As DMR made its debut in Amateur Radio, hams had to figure out which numerical identifier to use when programming DMR radios since there was no way to use alphanumerical callsigns. It was decided to use 7-digit numbers to identify radio operators; and to setup a public on-line database that provides the correspondance between the IDentifier and the amateur radio callsign.
It was further decided that the first 3 digits of the IDentifier would follow the Mobile Country Code numbering as defined in the ITU-T Recommendation E.212. This first 3 digits of the ID you are entering in your DMR radio are therefore identifying your geographical origin :
1 – Test networks
2 – Europe
3 – North America and the Caribbean
4 – Asia and the Middle East
5 – Oceania
6 – Africa
7 – South and Central America
9 – World-wide
BrandMeister is based on open-standards, which is a critical aspect of the network as it is open to third-party developers. It is therefore critical to stay consistent and follow standards.
We have noticed some users operating on the BrandMeister network with IDentifiers starting with the number 1 (example 1118001, a station in Indiana, USA). These numbers do not follow the MCC numbering standard and therefore it causes issues and confusion in third party systems with region-specific features.
Two organizations exist for issuance of DMR ID’s, DMR-MARC and Ham-Digital. Once it was realized that DMR-MARC started issuing IDentifiers outside the already agreed upon MCC numbering standard, administrators and system operators with the BrandMeister network reached out to the leadership with DMR-MARC to come to a viable solution that would rectify this issue and retain the MCC numbering standard. That was nearly 2 years ago. Since then, dozens of attempts were made to reach out to leadership with DMR-MARC to come to a solution to this issue, but those organizations will not communicate back with us regarding this. They have ignored every single attempt BrandMeister leadership has made to them.
While we have left the 1XX IDentifiers operating on the BrandMeister network temporarily, the unfortunate result, because of the lack of communication and cooperation from the organizations in charge of issuing ID’s, will be the restriction of importing NEW 1XX numbers starting May 1st, 2018.
So, what does this mean: Beginning May 1st, 2018, BrandMeister will stop importing new 1XXYYYY USA ID’s from DMR-MARC. All existing ID’s will continue functioning, meaning if you were issued an ID in the 1XXYYYY format (example 1118001), your ID will continue to work. Any new USA ID’s issued in this format after May 1st will no longer. If you are issued a DMR identifier after May 1st, 2018 that doesn’t follow the MCC numbering standard (i.e. starting with 1XXYYYY) and want to use the BrandMeister DMR network, please make sure to request a correct ID before this deadline.
We truly realize the monumental impact this decision brings to the various BrandMeister sub-networks as well as all the users of BrandMeister this has the potential to affect. Rest assured, we are not giving up, and will continue to reach out to the DMR-MARC leadership before the May 1st cutoff to try and come to a cooperative solution. We encourage you as well, the users, repeater trustees, network administrators, system operators, etc. to reach out to both DMR-MARC and encourage them to have a productive conversation with the BrandMeister admins. Only through cooperation and collaboration will there be a resolution.
DMR-MARC: