MDARC (Mt. Diablo Amateur Radio Club) has changed their D-Star, W6CX Repeater from a D-Star only repeater to a Full Multi-Mode Digital Repeater, currently configured to operate D-Star, DMR and Fusion. DXDN and P25 can be easily added. This technology allows multiple modes to operation on the same hardware and frequencies.
BUT ONLY ONE MODE AT A TIME
The repeater uses the same pair 145.0000Mhz +2.5000Mhz Color Code 1 for DMR. The same frequency is used for the other modes.
Thanks & 73′
Tim – K6BIV
NorCal-DMR
California's First DMR Network
Yea are there regular group meetings on one of these digital forms I can listen in on via the internet..assuming I can find a pie to turn into a Hotspot these days of chip shortages..
So how is one made at a time gonna work? At like midnight someone claims up on the Mt. And physically switches the mode every week? Or does multimode mean I can transmit in all 4 or so modes at the same time? Can they be linked to an analog repeater like Kings Mt. To extend its range onto a digital network to broaden their audience which is currenlt San Mateo area bound? These types of issues could be solved by hopefully new products?
The goal of the W6CX-DV Multi-mode repeater is to allow more users of digital voice modes to make use of W6CX’s special location atop South Peak of Mount Diablo. And you are right — only one mode at a time.
It’s all done in the Multi-Mode Digital Voice software, which is Open Source/free software written by Jonathan Naylor, G4KLX. Basically when the repeater is idle, the software perks up when the receiver picks up an incoming signal. The software quickly checks which of the enabled DV modes it is hearing and repeats out the received transmission using that mode.
When that transmission ends, the repeater stays locked in whatever mode it just repeated for a short while, to ensure that any ensuing QSO will not be interrupted by a different mode.
But if there is no RF activity, the software goes back to listening for all enabled modes. Right now, we have enabled D-STAR, DMR and C4FM.
We have also carefully chosen a default D-STAR reflector (REF014C), DMR talkgroup (BrandMeister 310606 Diablo) and C4FM reflector (YSF80280 Diablo). These are relatively local and provide others in the area to talk to, but are not so busy as to have a given mode take over the repeater.
However, for each of those modes, RF users can have their radios send commands to connect or link to other reflectors or talkgroups of their choice.
Once they are done, they can send another command to set the repeater on that mode to the default, or after about 15 minutes of no RF activity in that mode, the system will automatically reset to the default reflector or talkgroup for that mode.
@k6JM – understand you are using MMDVM. what’s the rx and tx hardware?