ID-50 handheld will also support D-Star, there are eight current or near production radios that support this digital mode and none of them cost under $200 USD. Icom D-Star has remained flat for repeater deployments at 1.79% growth but its worth noting like all digital modes, the internet or a repeater is not needed for digital mode communications.
DMR - How do we explain 12.46% period growth for DMR? More radios offered by more vendors and full tier 2 compliant handheld radios sold for as low as $30 USD such as the COTRE series of radios found on Amazon. While you do not need a repeater to use DMR or even the internet, the multi vendor ecosystem certainly is working for the adoption of DMR as the leading (by volume) driver of digital amateur repeaters.
P25 - Still a commercial standard and no inexpensive new radio equipment available, but digital repeater deployments are growing at 15.67% over the reporting period which shows promise. As commercial users retire phase one P25 equipment, expect to see more digital repeaters be put on the air globally. If the license for the P25 was as loosely enforced like DMR, we could expect to see P25 really grow fast over the next few years unless the new open standard M17 finally gets into production grade equipment.
NXDN - Another commercial standard generally deployed for non-critical users, there continues to be some decent growth by CAGR and not by volume of this digital mode offered by companies like Icom, Kenwood and others. There are still no very low cost radios available using NXDN, so expect this mode to just be a novelty in use across some pockets of amateur radio enthusiasts.
Get a slice of : What did you say about M17?
The good news is that repeaterbook.com now shows a total of five total digital repeaters using this open source mode. Currently there are the following:
N1KGN - Located at Bridgeport Hospital in Bridgeport, Connecticut (United States)
WX5RC - Located at Rogers State University in Claremore, Oklahoma (United States)
KC1AWV - Located in NHL Bruin's territory in Rockingham, New Hampshire (United States)
Its worth noting that two of these three repeaters are listed as multi-mode and are not M17 full time. The only one likely as a dedicated M17 repeater is Steve KC1AWV's since he is part of the official M17 development team.
There are two international repeaters with the secret one in Poland in Nowy Dwor Mazoweicki operated by the inventor of M17, the infamous Woj SP5WWP and the multimode capable VK3RCQ repeater located in Junortoun Australia.
By October, HVDN hopes to see a few more M17 repeaters on the air, but there are still no off the shelf M17 capable radios available for purchase which will continue to hold things back for M17.
However, there are some exciting things happening in the M17 community which will be more clear in the next few months to come. So, for now keep an eye on M17 but it will take a long time for this one to reach mainstream which is ok given there are no "current" commercial companies making available equipment to use M17.
The intent of this article is to provide insight to a limited mobile device to Brandmeister Network experience helpful for those looking for another field capable communications option. And, if you are a child of the 1980's you will easily understand the villainous image above!
Using the "Mumla" Android or iOS application, you can easily link a few talk groups via Brandmeister for access on your mobile phone from anywhere for limited DMR access.
Your DMR ID - You MUST use the newer 31xxxxx format ID. Older 11xxxxx will not work.
Your hotspot - Make sure you enter in your SSID as part of your hotspot, but I have realized your hotspot does NOT need to be on the network for this to still work.
Where does it work? This will work anywhere you have mobile device coverage
Connecting The All Seeing Eye!
Now that you have set everything up and you connect, you should see something like this on your mobile device. You can then click into the limited list of bridged talk groups and communicate globally.
Be aware that certain ranges of talk groups will not be permitted to be added after opening a ticket with Brandmeister and even then, you will have to have a server configured to hopefully allow you to get added to Mumla.
After some testing, this works rather well as an alternative communication method using my Android and iOS devices.
This will NOT replace anything for me, but its nice to have this set up "just incase" I need it. Plus, it works well with a Bluetooth headset and audio is rather good.
One last note, if you want to see what happens after hitting the PTT button on Mumla while watching your Pi-Star dashboard, make sure you add the talk group to your hotspot so you can see your traffic.
One idea this gives me is getting more SOTA or POTA people in the Hudson Valley on the TriState NY-NJ-PA talk group while doing activations if they have mobile service if something other than a local repeater is needed for spotting and you do not want to use a hotspot while at the park or in the woods.
Now, how about this as our next ham mobile inspiration!
With cooler weather here to stay for a while, its time for another global digital repeater roundup brought to you by Steve K2GOG of Hudson Valley Digital Network.
This has been a 7 year in the making project tracking the different digital voice modes currently leading VHF/UHF repeater deployments, according to data from repeaterbook.com
Every May and October, data has been collected from the leading source of the most accurate source for repeater details globally. While some local options might exist that may be more up to date, ideally that information should be shared with repeaterbook.com to help out lazy travelers or those visiting an area for the first time who would more easily find this website compared to local club or individual websites.
Leaders: Most Popular Options
By now, its defacto information that both the proprietary Yaesu Fusion and the quasi open standard multivendor DMR options are by far the most popular. Low cost equipment helps drive the reasons which justify having more repeaters for these modes.
In the last year, there have been no major developments for new mobile or handheld equipment aside from some small refreshes on existing models like the popular Anytone or Alinco DMR radios. Yaesu has only given us the FT-5DR and FTM-200DR which is pretty good considering they are the only company that makes fusion capable radios which can be used on its 3200+ strong network of repeaters.
P25 is a commercial standard and is not marketed directly to amateur radio operators in any off the shelf non-professional grade equipment, but its growth rate is very strong. Based on how long it took for D-Star by Icom to become popular before flattening out, could we see P25 or NXDN become the dominant force in digital modes? The answer is likely not, but that is where a new mode called M17 will come into play.
More then digital voice: M17
All the digital modes mentioned all can do some other tricks beyond just voice communications. Icom D-Star probably has the most advanced options from sharing location, photo, text and more with other users who have Icom equipment or the no longer made Kenwood TH-D74.
Yaesu Fusion really misses the mark to some degree, but most Fusion radios support analog APRS which increases interoperability for certain use cases. There are a few DMR radios with very basic analog and digital APRS functions.
M17 which is absent for now on the digital repeater list promises us a true open digital standard for voice with some additional tricks up its sleave such as location sharing or text messaging.
The what's next
This would be a complex opinion based discussion, so lets use the airwaves or social media to discuss this fun stuff instead. Doink!
Life has been busy for Steve K2GOG and that is reflected in the lack of recent blog entries on HVDN Notebook. This post "should" have happened in late May or early June, but that was not possible due to 1,000 other distractions such as our Hudson River Radio Relay on June 11th, ARRL Field Day on June 25/26, a new job, countless family adventures and other stuff..
However, lets get things back on track here since it has now been five years since HVDN began and this is an appropriate way to re-energize with HVDN readers via our twice a year global digital repeater roundup series. Look for more stuff coming soon plus BIG news regarding HVDN if you live in the Hudson Valley of New York.
First off, let me apologize for having to use July 10th 2022 data to provide the 1H22 reporting data.
This extra month plus a few extra days should not really throw anything too far off, since its still clear that the total global digital repeater mode leader in volume is DMR. However, P25 is the true leader if we look at overall CAGR.
As noted in the table above, data is shown from May of 2018 and through July of 2022. Measurements are taken every end of May and end of October. Raw data per mode is shown for each period and CAGR was calculated for the May and October periods independently. An average of both periods can be found at the far right of the table.
The below table shows the included 2016 data if you were wondering how long we have been tracking things if you are a new reader and missed the past nine other articles.
Report: What has happened in digital voice since October 2021?
Estimates I predicted last October for May of 2022 included:
Yaesu Fusion Global Repeaters = 3135 forecast (Actual 3218)
Icom D-Star Global Repeaters = 2429 forecast (Actual 2471)
DMR Global Repeaters = 4009 forecast (Actual 2003)
P25 Global Repeaters = 569 forecast (Actual 630)
NXDN Global Repeaters = 160 forecast (Actual 167)
Lets first talk about Yaesu Fusion's latest developments. My guess is that the latest crop of radios which have come to market over the last 8-9 months may have pushed some clubs or repeater trustees to put up some additional repeaters to support the people who paid money for digital technology.
A few radios like the mobile FTM-300DR and FTM-200DR plus FT-5DR handheld added to an existing pool of equipment available with C4FM capability. The strategy of "Make more Fusion radios" is probably working well for Yaesu as a single vendor ecosystem. Go Yaesu! You blew past my forecast!
Yaesu FTM-200DR pictured which retails for around $380 USD and is competitive against other digital mode offerings for competition modes
Oh, sad sad Icom. Will you figure things out when it comes to D-Star? To your credit, I was surprised just a little as I had expected that you would lose repeaters according to repeaterbook.com but you did actually gain a few.
Now I am not sure if all 2471 around the world are actually active and if repeaterbook.com removes incorrect data as frequently as they should. I do know that when traveling not every D-Star repeater is on the air though....so your secret is safe with me for now.
Maybe people who now have the super fun Icom IC-705 and IC-9700 have put pressure on magical repeater gnomes to conjure up a few more repeaters to use those expensive radios on or the new handheld ID-52 which finally is shipping. Maybe this is true, but CAGR still does not lie.
Hovering around 1% CAGR is not fun to see, but perhaps if some cost effective equipment that supports D-Star ever comes to market, that should change things like we see with Fusion and DMR.
Be honest, did you buy a $1700+ Icom IC-9700 radio to talk on your local repeater? If yes, I would love to hear about that
Ok, now for the record, I currently own more D-Star capable radios than I do for DMR. However, DMR is the mode I use the most still when I have time to play radio.
The Alinco DJ-MD5XTG continues to be my favorite "ham" grade DMR radio and I sort of wish something more expensive and with features like the D-Star Kenwood TH-D74 or Yaesu FT-5DR would come to market. The RFinder B1 is a really cool radio which supports DMR but I am not interested in a smartphone based device for $1000 USD.
With continued impressive repeater growth numbers for DMR, most people probably are using Anytone or Alinco equipment plus who ever is still supporting TYT and Radioddity based equipment. The key thing here is that lower cost gear gave DMR a boost and repeater ninjas knew what to invest in.
For DMR, there is even a rather good Under $30 basic radio called the COTRE CO01D which only can program 16 channels, but otherwise is great to use with a hotspot on limited talk groups. It is doubtful we will ever see a competing D-Star option at this price since the JARL license for D-Star is 2-3x the cost of just one of these radios.
Alinco offers the MD520 which offers dual band 2m/70cm plus 220 MHz and VHF air receive. Anytone has a comparable D578UVIII for sale at around the same price. Both compete with the Fusion radios for close to the same price.
I was really close to my P25 prediction and was only off by 1. That is actually pretty nice.. Growth of P25 is fueled by surplus commercial equipment. NXDN is pretty much the same story and actual versus predicted growth from October 2021 to today Not much really to talk about for equipment since options for new gear are from commercial companies only and surplus options are too varied to discuss.
The growth of P25 is interesting to continue to see though. As more municipalities change radio systems around, it should be interesting to see how P25 and NXDN evolve within amateur radio.
M17: Will it happen ever?
Being nice here, but I own 3 total M17 T-shirts, a bunch of stickers and a semi-functional TYT MD-380 converted to be used via hotspot for this open source FDMA based mode. I have yet to find people local to me to try simplex M17 to M17 but have done that at a hamfest.
Every day that goes by possibly gets us closer to off the shelf turn key equipment for M17 and I am hopeful that this mode explodes once it has some reliable equipment to support it. The back end infrastructure to connect repeaters to is already in place and a few "test" repeaters are sort of available to a few people.
To help keep M17 top of mind, presentations can be found all over the place and the upcoming HOPE conference will feature at least two of them talking about this open source mode.
Feel free to check out open source RF experimentation at 10:00 AM Saturday July 23rd co-presented by Steve K2GOG and Joe NE2Z plus a much more legit one about M17 scheduled along with so many great ones found at https://scheduler.hope.net/new-hope/schedule/#
HOPE 2022 is going to be epic and hope you can make it in person or virtually
Here is a preliminary review of a recent antenna toy acquisition thanks to some spare Amazon points.
If this antenna proves to be a good option for MF waves instead of EF waves, this is likely going to become a popular product pretty quick. Let's dig in here, shall we?
MF, EF - What is it? A round antenna duck?
Here the antenna is on Amazon and it comes in BNC, SMA and SMA-J variants so it will pretty much work with most radios if you buy the right one.
The vendor on Amazon does not call this a magnetic loop and I have not taken this antenna apart to see if a hidden capacitor is in that black bubble at the top of the loop but I suspect there is.
For me, I chose the BNC connector antenna version since using it with an adapter like the ones shown in the "Portable RF Connector Emergency Kit" are always on hand.
How does this compare to the original factory antenna?
The radios tested with the HYS antenna pictured include the Alinco DJ-MD5XTG, the Kenwood TH-D74 and the Lanch HG-UV98 all using the original factory antennae.
A second round of testing was done with all three same radios but with the same aftermarket Diamond SRH320A tri-band antenna.
The test scenario was to communicate via a 2m repeater 30 miles away with all three different antenna options and at all available power levels for each radio.
The results were from an audible report from different users on the repeater without telling them what I was doing over the span of a few hours on different days.
Results of Test: Non- Scientific you say?
The reason why I chose to use different radios is that different antennas will work differently based on the radio mass offered as the reflective or counterpoise part of the antenna system. What? Here, look into counterpoise or "Tiger Tail" if you must learn more...
This test allows us to see more uniform tests in a real world environment instead of lab style results.
For each transmission, the radio was held the same way and at the same height.
Signal reports in green were all positive and as good as one could expect to come from an HT 30 miles from a repeater. Yellow reports included comments of fading or weak signal but still audible. The red reports were scratchy or not very pleasant sounding.
At first pass, we can say that the HYS "Loop" antenna and stock antenna are all pretty much about the same results. As expected, the longer and higher "gain" Diamond antenna worked the best.
Now with some baseline curiosity under control, lets do something more scientific in terms of radiation patterns and reception tests.
Is this an EM or RF antenna?
To test if the HYS functions in the "electro-magnetic" wave or the "electric" wave function, I used a field strength meter to check radiation patterns of all three antennae at three distances outside in my backyard away from anything before it snowed this morning.
Based on the test data as expected, stronger signals from the stock and Diamond antenna were strongest when they were vertically oriented which matched the polarity of the sense antenna used with the field strength meter.
When transmitting with the radio held horizontally, the field strength meter dropped to more than 70% less than what was shown in the vertical test.
Here is the interesting thing with the HYS antenna though. No matter which orientation (horizontal or vertical) the same signal strength was recorded at the field strength meter.
MATH TIME (1005/146.500 MHz = 6.8 * 12 = 82.3 inches)
Rotating the HYS antenna to have the edge of the hoop or broadside of the hoop aimed in phase with the sense antenna did not show any major differences unless I moved to the furthest test location which was five full wavelengths away from the sense antenna.
At the one and three wavelength distance, there was no major difference with all three radios transmitting at highest power levels.
What does that mean?
I think it is safe to say that the polarization of the HYS antenna does not conform to the normal EF wave portions and this seems to function like a true magnetic loop when used for transmitting since its polarity and field strength are very different.
For reception, there is a very sharp null off the edge, but it is very sharp. Testing this with an attenuator built in to the Kenwood TH-D74 while tuned to the local repeater or NOAA Weather station which are known locations was the only way I could tell there is a sharp null.
Magnetic waves work differently compared to electric waves. When a true EM or MF antenna is used, signals received may be lower, but with less noise. This means that the "signal to noise" radio is higher and better for reception usually. This is what makes a true MF antenna interesting.
This becomes important especially for HF frequencies where there is more man made noise than ever. Even still, today more man made noise also happens in the VHF spectrum and this small loop might come in handy.
If you want to learn about EM antenna, especially for HF, use your Google subscription to discover more about that. Many options exist, including overpriced commercial products and many DIY projects that are fun to look at if you are interested in this for HF spectrum communications.
Further Testing Needed
There are not many people local to me involved in casual non-contest 2m SSB or FT-8 activity to see how well this will work as a portable antenna for SOTA with the Icom IC-705, so that will have to wait.
Some testing on APRS however has been interesting but will need to drive around with the antenna on the roof for more testing too.
Overall, I think this antenna is worth a purchase if you have some Amazon points or other disposable funds anxious to leave your ownership.
Your mother told you NOT to stare, right? Here are some of the things used during the test (Source: Steve Bossert K2GOG)
Kraken is coming and we all need to prepare for its arrival. On Tuesday October 19th 2021, Steve K2GOG was invited to the North Star Digital Net to give a quick chat about what does it do and why its important for the future within the broader topic of "software defined radio".
A few people who could not attend the live discussion had asked Jim WA2UMP and Steve K2GOG to see if they could record the audio presentation. This is a fun problem that needed to be solved first to start this article, so read onward!
How do you record DMR audio?
Steve K2GOG planned to use his Alinco DJ-MD5XTG to talk via his hotspot which reaches the Brandmeister 31630 (STEM) talk group. A nice feature with this radio, as well as the popular Anytone AT-878 series of radio, is that it can record transmit and receive audio with timestamps and by who was speaking.
Its easy to scroll through recorded audio files one by one or play all your recordings on a loop to play them all in order. This could be helpful if you thought you may have missed some important scheduled discussion or activity on your favorite talk group.
One annoyance is that the recordings save to internal memory on the radio instead of a micro SD card, like on radios such as the D-Star focused Kenwood TH-D74 or the Fusion based Yaesu FT-5DR.
Both of those radios and even the Icom IC-705, all require the user to remove the SD card from the radio to access recorded audio but that makes it really easy to access those files on your computer and send them to someone to share interesting transmissions like during a satellite contact.
In the case with the Alinco and Anytone, you need to connect up a cable to your computer to access the recordings but you can not pull those files off which is super annoying. The manufacturers software seems to lock this function out but would otherwise clearly support this as pictured below.
If you click any of the files listed in photo above, the recording simply plays through the radio speaker but we are no closer to sharing the recordings.
The Alinco DJ-MD5 series of radio uses a simple USB micro cable to program the radio but does not output audio. The way to solve this problem is to use the headphone port on the Alinco which uses the standard 3.5mm plug found on most all consumer headphones.
Using a 3.5mm stereo to stereo cable, the other end plugs right into the microphone jack on your computer sound card. If you have a modern laptop which uses a TRRS (Tip, Ring1, Ring2, Sleeve) style connector, you may instead need to use a USB sound card as mentioned in Steve's explanation video below.
Now that we have that problem solved, you can use a program like Audacity with the sound activated record function enabled to "re-record" the audio from the radio to your computer. While this takes a little while to do, it lets you easily stitch together the audio segments you want with no gaps.
If you are over a certain age where you may remember double cassette recorders, this activity may bring back memories of less technological days when you had to get creative to make a mix tape from "borrowed" cassettes or maybe songs off the local broadcast station.
Hopefully this modern solution may give you some ideas on getting more from your DMR radio.
Getting back to Kraken
After all that, now we can finally get to the recording you might have missed!
It sounds like he missed a few parts but is otherwise complete. It looks like a time intensive operation to click on all recordings in order, so bear that in mind if you wish to do something like this yourself.
The recorder function works on any "over the air" DMR signal, so using it also to record simplex activity like what took place during the NEARFEST on US national DMR simplex of 446.075 MHz on time slot 1, color code 1 and talk group 99 is another idea.
But, if you plan to record audio from Brandmeister you can also just use the "Hoseline" function and route that audio from a talk group into Audacity just as easily using virtual audio cables.
And with that, I hope you are looking forward as much as Steve is to getting the new Kraken once its starts shipping in March 2022.
In May 2021, HVDN reported that we were creeping ever closer to that 10,000 digital repeater mark and as of our October survey ofrepeaterbook.com data this important date in amateur radio history is here with 10,035 digital amateur radio repeaters now tracked.
Here is the latest data based on our semi annual collection efforts since 2016, but no data was collected in 2017.
Our first near casualty of the digital evolution
Someone will really need to look hard at repeaterbook.com data to ensure accuracy of these D-Star tabulations since it appears that 21 less D-Star repeaters exist in October 2021 compared to May 2021.
It is pretty well documented by now thanks to HVDN and pretty much any radio amateur today that DMR is by far the most popular digital voice mode today with an impressive 155.35% increase over the last 5 years.
Still don't believe you, my local 2m FM repeater is just fine!
For those into more fancy math if we are talking about growth or declines, compound annual growth rates (CAGR) are often used in different industries to track growth over a certain period. Over the past five years, DMR is still leading the pack at 20.62% CAGR.
However, beyond the two dedicated non-commercial amateur modes known as Yaesu Fusion and Icom D-Star, it certainly seems interesting that the commercial P25 standard is growing faster than DMR.
Using repeaters to track the healthy growth of amateur radio is smart. Repeaters are expensive and local people with radios are needed to create a need for them to exist or to influence what to purchase. This is why counting repeaters is a great proxy to measure growth and adoption trends.
However, some areas do not have many digital voice repeaters but users are purchasing certain digital radios to use with hotspots. Many of these additional digital adopters are likely learning towards DMR or Fusion as a "my first digital radio" rather than D-Star or the two commercial modes known as P25 and NXDN.
Our secret digital future is already here
We have seen new products brought to market by smaller commercial companies and entrepreneurs, such as the RFinder series of DMR smartphone radios thanks to Bob W2CYK.
New networks run entirely by the radio amateur community like Brandmeister Network and its amazing development team have opened new doors to expand all digital voice modes, including an entirely new up-and-coming amateur created mode such as M17 thanks to Wojciech SP5WWP.
The community also even has other entirely open source network tools such as DV Switch, HBlink plus the amazing MMDVM and Pi-Star projects that Andy MW0MWZ, Jonathan G4KLX, Andy CA6JAU and others created to let us use repeaters or hotspots and fanned the flames of the digital evolution fire probably the most.
And, how could I not mention the work that folks like Roger VK3KYY are doing with OpenGD77 plus the equally fine development around OpenRTX which both help create new ways to use existing radios for digital communications, such as the case with modifying the cult favorite TYT MD-380 DMR radio to be used as M17.
We should expect some exciting times ahead for amateur radio as we also cross the boundaries of generational differences for people born after 1980 who will be entering later career stages and will have even more time for amateur radio experimentation.
Maybe its popular somewhere else?
Different parts of the world are at a crossroads today when it comes to adopting or retiring certain types of equipment.
This is something which HVDN will further track publicly going forward since as the below chart indicates the current split between North America and Rest of World digital voice repeater data.
Many people do not have the attention span to read articles like this, but they need to pay attention to what is being discussed here very closely if you care about your amateur radio hobby.
Here is my prediction for the next two years (2022 and 2023) for digital repeater counts
While spending time within the HF spectrum chasing rare stations or park activators is good fun and will only get easier as the 11 year sunspot cycle matures over the next few years, do not forget about next generation technology.
Spending more time on SSB during a 20m contest or CW on 40m will not propel the hobby forward for the next generation. Same also with using local 2m analog only repeaters for casual morning gatherings.
Please, spend some time experimenting with different technologies, modes and new ways of thinking and challenge yourself to try and keep track of how much time you spend in different aspects of the hobby month by month or year by year.
The more time spent on the future will secure our past and ensure amateur radio exists for the next 100 years.
Feel free to share some comments below on this and check out our past articles to learn what we are doing which may inspire you to get involved with something new in the future of digital amateur radio.
Software Defined Radio is eating the world. SDR devices have become common place in both the amateur radio and electronics hobbyist world for many years now and the good news is that hardware comes at different prices in order to appeal to different users.
On October 5th 2021 during the North Star Digital Net, Rick W1RHS, will be talking about the inexpensive RTL-SDR USB dongles and where they fit in along side other much more expensive devices aimed at the amateur radio community.
For under $30 USD, this popular RTL-SDR V3 has been covered before on HVDN and Carl Laufer who is the manufacturer of this SDR has even shared some HVDN articles on his very popular RTL-SDR.com blog
And, because HVDN and Jim WA2UMP who runs this excellent DMR weekly discussion are close friends with Rick W1RHS, here is a quick link to Rick's upcoming presentation which will be live on talk group 31630 (STEM) on Brandmeister next Tuesday.
Its also possible to listen to the discussion without a DMR radio by looking for 31630 in the talk group list at https://hose.brandmeister.network/#/
What about the software? What about the Kraken?
Rick covers some really great detail on hardware plus some ideas for software, which is really needed to get your "software" defined radio to do anything.
Between Rick's latest presentation and one that Steve K2GOG did a while back on "Sensing the world around you", you will see many of the same references to certain software, like SDR#, SDR Play, SDRangel and a few others. Since the below chart was created, another cross platform application worth a strong look is called SDR++
One area which both presentations did not talk about is something called a phase coherent software defined radio which actually combines multiple radio's together in order to provide very unique capabilities.
The RTL-SDR.com website not only offers its inexpensive SDR many just call the "V3" but also a device called the Kerberos and its upcoming really exciting update to this called the Kraken.
This topic on phase coherent SDR is best left for another time, like how to change some code to use the older Kerberos hardware with the newer software meant for the Kraken.
Please give a listen to support Rick and his October 5th SDR presentation by marking your calendar now incase you have other things in the Hudson Valley or beyond taking place the same evening.
Have you noticed that HVDN has not posted much about DMR or even things relating to the different digital voice modes for a while? Did you look closely at the photo above for some laughs?
Our focus has been on community growth and awareness via the massive June Hudson River Radio Relay event, a mini QRP HVDN field day, helping to support the USMA at West Point triathlon via APRStt this past August and most recently, spending the day at the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome to support the OMARC K2A effort.
Plus, with a new weekly commitment to support UNDR Net, there has not been much free time to do much else this summer as HVDN prepares for a series of fall season events.
A reminder from Brian W2BRM today that we have not chatted in a while, made me think I should go find something interesting to write about related to Pi-Star as I try to find the time to do a short video about a duplex hotspot to be included in Pete N2MCI's upcoming presentation about the basics of hotspots to the OMARC club coming up in a few weeks time.
Public Hotspot
Many people are afraid to touch certain buttons in Pi-Star, but I am not one of those. Most people use a hotspot to just provide communications for themselves which means your hotspot is in private mode and only lets a radio programmed with your DMR ID to use your hotspot.
If you click the button under "General Configuration" from private to public, here is what will happen.
Up until recently, changing to a "public" hotspot would allow for anyone to use your hotspot. This is helpful at public events as an example if many people have a DMR radio and it makes sense for them to all be on one hotspot for internet communications, while local use can take place via a standard simplex channel.
If you want anyone to be able to use your hotspot, leave the "DMR Access List" box blank.
Alternatively, you can add a list of DMR ID's separated by a comma which would allow only your closest trusted friends to also use your hotspot.
Be sure to remember to hit "apply changes" when adding or deleting DMR ID's.
Bigger picture use case
Now, lets say your club has a DMR repeater that is managed by a Pi-Star interface on your favorite DMR network like Brandmeister or TGIF. Using this feature could be helpful to ensure that only members of your club are permitted to use the DMR repeater instead of anyone else.
While this can be considered exclusionary and not the best way to portray amateur radio, this feature may be helpful to help promote the use of certain talk groups on a repeater rather than a hotspot. Should an issue happen where preventing a specific user is needed, this feature can permit that also.
There are many ways this feature can be used, so feel free to share some comments below on how you may wish to use this or not.
