At the beginning of December 2020, I purchased a couple of MMDVM hats for the Raspberry Pi. This will allow me to connect to the Brandmeister network, without having to install an antenna in the house, to Rx and Tx on DMR. It will also permit access to a number of other digital voice systems, such as DStar, P-25, POCSAG, and Fusion, however I will not be running these.
The first purchase was OUYAWEI Erelectronics MMDVM_HS_Dual_Hat Duplex MMDVM Hotspot from Amazon,this board came direct from China and has not been used as of yet.
Second purchase, was Hima Antenna + OLED + MMDVM Hotspot + Black Case Support, as I had a spare Pi 0W kicking about. 10 mins with the soldering iron and we had some success.
Last on the list was Eboxer USB MMDVM Duplex Module Hotspot. I didn’t have a spare Pi3 Raspberry Pi 3 B+ Model B Plus Complete Starter Kit. Putting this together was easier, as there was no soldering required.
The configuration of the pi star software seemed to be straightforward, however this was not the case for me. On first entering my details in the form and clicking on apply changes, nothing.
After a bit of research, I found that I needed to create an account on Brandmeister. Once completed, and a password created, I thought that would be it. Still nothing!
I sought the support of my local club, the owner of the clubs DMR repeater in particular, who gave me a copy of his config, and the code plug for my radio. Changed all of his details to mine, and still nothing.
Yesterday (Sunday 10/01/21), I decided to hit the factory reset button and start again from scratch. Reset the Brandmeister password, entered my details and, low and behold, it worked.
Code plug for the Retevis RT3s complete, now to update the Retevis RT83.
While this is good, I would still like to find out what was wrong.
Links:
Pi-Star software – https://www.pistar.uk/downloads/
Smoking Ape video on How to Build a Pi-Star Hotspot on Raspberry Pi 3
radiosification playlist on Pi-Star config and setup – Pi-Star hotspot setup tutorial
