Headlines!

Posted on January 27, 2019 by Rich


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The next PSRG educational meeting is Saturday March 16th (1 week delay due to the Mike & Key Swap Meet). Details below.

New PSRG DMR repeater operational! Details below. Note that we now have a menu item for DMR, which will take you to our DMR resources.

We had a great Annual Meeting. See a Summary below.

Upcoming Events: Here are a few of the upcoming events in our ham community. More details will be published as they become available.

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PSRG Educational Meeting – Hands On With DMR

Posted on March 4, 2019 by Rich

The next PSRG educational meeting is Saturday March 16th (1 week delay due to the Mike & Key Swap Meet). As usual it will be held at the Salmon Bay Cafe in Ballard and starts at 1:30 PM. Due to the February 9th board meeting that was canceled there will be a mini-board meeting first to conduct a few items of business.

Then it’s HANDS ON WITH DMR.

Come and see DMR up-close with a quick review of what it is and then see it in action with live QSO’s. Local talk groups, world-wide contacts and time slots explained.

Have a DMR radio and need help with a code plug? We’ll have some great help available to load your radio with suggested talk groups and contacts.

Already up to speed with a radio that’s programmed? Head to the back tables for a round-robin discussion of tips & tricks to expand your knowledge.

And be sure to see the DMR page on the PSRG website, too as there are additional items to familiarize yourself with.

 

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PSRG Board Meeting

Posted on January 27, 2019 by Rich

UPDATE: Canceled.

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A Great PSRG Annual Meeting!

Posted on January 27, 2019 by Rich

The PSRG Annual Meeting was a great success! It was well attended and we had a very interesting talk by Bob Stephens AF9W.

The winner of the Anytone DMR HT door prize was David Smith KB7PSN, President of the Mike & Key ARC. (We better not see it for sale at the Swap Meet!)

Theresa McLaird K7AII reported in the Treasurer’s Report that PSRG is financially healthy.

President Doug Kingston reported on the two major projects accomplished during the last year–the Voter system and the DMR repeater.

Tim Helming WT1IM and Bill Thomassen W6NBN were unanimously reelected to their respective positions, and vacant position #3 was filled.

The meeting wound up with a great program on “An Introduction to DMR” by Bob Stephens AF9W. Update: Copies of his slides are now available at the link above.

 

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New PSRG DMR repeater operational! [Revised Jan 26]

Posted on January 14, 2019 by Rich

Update: Talk Groups Revised. Again.

From Doug (KD7DK): With material help from Randy (W3RWN) and labor from Casey (AE7SL), the Puget Sound Repeater Group has installed its test DMR repeater at Capitol Park.  This repeater is linked to and carries the core PNW-DMR (Pacific NorthWest DMR Group) talkgroups.  Please visit their website pnwdigital.net* for more information on the PNW-DMR network, talkgroups, user technical guidelines, and operating best practices.

If you are going to operate DMR in this region, please join the PNW-DMR notification group so you can receive operational notifications and be informed of network changes.

Now the details so you can program your radios:  Our repeater is new so its not in the existing codeplugs which you can download from the PNW-DMR website.

RX 440.775 / TX 445.775 (+5.0)  Color code 2
Callsign WW7PSR
This is a dedicated narrowband (12.5KHz) channel.
DMR Digital transmissions only.

The following talkgroups are supported:

Time slot 1:
Seattle 1 (310477)
Wash 1  (3153)
Local 1  (3181)
PNW 1  (3187)
Parrot (9998) – This is a playback test talkgroup.

Time slot 2:
Seattle 2 (310534)
Wash 2  (103153)
Local 2  (3166)
Tac 1  (8951)
Tac 2  (8952)
Tac 8 (8958)
PNW 2  (103187)
PNWR (31771)
Audio Test (9999)

The equipment for this repeater is a Yaesu DR-1X operating at 20 watts into a modest gain antenna.  The digital modem is a Micro-Node Teensy-MMDVM connected to a Raspberry Pi 3 running MMDVM-Host and DMR-Gateway to interconnect to the PWN-DMR 2-slot gateway, known as Rex.  This is not the final configuration but one the group could launch quickly, and help us gain more information to inform our final equipment choices.

If you have not operated DMR before, please take some time to read some of the information for first time users  before keying up.

We have been really pleased with the initial coverage reports.  Please let us know how you find the coverage.  We are currently running 5 watts, but that was a configuration mistake and it will shortly be set to 20 watts which will probably be the final setting for the test repeater.  Send questions and observations to tech@psrg.org.

*Also please note that PNW-DMR is in the process of moving their web presence to a new hosting site and that some of the URLs referenced above may change in the future.

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PSRG Annual Meeting

Posted on December 12, 2018 by Rich

Update: The PSRG Annual Meeting will be held Sunday January 27th from 1 PM to 4PM at the Seattle EOC . The speaker will be Bob Stephens AF9W on the topic “Introduction to DMR.” See the Annual Meeting Page for detailed information.

New! PSRG has received a donation of an AnyTone AT-D878UV GPS DMR handie-talkie which will be awarded as a door prize at the Annual Meeting. You need to be in attendance at the annual meeting to win.

The AnyTone AT-D878UV is a dual band analog FM and DMR (tier I and II) portable radio, it supports APRS, DMR Roaming and DPRS. This radio is designed for amateur radio. The radio has a value of $219 and was donated by an anonymous donor.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07JM2HTV6/ It will, of course, work on the new PSRG DMR repeater. 

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DMR Repeater Planned

Posted on December 12, 2018 by Rich

Although the minutes of the December board meeting have not been released, President Doug, KD7DK has announced that the board approved the installation of a 70 cm DMR repeater at the Capitol Park site. See the  previous DMR Repeater Proposal for an explanation and details. Doug announce on the December 10 PSRG Net that donations were being accepted to cover most of the costs. By the December 12 9 PM Net, the goal had been met!

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IRLP has been restored!

Posted on December 12, 2018 by Rich

IRLP has been out of commission for a while, but thanks to our dedicated Tech Team, it is back in business. The Echolink/IRLP/Allstar page has been updated with instructions about how to use it.

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Repeater Voting System (Remote Receivers) Monitoring Link

Posted on October 20, 2018 by Rich

Update 

PSRG added a “Voting System” in October 2018. This is a network of remote receivers scattered around the coverage area to enhance the coverage for people calling into the repeater. Although the system is one directional, i.e., the remote units can receive your signal, the output of the repeater still comes from Queen Anne. A more detailed explanation of how the system works has been provided by Doug Kingston, KD7DK: PSRG Voting System. PSRG Voting System.

You can look at the strength of the signals being received by each of the receivers in real time at the PSRG Supermon page.

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November Educational Meeting

Posted on October 17, 2018 by Rich

The November Educational Meeting date was held on Saturday November 10, at 1:30 PM at the Salmon Bay Cafe, 5109 Shilshole Ave NW, Seattle.

The topic was “Ham Makers and Tinkerers Showcase”

Confirmed presenters were Cody, AG7LR, presenting his work with micro-controllers; Darin, KG7ZFC, presenting his Raspberry Pi/SDR box project and Quentin, K7DRQ, discussing Antenna Optimization with Genetic Algorithms.

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