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What I’ll say for DMR is they’re all pretty much the same in programming and operations since it is a standard feature set. So if you know the MD380 the CS700 is the same. The MD380Tools are rad tho
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Dec 21, 2018 02:04
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They're surprisingly well-built radios. The LCD has a bit of narrow angle, that's about the only compromise part on it. But it feels solid in the hand and I would not be surprised if I could drop it a few times on concrete with no ill effects. Sound great on analog, too. (and they have proper SMA gender, unlike the Baofeng trashpile)
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Dec 21, 2018 03:42
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longview posted:SFP Ethernet to copper boards are very cheap on AliExpress. Update: the $10 gigabit media converters work great with $1 4G FibreChannel SFP modules, making this by far the cheapest way to get fiber ethernet somewhere. The electronics are cheap enough that the cost of multimode vs. single mode fiber cables is significant.
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Dec 21, 2018 12:39
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longview posted:Update: the $10 gigabit media converters work great with $1 4G FibreChannel SFP modules, making this by far the cheapest way to get fiber ethernet somewhere. LINK PLEASE 
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Dec 21, 2018 15:34
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Motronic posted:God dammit. I almost bought one when Jonny posted that, but said.....no.....no, I don't need that. Hell yeah, now there's two people I can potentially contact via a protocol and technology I have the barest of grasps of.
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Dec 21, 2018 16:39
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Michael Jackson posted:LINK PLEASE SFP Fiber media Converter to RJ45 Gigabit Media Converter SFP 10/100/1000M Same one that I bought except this one has a case around it (which adds around $1 per unit). I'd throw the power supply they include in trash as usual, I've got mine powered via USB right now. I used DS-SFP-FC4G-SW SFP modules that were used for 4 Gbit/s FibreChannel storage arrays, but SFPs are simple enough that they'll mostly Just Work even if they're not explicitly sold for something. The exception is name-brand network gear, which will check the internal EEPROM to make sure the module says it's made by the right brand and possibly also the right model (it's an I2C EEPROM, so reprogramming it to say whatever you want is usually simple). In this case these things don't care what you plug in, so almost anything rated for 1Gbit/s or higher will work. LOT OF 10 Cisco DS-SFP-FC4G-SW Here's a chinese seller that has a 10-pack for $7 with free shipping. Once you've got that you need a multi mode lc-lc duplex cable. I've got these right now: 3 meters LC-LC Multimode Fiber Optic Cable Duplex 10 Gigabit I've also ordered: 10M OM3 Laser LC-LC 10 Gb Duplex 50/125 for longer stretches. If you want to chain multiple cables together there are special adapters: LC-LC /PC Multimode Simplex Coupler With multimode, cleaning is less critical than single mode and for short runs like I'm assuming you're after it's probably fine to not have special cleaning tools. The old-school trick to cleaning is to dab the tip of the fiber against the sticky side of normal office tape, and it's fairly effective (just never re-use the same spot). If you want to do 50m+ runs I'd suggest that getting single mode SFPs off AliExpress is better, the cost per meter of multimode is significantly higher in bulk but the SFPs are much more expensive ($10+ per unit is typical). The SFPs I linked report their max link length as 150 meters, but for ethernet and modern multimode fiber that number will probably be higher in practice.
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Dec 21, 2018 17:23
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I've been fiddling with RNNoise for HF voice noise reduction the last few months. It's a cool concept, and since it's designed to be efficient and real time I decided to try to get it running on a smaller MCU instead of a Pi. Turns out that with optimizations on the code base as it existed in october will run real time at 40 kHz on a 168 MHz Cortex-M4F. Most likely it can go much faster if it's ported to fixed point math with optimized fft routines, but that's not something I want to attempt. Original neural network is good for background sound but fails for typical HF noises, so I made my own training network using recordings locally and via a webSDR to get reasonably low noise SSB recordings. I also ran some podcasts through filtering and put them in the training set. The current network I have is good at rejecting hiss and hum, it will effectively squelch for many non-voice signals. Some types of interference still trips it up, and it seems to have states it goes through (so it takes a bit for it to detect speech and "unsquelch", once it detects good high quality speech it tends to stay open for a bit when noise comes in). It's awful at high noise FM signals, but I found other techniques that work much better for that (basically I emulate the LM1884 feature set for FM). I'm going to integrate this into my Mackay 3021N (yes I know the frame is crooked, thanks postal service):  To achieve that I'll be re-wiring the internals a bit and I'll put a new board in where the original speaker amplifier was, board is already done (try to spot all the mods):  The board has a STM32F407 to run the neural network, a STM32F103 to handle management tasks like I2C, UART etc., and a ADAU1445 DSP in the middle. The ADAU1445 is part of a very cool product line ADI calls "SigmaDSP", which is designed exclusively for audio purposes and has a graphical programming interface that works surprisingly well. The DSP has 4 full duplex audio I/Os, one set goes to the F4 processor, the other three inputs are routed to the card edge and are effectively equal. The three remaining outputs go to a 600 ohm line output, a headset amplifier, and a 3W speaker amplifier. I decided to add it to the design despite it being somewhat overkill (it's mostly designed for 8 channel surround processors) because I realized that I wanted some expandability, so I'd need more I/O, and routing, and some extra filtering options, and doing a one-off board is more palatable if it's also a good dev platform for other projects. Of course a second STM32F4 MCU could do it all, but that's much more work compared to a dedicated DSP. The FM noise reduction I mentioned is implemented entirely in the DSP. The speaker output is equalized separately from the other outputs to give a flatter frequency response (not because I have to, but because it's real easy to do). Oh yeah, and the DSP has S/PDIF I/O but this card is in the middle of the card stack, so I added a single mode optical transceiver instead of the plastic light guide transceivers normally used. It's fairly easy to run 600µm buffered fiber to the rear panel and mount a LC adapter compared to messing around with plastic "fiber". Board is working but not installed in the radio yet, I've got a dev-box that breaks out the card edge to standard connectors for development that can also be connected to the old radio line out for testing. PBCs were made by Elecrow (or whoever makes boards for Elecrow), 4 layers, took 6 calendar days to get here. Not too bad for ~$120. Definitely got a lot of interesting stuff to test on this in the future, there's a decent selection of smaller DSPs in the lineup that are better suited to smaller projects, and this board will be excellent for testing the algorithms before committing to an actual dedicated board.
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Dec 21, 2018 22:37
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So I got my MD380, loaded up the MD380Tools firmware and a code plug supplied by ChicagoLand Control Center and am off and running. I am pretty sure I understand what is going on and I have heard a guy who's radioID says he's from New Zealand so this is pretty awesome. Am I correct in assuming that the only way to access a specific talk group is through a repeater that has opened that talk group up and you can't just connect to any talk group you want? edit-related question is there a good beginner's guide to DMR? I watched a few youtube videos and think I understand this all but who knows. charliebravo77 fucked around with this message at 02:58 on Dec 22, 2018 |
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Dec 22, 2018 02:28
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I don't mind Yaesu's UIs but I also played a lot of Dwarf Fortress so.
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Dec 22, 2018 04:45
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longview posted:I've been fiddling ... This is cool as poo poo, and part of what makes this hobby so interesting. Thanks for sharing!
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Dec 22, 2018 05:36
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charliebravo77 posted:So I got my MD380, loaded up the MD380Tools firmware and a code plug supplied by ChicagoLand Control Center and am off and running. I am pretty sure I understand what is going on and I have heard a guy who's radioID says he's from New Zealand so this is pretty awesome. Am I correct in assuming that the only way to access a specific talk group is through a repeater that has opened that talk group up and you can't just connect to any talk group you want? If the repeater is carrying the talk group you can “open” or access it by keying into it on the proper time slot. Most of them carry some standard worldwide/conus/regional and TAC mixtures. Just remember if the slot is in use with something other than a default that goes away when you use another group, you may miss traffic (same with other users) as it just transmits whichever one is first to go out barring any priority set by the repeater operator .
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Dec 22, 2018 14:56
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Partycat posted:you can “open” or access it by keying into it on the proper time slot. This was a bit of an 'ah hah' moment this morning because for the life of me I couldn't figure out why A) I couldn't hear ANYTHING on even the worldwide or nationwide talkgroups scanning around and how B) the talkgroups/repeaters weren't just constantly clogged up 24/7. The fact that you have to key into it to open the connection for both Rx and Tx now makes total sense. charliebravo77 fucked around with this message at 17:13 on Dec 22, 2018 |
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Dec 22, 2018 17:10
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Hmmmm...wish I knew getting a Radio ID took human validation. Radio is here, I've flashed it with md380tools and I'm waiting on an ID.
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Dec 22, 2018 17:53
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It's pretty quick, they may get to you by this afternoon. And yeah, the weird thing about DMR is it's generally fine to kerchunk. Since it's used for talkgroup control, everybody does it, and since you're sending your radio ID on every TX, they can track down any issues, so harmless/control key-ups are no big deal.
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Dec 22, 2018 18:17
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They just assigned one to me. And I have no idea what I'm doing still.
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Dec 22, 2018 18:26
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I think my question got buried a page or so back--hopefully not because it's too hard to answer! What gear should a newbie be considering?
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Dec 22, 2018 19:56
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Pixelante posted:I think my question got buried a page or so back--hopefully not because it's too hard to answer! Then I'd say an HT (handheld transceiver) and an RTL-SDR stick. The HT will get you talking on local repeaters at least, and the SDR will give you a pretty good idea of what's going on above ~30 MHz in your area. There's loads of info on getting the SDR set up all over the internet, and a worthwhile HT may come with a worthwhile manual. Also you can spend like US$200 for the pair and not end up with garbage radios. I'd get an Icom or Yaesu dual-bander and a Nooelec NESDR Smart.
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Dec 22, 2018 20:56
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I can't make the repeater without an antenna, which I don't have on the new house. So down the rabbit hole I go with a Pi Zero W and MMDVM hotspot on order........
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Dec 22, 2018 23:34
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Lol or order a zumspot. Guy here is running two repeaters on MMDVM and they work fine except for zero coverage area. DMR works with some really weak signals but zero is too weak. Load up a codeplug and your ID, or make your own codeplug. You assign groups as contacts, then to a repeater freq/color code/timeslot etc as channels , and channels to zones. If your local repeaters are on Brandmeister you can use the echo parrot group, see your stats, and listen to groups with the hose to see if there is something going on before you key up WW English/US/310 on top of each other.
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Dec 23, 2018 03:23
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I understood a small part of that. If I crash a global network somehow don't be surprised. I've managed to not do this professionally with BGP, but I make no such assurances with DMR.
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Dec 23, 2018 03:31
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DMR is more like programming a scanner than a ham radio, things nest into things which nest in bigger units of things and then mix and match together in final big lists Contact = either Group or Private. Private is a person's DMR ID and will show their whatever you put in when they key up as coming from them instead of just the plain DMR ID number. Group is a talkgroup and fundamental to everything else on DMR. Both of these get put into contacts Channels = Hold your frequency assignments like you'd expect, but need to pair to a group contact (Talkgroup) to function as, while there is a roundabout way to do simplex, it still involves addressing a specific talkgroup (TG99). Also these need to have a RX group associated, which itself is full of talkgroups, that you want to have "break the squelch" like a form of scanning while on the channel. Yes, you can have any transmission from a bunch of TGs play back while you're on a channel that itself you will be transmitting to only one. Zone = Hold your channels in lists of relevancy / similarity. Can be repeater based, club based, whatever you feel like it based. Throw rx-only monitoring freqs in their own zone, have an emergency zone that has some of those + some others, whatever. And then you can get wild into it for the auto roaming / repeater handoff + capacity plus TDMA sharing but that's more LMR than ham really.
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Dec 23, 2018 03:47
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Timeslots - forgot to touch on that. DMR is 2-channel TDMA by default, that's how the protocol is designed. So every frequency is split in half by rapidly pulsing between 2 virtual channels interlaced. This means it sounds like this in analog: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObtnmbcQLMw (Yes I'm a bad boy- don't run DMR on FRS/GMRS folks! but JUST for quick demo since it's fast and i dont want to actually key anything up for this... ) So any time you put up a repeater for DMR, you've actually just then put up 2. Typically people will have TS1 as their public linkable to any talkgroup slot, and TS2 as their club-only private channels and regional interop talkgroups. Or visa versa. Sniep fucked around with this message at 07:14 on Dec 23, 2018 |
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Dec 23, 2018 04:03
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Okay, that actually just explained a lot. New terms, no boundaries set/understood.....now I least I get TG1 and 2 and understand why there isn't a 3 or 4. I'm gonna be a problem in this thread very soon as I continue to try to figure this out. Making contacts is not good enough.....I want to know how it works, and so far what I've been able to google up is either 'sperge level that assumed you already have an understanding or super poo poo "I just got my ham ticket, here's how I programmed my DMR radio." The latter has been more useful so far, but not very enlightening.
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Dec 23, 2018 04:08
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Motronic posted:Okay, that actually just explained a lot. It's just LMR tech making itself into the Ham universe and as such, there's different names for similar things and also different design priorities. DMR was NOT built for ham radio use, it was built for LMR. But it works pretty great, and is great to have in your tools. Any hiccups lemme know I'll be happy to answer questions to the best of my ability, and i have friends who work for moto solutions as well as i mean jonny290 is in this thread too and has personal experience with the MD380 which i lack.
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Dec 23, 2018 08:06
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longview posted:SFP Fiber media Converter to RJ45 Gigabit Media Converter SFP 10/100/1000M Thanks man, this is extremely cheaper than my bad not efficient solution. edit: 40$ for everything. 17-26 days, isolation here i come! i only need 1-2 meter of cable since i can stash the raspberry underneath the sofa with the router. Big Mackson fucked around with this message at 19:30 on Dec 23, 2018 |
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Dec 23, 2018 19:14
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Michael Jackson posted:Thanks man, this is extremely cheaper than my bad not efficient solution. Glad to help, to be sure, you did buy two media converters right? Also under the sofa is not the right place for a router or anything powered - if anything catches fire under there it will go from minor to house-destroying in no time - please move your router 
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Dec 23, 2018 23:04
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Found how to submit my name change to the FCC, submitted it wrong, got it rejected, got an actual paper filled with Governmentese that basically said  , called the FCC, resubmitted my license change the correct way...and the Government shuts down. 
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Dec 25, 2018 02:10
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Sniep posted:It's just LMR tech making itself into the Ham universe and as such, there's different names for similar things and also different design priorities. DMR was NOT built for ham radio use, it was built for LMR. But it works pretty great, and is great to have in your tools. Thank you. Basic setup question for the MMDVM - I've got Pi-Star running on it, have my call and ID in, but then we get to "DMR Master", which has a few things at the top of the selection: DMRGateway, DMR2YSF, DMR2NXDN and TGIF_Network. This is followed by a huge list that appear to be regional BrandMeister gateways followed by regional DMR+ gateways. Obviously I get the Internet transit reason for choosing something local and well peered to where I'm at, but do I can about BrandMeister vs DMR+ (is that the same thing as DMR-MARC)? I'm not finding any clear information to start with on figuring these things out so I'm probably gonna just make it work on BrandMeister first to see how it goes. Mostly because that's in the list before DMR+.
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Dec 25, 2018 03:20
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The DMR master would be the cBridge in Moto parlance . I know Brandmeister is super friendly to experimenters and open services , so they could be a good place to start playing around. I don’t know anything about DMR+. Last I knew of MARC they had a lot of fighting about control and what groups where and who , and people sort of stepped away from it. Maybe we can get enough of us on there that we can have a memorial SAARS net!
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Dec 25, 2018 04:14
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I've only touched Brandmeister, I'd recommend you start there and pick whatever regional master is closest - however I typically don't use a hotspot so this isn't my super area of familiarity. If you can get it hooked into a close BM master though, try setting up for TG310 ("Tac-310") which is an on demand talkgroup, mostly USA nation wide. There's activity there most all times.
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Dec 25, 2018 04:15
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Qu Appelle posted:Found how to submit my name change to the FCC, submitted it wrong, got it rejected, got an actual paper filled with Governmentese that basically said U S A U S A U S A
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Dec 25, 2018 04:32
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Sniep posted:I've only touched Brandmeister, I'd recommend you start there and pick whatever regional master is closest - however I typically don't use a hotspot so this isn't my super area of familiarity. If you can get it hooked into a close BM master though, try setting up for TG310 ("Tac-310") which is an on demand talkgroup, mostly USA nation wide. There's activity there most all times. I found a sample MD380 codeplug for hotspot operation and I can hear traffic on 310 - I was hanging out on 91 and 3100 (those two were first in the codeplug) and I hadn't heard anything. So thank you! I'm gonna go get a signal report. With a know working hotspot and a sample codeplug I think I should be on my way to setting this thing up so I've got my more regional/local TGs. E: Oh yeah, wrapping presents and talking to OMs. This is pretty fun. Maybe I'll even understand how I made it work soon. Motronic fucked around with this message at 06:57 on Dec 25, 2018 |
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Dec 25, 2018 05:40
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longview posted:Glad to help, to be sure, you did buy two media converters right? yes two. i never thought about routers catching fire, i will move it so i dont lose all my gamer pc and radios.
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Dec 27, 2018 08:02
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Why were auxiliary communications not activated during the 911 outage? EG, Seattle has an emergency operations center but it wasn't active, nor was ARES up, as far as I know. Presumably all emergencies had to be handled by county and city offices directly. This seems to defeat the purpose of maintaining coordinated communication during emergency events.
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Dec 29, 2018 22:59
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PhantomOfTheCopier posted:Why were auxiliary communications not activated during the 911 outage? EG, Seattle has an emergency operations center but it wasn't active, nor was ARES up, as far as I know. Presumably all emergencies had to be handled by county and city offices directly. This seems to defeat the purpose of maintaining coordinated communication during emergency events. All emergencies ARE handled by the counties and municipalities directly. Activating an EOC isn't going to restore N11 routing. Making sure people know that 911 may not work and publicizing a backup 10 digit number to their county emergency services (which is what 911 is supposed to do automatically) seems to be the reasonable contingency plan here. Where would amateur radio come in? What would it solve in this particular instance?
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Dec 29, 2018 23:28
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hopping on 2m simplex Anyone on this thing here a doctor?
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Dec 29, 2018 23:32
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Well let's see... I'm just asking. "Usually thought of as a coordination center activated for major weather events or earthquake response," "activated the City of Seattle’s Emergency Operations Center (EOC) at 10:00 a.m. this morning to provide support to the city and coordinate response to potential traffic impacts for events and marches planned for today." "... activated to monitor the impacts of #seasnow" "In Seattle Mayor Ed Murray’s State of the City address on Tuesday, he said he would activate the Emergency Operations Center to respond to the city’s homeless crisis." "Activations have been for earthquake, snow, wind, large fires, protests, excessive heat, flu, transportation accidents and large planned events." There's a lot at https://www.seattle.gov/emergency-management/about-us that suggests they should have been up for "community communication outreach collaboration". It would have been a good training exercise, but of course they weren't even up when the wind storm knocked out power a few weeks ago. Presumably there was no overload of requests yesterday. There's a slippery slope here I'm asking about. Just how much of the communication infrastructure has to drop before activation is reasonable? Emergencies aren't handled by single locality offices directly, not end to end. Reported emergencies are triaged so appropriate services can be dispatched. That routing is specifically provided by large regions with auxiliary communication plans in order to avoid overloading emergency responders (and other reasons). "If everyone walks into the fire department to get an ambulance, don't be surprised if we.. you know... forget to go put out that fire.  "
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Dec 30, 2018 00:00
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PhantomOfTheCopier posted:There's a slippery slope here I'm asking about. Just how much of the communication infrastructure has to drop before activation is reasonable? No there isn't. You have professional emergency operations personnel on duty 24/7 making these calls. I used to be one of those people. If you want to second guess their calls I would highly suggest that you go get the training, certification and experience first, then form an opinion. There is a lot more to this than the general public and EMCOMM whackers know. They have far more often been a hinderance than a help during my tenure in emergency operations. PhantomOfTheCopier posted:Emergencies aren't handled by single locality offices directly, not end to end. Reported emergencies are triaged so appropriate services can be dispatched. That routing is specifically provided by large regions with auxiliary communication plans in order to avoid overloading emergency responders (and other reasons). Do you even know what types of services an EOC is intended to coordinate? Because it's not that. EOCs largely provide what we refer to as "extraordinary assistance." When something is happening that is so big the normal resources of the county can't handle it (manpower, equipment, money) without impacting regular services. They often bring specific event coordination, additional equipment, as well as act as a liaison between "foreign" agencies and assets (as in, assets not normally available to the operating departments of that county - like when the state or federal government steps in to an area that is legally declared a disaster). There are tactical, monetary and legal reasons and ramifications for these things. Dispatch is at a county level in most of the united states. In some rare circumstances where a large city is not it's own county the city itself will be handling their portion of dispatch. This is the point at which you, a regular citizen, are intended to initiate requests for emergency services. 911 is a phone number one calls that automagically sends you to the appropriate one of these dispatch centers, or at the very least a PSAP who will get you to the correct one, when it's working. Whether it's working or not, there are regular 10 digit phone numbers to these centers which are in the phone book, local and county materials and web sites, directory assistance and google. When phones are hard down the normal solution is to bring on every PD shift you can and put cars in the streets so people can flag them down and the officer can relay their need/report to dispatch. If there's not enough PD we usually have ambulances go out as well. Fire trucks live in the barn whenever possible, but I'm sure at some point someone has decided to roll a couple dozen $600,000 trucks with minimum crew requirements double that of an ambulance and quadruple a black and white as mobile 911 booths. Again, where's the amateur radio coming in? What specific resources for Seattle would have been gained by an EOC activation? Motronic fucked around with this message at 03:58 on Dec 30, 2018 |
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Dec 30, 2018 03:55
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PhantomOfTheCopier posted:Well let's see... I'm just asking. Please don’t do that Amateur operators, including to a large extent the CERT people that share in the hobby, are not actively trained or reliable in case of an emergency event. They like to think they are, and some people do have a background or career that would lend themselves to usefulness. The reality is as Motronic puts it is that we can be useful - in a situation where all resources available are needed, and that and we can backfill a function where we could replace needed-elsewhere personnel while doing no harm. Unfortunately that doesn’t usually mean much more than reporting weather conditions or other observations. A 911 selective routing outage probably isn’t that situation on its own. Now that being said we do not always know the situation or circumstances. If that’s combined with general communications failures, power outages, ice storms, etc then perhaps having personnel at shelter locations with an operator at the EOC would be a good idea. Not being familiar with ARES/RACES in your area, but in mine, the number of available personnel with the equipment ready to go wouldn’t be very large. Most of the guys have poo poo all for battery power, and the amount of time it would take for them to all get their windows XP laptops running to send e-mail over VHF , well, it may be easier to just send smoke signals. There could be an opportunity to help at some point in time, and being prepared for it is essential. If the group is strong enough to do assistive work and demonstrates that reliably then the odds of being summoned for things would go up, so keep on it and help out the others trying to be a part.
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Dec 30, 2018 11:30
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I was thinking about buying power line filters since my power grid is noisy. Do they work effectively?
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Dec 30, 2018 20:23
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