Transmission1

I think it's shown as contact, if I remember correctly from when I looked in the programming software. Usually under the TX parameters.

radiosification wrote:I think it's shown as contact, if I remember correctly from when I looked in the programming software. Usually under the TX parameters.

Thanks for the quick reply. Will try to find that now.

UPDATE found it. Thank you.

If someone from TM1 (maybe BB, welshevo or whoever) would care to take the time to write a tutorial for DMR in plain English for digital idiots such as myself, then I think that that would make a fantastic sticky, and help radio dinosaurs like me come into the 21st Century.

Yes, there's Google, but it doesn't seem to cater for analogue Neanderthals who need to be spoon-fed the information.

I was planning to make a video like that. Would that be a suitable alternative to a written tutorial for you?

Either, or, I am not anti digital, I just don't understand talkgroups, colour codes and all the other acronyms, I realise I won't hear the pigs with these things, but I'm always up for a bit of radio, and as this seems to be the future then bring it on.

I'll start work on it this weekend and aim to upload it by next weekend.

Change of topic: I've also ordered an MD-380 to try out, and will make a programming guide video for that too, in case anyone is struggling with it.

radiosification wrote:I'll start work on it this weekend and aim to upload it by next weekend.

Change of topic: I've also ordered an MD-380 to try out, and will make a programming guide video for that too, in case anyone is struggling with it.

If you've ordered the latest TYT I've found mine to be on the latest firmware and had none of the bugs described such as "keyboard will only type letters". I've only had the radio a couple of days now and no issues and very pleased with it. A review will come later.


GOOD
--Crystal clear audio on DMR systems and also on analogue systems.
--Sensitive on DMR and NFM, Much better sensitivity than the baofeng radios that I have
--Great battery life, I mostly have been receiving so may be biased but even when used on the DMR tier 1 446 channels I still haven't had to charge it yet.
--Fast scanning speed, Usually these Chinese transceivers have a slow scan speed, this one has a more acceptable one, with the added bonus you can add both analogue and digital systems in the same zone and scan those quickly.
--Nice screen and easy to read.
--Tough and durable, the radio doesn't look like it would break easily.
--On DMR you can send text messages to other radios in the area.
--Analoge mode isn't like other digital radios without CTCSS. This one has CTCSS and DCS options for analogue mode alongside some other settings like DTMF and PTT ID.
--Ability to program in RX only channels. Great for the scanner enthusiast who is worried about transmitting on licensed channels.
--Weak DMR signals still come in relatively clear, at the edge of coverage of one system that I monitor when I go to one room of my house. The quality is still understandable, this isn't really a radio feature more of a DMR feature as compared to analogue FM it would be fading and very staticy.
--12 character limit on the screen.
--Ability to program the side buttons of the radio to do different things





BAD
--Repeater is spelt wrong in the radio settings
--You have to enable FPP programming in the programming software and also you can't add or remove channels - only change them.
--Purely atheistic but it would be nice if you could change the display backgrounds colour.
--If you change the radios volume - the beep volume doesn't change.
--Like many chinese made radios, it's a hassle to put on the belt clip - you have to screw it in while pressing it in which can be annoying and fidgety to do.




BAD
--Repeater is spelt wrong in the radio settings
--You have to enable FPP programming in the programming software and also you can't add or remove channels - only change them.
--Purely atheistic but it would be nice if you could change the display backgrounds colour.
--If you change the radios volume - the beep volume doesn't change.
--Like many Chinese made radios, it's a hassle to put on the belt clip - you have to screw it in while pressing it in which can be annoying and fidgety to do.

interested that you find the TYT more sensitive. Im comparing with my CS700 and QYT-D68 and
it seems to be the deafest of the three. I think the squelch presets are set WAY too hard in the codeplug
and am trying to find a way to change this

regards

BB

Admiral wrote:Either, or, I am not anti digital, I just don't understand talkgroups, colour codes and all the other acronyms, I realise I won't hear the pigs with these things, but I'm always up for a bit of radio, and as this seems to be the future then bring it on.

Hi,

Probably the best guide I have found bar Moto technical training stuff http://www.trbo.org/docs/Amateur_Radio_Guide_to_DMR.pdf

Enjoy!

Steve

That guide seems pretty good but I found one thing in it already that is not correct. They say that DMR tier 1 is 6.25KHz FDMA, and that is completely untrue. It's also wrong that it has been expanded for use other than dPMR446. They link to the dPMR association website.

Just so nobody get's confused, DMR tier 1 is almost the same as tier 2, which is the normal DMR that is currently used my almost all commercial and amateur systems, except that it cannot use repeaters the radios are limited to 0.5W and only work in the 446MHz license free allocation. That means it uses 12.5KHz, not 6.25KHz as they say.
dPMR is a totally different standard.

Thanks Steve, I read it, but got lost on page 4, I really need a complete dummies guide to DMR.

I have a full ticket, so am not limited to licence free frequencies, and I also write Unix software and driver code for industrial robotic and automated systems, so am not totally thick, or stuck in the 1960's, but this digital stuff just goes over my head a bit.

Just an update the radio finally ran out of battery (2 days just using as receive and a bit of lower power transmit seems good to me)

Another quirk I've found is even though you can only program in 16 channels per zone, you can make a scanlist of 31 channels max.

radiosification wrote:That guide seems pretty good but I found one thing in it already that is not correct. They say that DMR tier 1 is 6.25KHz FDMA, and that is completely untrue.

From the original Motorola spec which mirrors the ETSI guide for licence free digital equipment DMR tier 1: 12.5 kHz FDMA while the dPMR: 6.25 kHz FDMA. I assume the "DMR" above should be dPMR instead which of course would be correct for the tier 1 protocol. Probably just a typo.

radiosification wrote:Just so nobody get's confused, DMR tier 1 is almost the same as tier 2, which is the normal DMR that is currently used my almost all commercial and amateur systems, except that it cannot use repeaters the radios are limited to 0.5W and only work in the 446MHz license free allocation. That means it uses 12.5KHz, not 6.25KHz as they say. dPMR is a totally different standard.

Yes designed as a low power sibling to analogue "446" equipment and as stated offers point to point working only as tier 1 handsets & mobiles are all single slot there is none of the spectrum efficiency that the professional user both demands and nowadays requires!

But as others have said in this thread it is a completely new area for most amateurs and hobby scanner users, Most people are used to entering a search range 450Mhz to 470Mhz and scanning that segment which would bag a load of hits along with DCS and CCTSS codes on a normal day, where-as a digital scanner does nothing unless they are programmed in!

DSDPlus or DMRDecode are great tools to get an insight into the mode and there are enough DMR signals about that allow the average user to practise on.

73 Steve

26TM944 wrote:

radiosification wrote:That guide seems pretty good but I found one thing in it already that is not correct. They say that DMR tier 1 is 6.25KHz FDMA, and that is completely untrue.

From the original Motorola spec which mirrors the ETSI guide for licence free digital equipment DMR tier 1: 12.5 kHz FDMA while the dPMR: 6.25 kHz FDMA. I assume the "DMR" above should be dPMR instead which of course would be correct for the tier 1 protocol. Probably just a typo.

I'm not sure I completely understand what you're saying. If they wrote dPMR in place of DMR then it would be correct, but it still wouldn't be relevant in an article about DMR. It shouldn't really include anything about dPMR unless, for example, they were mentioning that there is another similar digital voice standard called dPMR.
DMR tier 1 still switches on and off as in TDMA, but the radios aren't configured to be used to take advantage of this. It would be possible to implement 6.25e though if manufacturers built it into their DMR tier 1 radios, by using DCDM. I assume it is allowed in tier 1 equipment. (6.25e means equivalent spectrum efficiency, so it's equivalent to 6.25KHz efficiency, by using timeslots as in TDMA or code division as in CDMA)