12/17/2014

Greetings!

Many of us are hoping that Santa brings us a new DMR radio in his big bag of toys! But some of us didn’t wait for Santa and already bought our own! So there are lots of shiny new DMR radios around the Connecticut Section, with many more new ones hoped for soon!

The proper programming of these complex digital radios is lot more challenging than your typical amateur analog radio. They have many more parameters that have to be set accurately so the radios function correctly on the network. The learning curve is a little steep — so we are going to provide some help with that!

The CT-ARES DMR Advisory Group will be hosting a DMR Programming Workshop on Thursday evening, 15 January 2015, from 1900-2100, at the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection (DESPP) Headquarters, 1111 Country Club Road, Middletown, CT 06457. [Note: NO weapons (including knives) are permitted in the building.]

This will be a HANDS-ON workshop. You will need to bring your radio (any make/model — Connect Systems CS700, MOTOTRBO XPR 7550, etc), your programming cable, and a laptop with the programming software and cable driver installed.
- If your radio is a portable, be sure the battery is fully charged and/or bring a spare.
- If it is a mobile, you’ll need to bring a 12 VDC power source and maybe an extension cord.

We hope this will be the first of what is likely to become several workshops covering this new-to-amateur-radio mode.

P.S. At this point a lot of folks are sharing codeplugs (the radio’s programming data file).
That is OK and is one way to quickly get on the air without having to learn ALL the programming details. However, if you are sharing your codeplug, please be sure to replace your name/call with something like NOCALL and enter 1234 for the DMR ID and save it before sharing the file. That way we can spot any issues using online monitoring and get them corrected.

If someone loads your codeplug that still contains your name and ID, he/she will appear to the network to be you. And if you try to use the network at the same time, you will be blocked!


Thanx & 73, Wayne N1CLV
CT ARES - SEC
Communications is the link between problems and solutions.

Wayne

My DMR radio is on order may not be by the 15th. I will come to the class and watch over someone shoulder.

Please confirm receipt of this email

Chris
WA1VXH