If you found it inconvenient that you can only receive SMS when your DMR radio is turned on, within repeater/hotspot coverage, and not busy … Brandmeister has a solution!

Thanks to the hard work of Artem and the Brandmeister beta testing team, you now have the ability to turn on “Text Capture” in your self-care, a feature that will store text messages sent to you if your radio is not reachable at the time of sending, and delay delivery until your RadioID becomes active on the Brandmeister DMR network.

Important Requirement

In order for this feature to work, you need to ensure that your radio sends an acknowledgment of SMS reception back to the BrandMeister network. Otherwise, BrandMeister will keep sending the messages, and you will be spammed!

So before turning on this feature, make sure your radio manufacturer has implemented SMS acknowledgment, and that you have enabled this feature in your codeplug. (We will provide a web-based tool to assist in checking if your radio acknowledges properly. Stay tuned!)

How does it work?

By default, Text Capture is turned off. When someone sends an SMS to your RadioID, if the sender and the recipient are not on the same frequency and timeslot, the message is routed to the Brandmeister master server where your radioID was last seen and sent over the same repeater/hotspot you were using. If your radio gets it, great. If not, it’s lost and it won’t be re-delivered.

Once you turn on the Text Capture feature in your self-care, any data call sent to your radioID (including SMS, IRS, etc.) will be handled by BrandMeister. When an SMS is sent to your RadioID, Brandmeister will capture the message, send an acknowledgment to the sender, attempt delivery to your radio, and wait for it to acknowledge receipt of the SMS. If no acknowledgment is received, Brandmeister will keep sending the message on a regular basis until an acknowledgment is received, for a maximum duration of 7 days. After that, the message will be purged and there is no way to recover it.

Again, it’s important you keep in mind that once the feature is turned on, your radio will only receive data calls initiated by Brandmeister.

Exceptions

The store-and-forward feature only works with Brandmeister subscribers.

• SMS from external services (such as automated SMS services, DAPNET messages, etc.) are sent directly to the recipient.
• SMS cannot pass through gateways with other DMR networks.

Turning Text Capture on and off

• Log on to your BrandMeister self-care page
• At the top right of the page, click on your callsign, and select “Selfcare”

• Toggle the “Text Capture” option ON or OFF:

The BrandMeister DMR development team has been working on a new web-based talkgroups audio streaming platform, known as “Hoseline”. It has been re-programmed from scratch and packs a lot of new jaw-dropping features. See and hear for yourself:

New interface

The Hoseline homepage shows a list of “blocks”. Each block represents a talkgroup, along with the current or last transmission information. New blocks will appear as new traffic comes up. If you want to listen to a talkgroup, simply click on the corresponding block.

To avoid clutter, only talkgroups between 90 and 9999 are showing up. You can listen to talkgroups above this limit by using the “Multiple Talkgroup Listening” option (see below).

Single Talkgroup Listening

When you click on one block from the homepage, you will register to this talkgroup, and any QSO will play on your speakers. If you click on another block, you will be unregistered from the previous talkgroup and registered to listen to the talkgroup matching the new block you clicked on.

Multiple Talkgroup Listening

If you click on the “Player” link at the top right of the page, you will have the ability to select multiple talkgroups (using the drop-down list, or typing the talkgroup number directly). You will see the list of talkgroups showing up in Talkgroup traffic will start playing right away in a list of bubbles. Audio will start playing right away for talkgroups in your list. You can remove a talkgroup by clicking on the “X” after the number.

Solo Mode

When you are in the player, looking at multiple talkgroups you registered to; you may click on a bubble’s talkgroup number to enable Solo Mode. This will mute all other talkgroups while keeping this one active. You can click again this talkgroup number to exit Solo Mode and listen to traffic on all groups listed. Clicking on another bubble number moves the Solo Mode to this new group.

New features

As you use the new Hoseline, you will notice these new awesome features only available on the Brandmeister DMR network:

Improved Audio Quality

BM’s developer’s secret sauce is bringing a stunning and unmatched audio quality. You won’t believe your ears!

Real-Time Vu Meter

A brand new VU-Meter was added inside the player, just below the talkgroup number(s). It measures the audio before AGC. It is done within the BrandMeister platform and reported independently from the supplied audio. The color coding is as follow:
– Yellow: less than -20 dBm
– Green: between -20dBm and -3dBm
– Red: above -3dBm

Multi-browser support

Most modern browsers are compatible. Whether you like Chrome, Firefox, or Safari, the new Hoseline will work for you on desktop or mobile devices!

Volume Normalizing

Are you tired of turning the volume up and down because people are coming in louder or quieter than others? So were we, and now the volume on Hoseline is automatically normalized. Everyone’s audio is at the same level!

Auto-Reconnect

Are you having you internet connection hiccups? No problem, Hoseline will seamlessly reconnect you as soon as your internet connection is back.

Instant play on subscribe and unsubscribe

If you click a talkgroup block or add a talkgroup in the player where there is current traffic, the audio will play instantly. You will not need to wait for the next transmission. Likewise, if you are subscribed to several talkgroups and two of them become active around the same time, you will hear audio from the talkgroup that started a transmission first. If you decide to unregister from this talkgroup while its audio is playing, the second talkgroup audio will begin right away without waiting for the next transmission. It’s that fast!

Subscriptions list auto-save

You closed your browser, or Windows restarted your computer without asking? No problem, your talkgroups subscription list is saved and will be in the player when you go back to the new hoseline page. Just click on play and you’re back where you were!

We hope that you will enjoy this new version of Hoseline. While it is currently hosted on a separate URL, it become part of the new version of Brandmeister DMR Dashboard when it is released. If you have questions or comments, contact us on Telegram or drop a note on the support portal.