Do I need a prefix for DMR talkgroups?

[AC1LC]

I have my Anytone 878 programmed to work with my generic MMDVM/Pi Zero for DMR2YSF (which works perfectly) and to DMR+ and Brandmeister. When I try to reach a DMR talkgroup, for example TG 3133 which is New Hampshire Statewide, the transmission shows up on my pistar dashboard and it shows up on the Brandmeister Last Heard page, but nothing comes through on my other VHF radio set to the same talkgroup. This afternoon I had my base radio (Anytone 578) set on the DMR TG 3133 on my local repeater frequency. I heard plenty of traffic on that radio but could not hear anything on the 878 connected through the hotspot to the same TG. I tried transmitting to them with the 878 through the hotspot and nothing. I made sure digimonitor was set to double slot, any color code, any ID and Slot hold set to On. What else should I be looking at?

On the Pistar software I have the DMR Master set to DMRGateway and Brandmeister Master set to BM3104. DMR+ Master is set to DMR+ IPSC2-New England.

[AF6VN]

Probably not helpful but...

If you are trying to debug BM connections, I'd recommend you disable every other server/mode except BM. If you get BM to work, then add one other server -- repeat if it works, otherwise provide that as a data point for debugging. DMR2YSF would be the last mode I'd configure.

Your post is also somewhat confused in that you are mentioning two radios, a hotspot and a repeater, and before it disappeared from the BM Hotspot listing, your hotspot showed as being UHF -- I'm going to presume the repeater is the VHF device you mentioned.

3133 is listed as a DMR-MARC talkgroup, along with a BM talkgroup... I do not know if they are bridged.

[AC1LC]

Sorry for the confusion. I have a hotspot that only the 878 HT is programmed to use. I also have a 578 that I use as my base radio that is programmed to hit the DMR repeater directly so it's two different radios.

When I try to transmit on the 878 on a DMR talkgroup I should be able to hear my transmission on my 578 as it's on the DMR repeater frequency and set to the same talkgroup.

On the Brandmeister website under last heard I can see my transmission from the 878 from the hotspot, so something is getting through to the BM systems as it records it. But, it doesn't seem to go anywhere after that. And it's not just transmitting on the hotspot, it's receiving too. I could listen to several transmissions on the 578 directly from the DMR repeater (not through the hotspot) but setting my 878 to the same TG through the hotspot I get nothing. That's why I wasn't sure if DMR needed a prefix for the TG number. I know YSF has a prefix and once I added that I had no issues transmitting or receiving on DMR2YSF.

[W1KMC]

I can make this simple. You will never hear 3133 BM on your local repeaters in NH. Why Brandmeister 3133 and your local repeaters' 3133 are on DMR-MARC (as are Maine 3123 [where I live] ) do not talk to each other.

Unless you have another reason to use Brandmeister, dump it. I am not familiar with the IPSC_NewENgland but the DMR+ master of IPSC_Can_TRBO Hamnet do have connections to 7+ of the ones we have in Maine.

the options line I have looks like this:

TS1_1=3;TS1_2=3172;TS1_3=8801;TS1_4=759;TS2_1=3181;TS2_2=3133;TS2_3=3123;TS2_4=3029;TS2_5=3125;TS2_6=3150;TS2_7=8804;RelinkTime=60;UserLink=1

I have a hotspot with 2 antennae (correct plural of antenna) so my hotspot WILL do both timeslots. I do not know what you have so you may need to adjust by creating rewrite rules, but when you do you will continue to lose your BM password on the basic page which turns the DMR Net yellow if BM is on.

If you do need both BM and DMR+ the you have no choice in the rewrite rules as 3133 is in both networks and without a prefix (DMR+ uses 8 [e.g. for NH Statewide TG would be 83133] ) and you would have to adjust your radio codeplug accordingly.

Just because networks have the same numbers does not mean they are all connected (se 31665 -- it's on every network I see but they do not talk to each other -- long boring story).

Good luck de w1kmc
HH 4329 / w1kmc.us if you want to see my stuff / setups / On QRZ too.

[AC1LC]

Thanks Kevin, that helps a lot! I was under the impression that a connection to Brandmeister was required in order to use DMR. Apparently not! The only BM repeater near me, and I can't reach it anyway, is Cannon Mountain. I use the Gunstock repeater which is DMR-MARC. What you explained is probably the reason why I can't see my transmissions on NetWatch either. If they're going to BM and looking for their version of 3133 they won't go anywhere else.

I'll try dropping the BM settings in my pistar configuration and see what that does for me. At least you've got me pointed in the right direction.
73
AC1LC

[AC1LC]

OK, I got it working! I shut off Brandmeister on the pistar configuration dashboard and went back into my codeplug for my radio. I added an "8" before each talkgroup number, reloaded the codeplug into the radio and it all worked perfectly. I still have Brandmeister shut off at this point but I can hit all the DMR talkgroups I want plus YSF reflectors that I want. I may turn Brandmeister back on, haven't decided yet.

But, the moral of the story is adding the number 8 in front of the dmr talkgroup number - and padding it with 0's if necessary to total 5 characters got everything working.

[AF4FA]

If you would want to turn BrandMeister back on in the future I would pad those talk groups to 7 characters long so that they would not interfere with any of the regular BrandMeister talk groups which can be 6 characters long.