here are some Nets to listen to on DMR in VK/ZL, as of 13th May 2024

VK3XEM's Welfare Net, Mon to Fri 10am AEST, runs on the VK3 AllStar Network, but accessible from Brandmeister DMR TG 50525, also P25 TG 50525 and I think also on NXDN TG50525.

VK3KK Round Table Net, Wed 8pm AEST, same network as above, on the VK3 AllStar Network, but accessible from Brandmeister DMR TG 50525, also P25 TG 50525 and I think also on NXDN TG50525.

ZL Digital Net, Friday night, 8pm NZT, 6pm AEST, on  VKDMR TG 530 ZL Call Freq

Westlakes  Net, VK2ATZ  Sunday morning from 8.00am AEST on VKDMR TG3802 linked to Brandmeister TG5052

Westlakes Broadcast, Sunday morning 9.00am AEST on VKDMR TG3802 linked to Brandmeister TG5052

VK7 WIA / REAST Broadcast, Sunday morning 9.30am AEST on VKDMR TG5

VK-DMR Net, Tuesdays 0900z on VK-DMR TG505

BMARC Monday night net 19.30pm AEST and Thurs 19.30pm AEST via Brandmeister TG50520

 Port Stephens Net Thurs nights 19.30pm AEST VK-DMR TG3809 & Brandmeister TG5109

P25 Activity as of 6th May, 2024

 looking at some of the P25 Activity  around as of 6th May 2024,

TG10100

TG10201

TG10700

P25 TalkGroups Activity as of 29th April, 2024

I showing some of the activity over past week,

TG10100 WW  (M1GEO  UK), - it has a new Dashboard URL  - it has activity

TG10101   WW - some activity

TG10102    WW TAC2  - some activity

TG10103     WW TAC3  - unknown

TG10200 NA TAC

TG10201 NA TAC1 - plenty activity

TG10202 NA TAC2  - some activity

TG10203 NA TAC3 unknown

TG10400 Pacific P25

TG10401  Pacific TAC1/WICEN  - nothing, but it is a WICEN channel

TG10402  Pacific TAC2 - used by stations in China

TG10403 Pacific TAC3 - no response could be gone

TG10700 plenty of activity, a good dozen stations on here.

TG50525  plenty of activity, as it linked to VK3 Allstar network, multimode gateway

Dashboard URL's :

TG10100 - TG10100/Worldwide P25Reflector-Dashboard (m1geo.com)

TG10200 - - P25 North America Reflector (dvswitch.org)

TG10201 - - P25Reflector-Dashboard by DG9VH (dvswitch.org)

TG10400 - TG10400 PACIFIC P25-NXDN Bridge - VK2HK

TG10401 - TG10401 PACIFIC TAC1 (WICEN) P25 - VK2HK

TG10700 - AU P25 NSW - YSFReflector-Dashboard by DG9VH (gustotech.net)

TG50525 -  TG50525 P25 Gateway-Bridge - VK2HK & TG50525 NXDN-DMR-P25-YSF - VK2HK

MMDVM HS_HAT Modem Firmware Release Notes

 I haven't found any release notes yet for v1.6.0 or 1.6.1, but here are the recent previous releases

CA6JAU Release notes for version 1.5.2 :

• Support for BridgeCom SkyBridge HS
• Fix pictures transmission in YSF (Manuel EA7EE)
• Add "." to CWId (Andy MW0MWZ)
• Support for OrangePi firmware installation using generic_duplex_gpio_fw.bin (Sergei)
• Support for ZUMspot Dualband RPi and ZUMspot Duplex RPi (Abad Vera)
• Old ZUMspot Duplex USB is now Generic Duplex USB
• Serial Repeater RX optimization (Shawn Chain)
• UDID support (Shawn Chain)
• UDIO optional
• Beta fw support for installer scripts

This is a beta release 1.5.1b, for beta testing:

• Support for new boards: ZUMspot Dualband RPi and ZUMspot Duplex RPi (Abad Vera)
• Old ZUMspot Duplex USB is now Generic Duplex USB
• Serial Repeater RX optimization (Shawn Chain)
• UDID support (Shawn Chain)
• UDIO optional
• Beta fw support for installer scripts
• Fix bugs

Release notes for version 1.4.17 :

• Additional "sleep" for flashing (Florian DF2ET)
• Update NanoDV (Tom BG4TGO)
• Enabling Serial Repeater RX (Garry WD0DUD)
• Add D2RG MMDVM_HS support

Release notes for version 1.4.16 :

• Add support for POCSAG calibration mode by Florian DF2ET (latest MMDVMCal)
• Add I2C host communication support (custom firmware compilation)

for the rest of the release notes go to here :

Releases · juribeparada/MMDVM_HS · GitHub

Upgrading MMDVM board firmware from Pi-Star

 I just recently completed the exercise of upgrading my Pi-Star units with the Dashboard upgrade to 20240309 (9th March, 2024), and the Pi-Star firmware to 1.4.8

I noticed my MMDVM modems were still on 1.4.17, I looked at CA6JAU's GitHub and could see latest version he has was 1.5.2    GitHub - juribeparada/MMDVM_HS: MMDVM HotSpot: firmware for ZUMspot or MMDVM_HS based boards (D-Star, DMR, YSF, P25, NXDN and POCSAG)

but when I actually used the  Pi-Star > Configuration > Expert  > FW function to upgrade firmware, I discovered it was deploying version 1.6.1 for MMDVM_HS_HAT and same version for MMDVM_HS_DUAL_HAT

for my MMDVM HS_HAT modems (JumboSpot and the S56AL clone (Red)) were all same firmware that I upgraded manually a few years back. Below are  extracts from Pi-Star Livelogs, before and after upgrade :

MMDVM protocol version: 1, description: MMDVM_HS_Hat-v1.4.17 20190529 14.7456MHz ADF7021 FW by CA6JAU GitID #cc451c4

MMDVM protocol version: 1, description: MMDVM_HS_Hat-v1.6.1 20230526 14.7456MHz ADF7021 FW by CA6JAU GitID #7ff74ed

for my MMDVM Dual HAT modem, extracts from the Pi-Star Livelogs, before and after upgrade :

MMDVM protocol version: 1, description: MMDVM_HS_Dual_Hat-v1.4.17 20190529 14.7456MHz dual ADF7021 FW by CA6JAU GitID #cc451c4

MMDVM protocol version: 1, description: MMDVM_HS_Dual_Hat-v1.6.1 20230526 14.7456MHz dual ADF7021 FW by CA6JAU GitID #7ff74ed.

I ran into issue when doing the MMDVM_HS_DUAL_HAT modem board, the firmware upgrade stopped with an error, 

So I did a google search to see what to do about it, a few forums mentioned, but explanations were not easily understood, but eventually found the error details I needed, which was basically solder a JP1 solder pad  and solder a wire link into a header position, then I was able to complete the modem firmware task from Pi-Star menus, Configuration > Expert > FW.

From another forum, I learnt some more commandline  commands from Configuration > Expert > SSH Terminal, not so much to resolve, but to interrogate the MMDVM modem, which confirmed a few things.

For the type of MMDVM modems I am referring to above, then here they are:

JumboSpot :

S56AL clone (red coloured) :

MMDVM HS_DUAL_HAT modem :

same modem with OLED display fitted :

and below is the information to unlock the DUAL_HAT modem for upgrading

once the upgrade is complete, you can cut the link and remove solder blob from JP1 pads.

Here are Various Links to Upgrade firmware error discussions :
SOLVED - mmdvm single and duplex firmware update problem - forum.pistar.uk
Zumspot Libre Not upgrading - forum.pistar.uk

Updating MMDVM 1.52 to 1.61 : r/HamRadio (reddit.com)

PiStar MMDVM Upgrade Fix (m7spi.co.uk)    M7SPI covers the SSH commands you can use.

Make sure you upgrade the Dashboard version and Pi-Star software to get the latest Admin functionality.

Data Rate on Brandmeister AU DMR network from OpenSpot hotspot

 just saving a screenshot of Received Data rate from my OpenSpot1 on the Brandmeister AU DMR network,

approx 3.1 kbytes/sec

Pi-Star DMR Configuration Options for Static TalkGroups

 I was playing around with my Pi-Star configuration, with defining Static TalkGroups under DMR mode, I had added 11 x TG's in the TS1, and found the last couple were not there, meaning that I didnt see or hear any activity in the Activity (heard list) on the Pi-Star Dashboard for two of the 11 defined static TG's.  I tested with another radio, to test each TG defined, to find that TS1_10 and TS1_11 dont work, I trimmed the string back to 9 and it all working.

Did some Google searches to find that it is true,  each TS can have maximum of 9 x static talkgroups.

DMR+ Dynamic Talk Groups - forum.pistar.uk

In the Pi-Star Forum it says  you can have 9 x static TG's defined under TS1 and 9x static TG's defined under TS2.

DMR Node count for VK & ZL

 I have taken stat count of nodes in the past, this time I have written it down, but a couple years ago,  I found the numbers were much the same for VK-DMR versus Brandmeister nodes, in terms of VK activity, what I recall was around the 240-250 mark and looks much the same again today.

here is the count as of today, 22nd April 2024 for VK and ZL

VK-DMR :  Hotspots 242, Repeaters 56, Total=298.

BM  (VK): Hotspots  269, Repeaters 11, Total=280

ZL DMR+ : Hotspots Total=55 

BM (ZL): Hotspots Total=32

NOTE in ZL, repeaters don't have distinctive callsigns like VK does.

This is not a comparison of what is best, each type of DMR network does a different job, they are configured and operate differently, it is all about experimenting and learning, regardless of using one or both DMR modes and same goes for experimenting with other digital modes within the hobby.

DMR Nets for VK & ZL regions

 here are some Nets to listen to on DMR in VK/ZL:

VK3XEM's Welfare Net, Mon to Fri 10am AEST, runs on the VK3 AllStar Network, but accessible from Brandmeister DMR TG 50525, also P25 TG 50525 and I think also on NXDN TG50525.

VK3KK Round Table Net, Wed 8pm AEST, same network as above, on the VK3 AllStar Network, but accessible from Brandmeister DMR TG 50525, also P25 TG 50525 and I think also on NXDN TG50525.

ZL Digital Net, Friday night, 8pm NZT, 6pm AEST, on  VKDMR TG 530 ZL Call Freq

Westlakes  Net, VK2ATZ  Sunday morning from 8.00am AEST on VKDMR TG3802 linked to Brandmeister TG5052

Westlakes Broadcast, Sunday morning 9.00am AEST on VKDMR TG3802 linked to Brandmeister TG5052

VK7 WIA / REAST Broadcast, Sunday morning 9.30am AEST on VKDMR TG5

VK-DMR Net, Tuesdays 8pm AEST on VK-DMR TG5

M17 Project & WSPD - next generation digital voice

 M17 Project 

WPSD is a next-generation, digital voice software and dashboard suite by W0CHP, which includes native M17 support; as well as programs to update your modem firmware to the latest versions, which support M17

Software | M17 Project

The WPSD Project - W0CHP.radio