Author: Oliver F4BWG

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BrandMeister DMR supports the new Hytera PDC-760 LTE/3G/Wifi radio & cell-phone device !

Hytera PDC-760

This new Hytera radio combines a conventional Analog FM radio, a DMR Tier I+II+III radio, and a cell phone !

The PDC-760 can connect to the BrandMeister DMR network over the air (repeater or hotspot) and over an IP network (WiFi , cellular 3G and LTE ).

This IP67 dust and waterproof radio is running an android operating system, a color 800×480 gloves-compatible touch screen with shatter-resistant Gorilla® Glass 3, and features a 128×96 top LCD display for easy reading from above.

You can configure Talkgroups from the front screen or the codeplug.

When using an IP network, you can connect to the BrandMeister DMR network and use Talkgroups, Private call, and Private messages as you would normally over the air or with a hotspot. Two BM modes are available:

  • Automatic: incoming traffic for talkgroups, private calls and sms messages.
  • Exclusive: once you select a private or group contact and push PTT, you will be placed in an exclusive mode where no one else can disturb you. You can press the hang up button to exit. It’s like having a private half-duplex phone call !

This new radio includes Hytera’s latest smart battery fast charge technology, 3 times faster than regular batteries allowing an 80% charge within 30 minutes. Full charges can be achieved in 1 hour !

The BrandMeister master servers running version 20180601 and above support this device. Below is a video clip of the device connected to a BrandMeister network over IP:

Notes: BrandMeister does not support video calls nor phone calls (PSTN). The switch between over-the-air and over-ip is done manually by the user.

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Support for NXDN reflectors and NXCore

Support for NXDN (NX-REF and NXCORE) has been added in the latest version of BrandMeister DMR Master Server.  Master server administrators can assist you in setting up a gateway.

Here are important considerations to know about the NXDN implementation.

NXDN protocol

Keep in mind that unlike DMR, the ID numbers on NXDN are limited to a 16-bit value.  Everything above 65519 will not be recognized.

BrandMeister Server

BrandMeister does not do any ID translation between DMR<->NXDN :

*  When you receive NXDN traffic on BrandMeister, the original NXDN IDs will be showing up as the source and the talkgroup.

* When you transmit on a BrandMeister talkgroup that is bridged with NXDN, only the last 16-bits of your DMR ID will be kept and used as a the source on the NXDN network.

There is also no translation between the two systems Talkgroup IDs. Only Talkgroup numbers between 91 and 65519 are supported.

BrandMeister currently only supports the ICOM implementation of NXDN.

BrandMeister has implemented private calling support for NXDN, but at this point neither NX-REF or NXCORE have implemented this feature on their end.

NXCORE

NXCORE only supports 1 concurrent call (half duplex). This means that if several people are transmitting on a talkgroup connected to an NXcore, only one transmission will go through, and all others will be discarded until the gateway path becomes available.

You will not be able to setup multiple NXCORE on the same server to the same BrandMeister master server (by using different port numbers for example). NXCORE recognizes a BrandMeister master server as a repeater; and NXCORE identify repeaters by IP only (not by ID, not by IP/PORT).

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Some statistics about unique IDs using BrandMeister and selfcare accounts

We ran database query over the past 6 months and have seen that more than 54,000 unique DMR IDs have been utilizing the BrandMeister network. That’s more than half the number of IDs assigned by DMR-Marc !

As of today, 16,000 unique users have created a Self-Care BrandMeister account . (per call-sign; some call-signs might have several DMR IDs)

Thank you all for your continuous support for the BrandMeister DMR network!

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xlxd 2.2.1 interlink now supported on BrandMeister Master Servers

Update: XLX 2.2.2 now fully functional with BrandMeister DMR, including D-Star traffic originating the inter-connected XLX.

The new BrandMeister Master server version 20180116-121244 brings the ability for a master server to establish an interlink with xlxd 2.2.1 . For reflector administrators, one of the major benefits of xlxd 2.2.1 is the ability to handle both D-Star and DMR audio flows with the ability to leverage AMBE transcoding.

When an interlink is established between a BrandMeister TalkGroup and xlxd 2.2.1, it is important to know that xlxd will only perform  D-Star~~DMR AMBE transcoding when sending D-Star audio to the BrandMeister master server. Outbound audio from BrandMeister DMR to the XLX server intended for D-Star traffic is not being AMBE-transcoded by the XLX server.

Below is a technical explanation of the reason. If you are planning to request an interlink, please also take notice of the current xlxd issues.

Continue reading “xlxd 2.2.1 interlink now supported on BrandMeister Master Servers”

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New BrandMeister master server in mainland China

We are very excited to announce that a new BrandMeister master server 4601 is now operational in mainland China. This has been made possible with the help of Michael BD7MQB.

The  server is hosted at the multi-carrier Alibaba Cloud, offering low latency and fast data transfer to all users in mainland China.

For any assistance or further information, please check the BrandMeister China Wiki page, or check the QQ group 欢迎加入BM China 服务器讨论群，群号码：327069058.

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New BrandMeister Last Heard : Better & Faster !

The BrandMeister DMR Last Heard has been nearly completely rewritten; for a more stable, reliable, and faster experience. It also includes new features !

Seriously Faster !

The last-heard has been rewritten and streamlined, from 500+ lines of code down to only 300 ! A significant gain of speed has been added with the elimination of all external lookups, which are now done ahead of time by the master servers.

More Features !

New features have been added to the Last-Heard. You’ll see a new Talker-Alias (TA) column, as well as c-Bridge names in the source column.

BrandMeister DMR Last Heard - New features

A feed is now built-in with more updated news !

Give it a try !

Go to https://brandmeister.network, and click on “Last Heard”. If you experience any error, please make sure to clear your web-browser cache !

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BrandMeister Halligan Self-Care Login is back !

 

Update: The outage is now over, the Halligan Self-Care site is fully functional. Thank you !

If you are trying to authenticate on the BrandMeister Halligan Self-Care site, you will get an error message. This is not a password issue, and you do not need to request a password reset.

The BrandMeister development team is currently working on this site, and will restore the authentication functionality shortly.

We apologize for the inconvenience, and thank you for your patience !

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It’s BrandMeister 2nd Birthday !

Today, November 24th marks the second birthday of the BrandMeister DMR Network project!

Two years ago, BrandMeister revolutionized DMR HAM Radio by offering a uniform experience: any talkgroup accessible from any repeater or hotspot; the support for private calls; an audio web streaming server for all talkgroups, an easy to use web interface for repeater owners to do their own configuration, an interconnection with c-Bridges, D-Star reflectors, YSF reflectors, and the Wires-X network;  and a convenient wiki documentation.

Since then the core software and the back-end architecture have had several optimizations phases, and the implementation of the latest software technologies to ensure a fast network with high-audio-quality. New and unique feature have been added on a regular basis, such as repeater alerts,  repeater and hotspots passwords, Air Security,  a full APRS/GPS implementation for all common terminals, etc. Continue reading “It’s BrandMeister 2nd Birthday !”

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Talkgroups numbers below 90, Clusters and Reflectors

As you may know, Talkgroups below 90 are reserved and do not route between BrandMeister master servers. Traffic stays within repeaters on the master. As of version 20171029-191416, the talkgroups below 90 should not be configured as static for any repeater.

For cluster usage, BrandMeister recommends to use Talkgroup 2 and Talkgroup 8.

Reflectors use TalkGroup 9 on Timeslot 2.