Digital Voice Mode - In Malaysia

As of now (early 2018), the digital voice mode is still in the infant stage in Malaysia. The interest from local hams seems to be slow and this probably due to many reasons. Anyway, I've blogged this in the myaprs.my blog, so I will not repeat it here. Here is the link if you would like to read more:

http://www.myaprs.my/2017/11/going-to-new-chapter-digital-voice.html

Anyway, for those who're looking into how you would be able to make a contact with local hams in digital voice mode, the following information might be useful:

• Yaesu Fusion - Wires-X
• MALAYSIA-NET room
• 9M2RKL (Klang Valley) - 439.600 MHz, Shift -5 MHz
• 9M4RMU (Melaka) - 439.8250 MHz, Shift -5 MHz
• Yaesu Fusion - YSF Network
• MY Malaysia Net reflector
• DMR - BrandMiester Network
• Talkgroup 50210 

The three networks above are bridged, so you can either access it using hotspot from BrandMiester or from YSF Network depending on what radio you have. For Wires-X, you need to either access it from any repeaters that are already connected to Wires-X, or from any Wires-X nodes/gateways too.

MMDVM ZUM Board - Arrived!

It actually arrived a couple of week ago and I haven't got time to play around with it since I don't have any repeater right now to work on. The package reached me via priority mail from Germany and it comes with a user manual, a USB cable, and MMDVM ZUM board attached to an Arduino DUE board.

My intention is to have this MMDVM ZUM board connected to the Yaesu DR-1X spare repeater for experimenting and if this works well, we could have it installed at one of the repeater site in Klang Valley. This will incite more digital users to be on the air and for those who're starting up, they might want to go further a bit then the normal TYT/Boefeng cheapo HTs and invest on DMR or Yaesu Fusion sets instead.

Will see how it goes! BTW, I'm really enjoying the DMR now. I'm monitoring Brandmiester TG91 most of the time and I've managed to have few QSOs there and the latest was with VK4GO, Art. Art was here in Malaysia many years back and he seems to be very well into this new digital radio stuff.

TYT MD-380 + DV4 Mini = DMR hotspot at home

So I saw the TYT MD-380 on sale in lazada for RM450 (- 10% discount from Maybank) = RM405 in total. Didn't think long before I click the buy it now button. I've bought few things from lazada which were delivered from overseas and never got taxed or hold by customs. So, why not give it a go. The local TYT distributor charges double the price for the same thing!

Anyway, its a bit hard for me to understand all the terminologies used in the DMR. Watch the youtube video on how to set up the MD-380 and connect it through the DV4 Mini dongle and managed to have it working last night. With all the DMR jargons that I need to understand, I successfully connected to a talk group 3100 (US Wide), going through Brandmeister, TG4999 and went to BM's website to connect me to TG3100. I've no idea if this is the best way to do it.

While monitoring the QSOs this morning, suddenly I heard my callsign called up on the radio. It was Charles, WB2LMA calling me. Sorry, I've no idea how to find who is active on the TG, but yah, had my first QSO on DMR through the DV4M hotspot on TG3100. Thanks Charles for calling me on the TG.