At our radio club meeting on Monday night, I talked about DMR radio, the fastest growing digital format on VHF/UHF. Wow, did I get a positive response! There is a lot of interest in this topic and many of our members are out buying DMR radios and getting on the air. My presentation is available here: DMR W0TLM Meeting Presentation.
Most folks are buying the UHF Tytera MD-380 due to its attractive price point. The price on Amazon seems to fluctuate but it is typically around $100: TYT MD-380 – UHF DMR Ham Radio. Main Trading Company usually has a good price on the radio, too.
A good source of codeplugs for Colorado is the Rocky Mountain Ham Radio web site. I adapted a recent MD-380 codeplug for use in the Monument area: K0NR Rev 1 RMHAM_MD380_2017-10-28.rdt
You’ll need to use the MD-380 software to load/edit this codeplug. See the VA3XPR web site if you need the software. Under General Setting, you must change these entries:
Radio Name – enter your callsign
Radio ID – enter your DMR-MARC radio ID number
Intro Screen – recommend putting your name and callsign there (or whatever you want)
In the codeplug, I created the W0TLM zone for use in the Monument area which should cover most of your needs. After you get used to the programming software, you can add/modify channels and zones. But be careful as there are many parameters that need to be entered correctly.
I will be updating this codeplug from time to time. Let me know how it works for you.
73, Bob K0NR
Update 18 Nov 2017: I updated the codeplug to incorporate the latest RM Ham Radio repeaters. This is based on the latest RM Ham codeplug dated 28 Oct 2017. I highly recommend you adopt the TyMD380toolz so you can just pull all of the worldwide DMR radio ID database into your radio.
Hi Bob,
Download link for the code plug seems to be broken.
Dave
Try doing: Right Click – Save Link As
Hi Bob, I tried that and it still doesn’t work. Best I can tell is something doesn’t like the white space character in the file name. Dave
It seems that wordpress really doesn’t like the rdt file suffix. I think its working now.
73, Bob K0NR
Bob,
When I uploaded my codeplug from my
md-380 it showed a unique device I.D. plus
a unique serial number. Just needed to clear
up whether shared codeplugs would load
directly into the radio without seeing these
parameters. Or if I bought another md-380
could I download my current codeplug into
the new radio without worrying about “bricking”
the thing with the wrong codeplug for that
particular device. I am sure the answer is
on the web somewhere but I haven’t come
across the exact answer to this. Sorry if it
has been rehashed numerous times.
Sincerely John Core kr4cb
Whenever you use a shared codeplug, you should always put your own DMR MARC radio ID into it.
https://www.dmr-marc.net/cgi-bin/trbo-database/register.cgi
I’m not sure about the serial number…not sure you can even set that.