Needed: SMS how-to guide...

Help with DMR issues
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G8OGJ
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Joined: Mon May 06, 2019 8:13 pm
Location: Matlock
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Needed: SMS how-to guide...

Post by G8OGJ »

Folks,

There are plenty of previous posts on the subject of SMS functionality including several by me - but I still cannot get anything reliable.

My radio is a Retevis RT82 (also have a Retevis RT84 which displays identical symptoms). I have a RPi based MMDVM hot-spot. I connect to the "BM 2721 Ireland" Master.

When out and about I can often (but not 100% reliably) send an SMS message to 262993 with the contents "echo" and receive an affirmative reply. Similarly the weather reports can be obtained.

Though my pi-star hot-spot I cannot get any response from 262993 to an "echo" message let alone anything else.

On one or two occasions in the past I have been able to send SMS messages to other amateurs directly but this has only been via a repeater - nothing seems to get past the pi-star hot-spot.

I can also not get GPS reporting to work (actually with pi-star or direct via a repeater).

So clearly there is a setup issue with either my radio(s) or with the pi-star or both.

What I need is some sort of simple how-to guide to set this up. I cannot for the life of me fathom how to do it. There doesn't seem to be anything in the radio CMS to switch SMS on or off or to any different mode. In Brandeister Dashboard I have the radios both set as "chinese radio" which I understand to be correct.

Any help gratefully received.

Ian

PS - my tests have failed both using my UK callsign (G8OGJ) and my Irish call (EI6IGB).
Amateur Radio Station G8OGJ
AF6VN
Posts: 821
Joined: Fri Jul 20, 2018 1:15 am

Re: Needed: SMS how-to guide...

Post by AF6VN »

I've not tried SMS nor GPS data, but... Are you using Public (talkgroup) mode or Private (user ID) mode for the SMS sends? I can't read German http://wiki.bm262.de/doku.php?id=servicenummer other than that blatant "Private Message" line. However, http://brandmeisternetwork.blogspot.com ... a-dmr.html seems to use the same IDs so... And https://on7lds.net/42/BM262_service_numbers claims to be a translation (and also warns that my most capable radio may not be usable -- Anytone 878)

The RT82 appears to be a sister to my Tyt MD-2017 (which I found to be a painful radio to work with -- it seems /any/ traffic would lock out the user controls except volume and PTT). (Based upon https://www.twowayradiocommunity.com/wh ... mode-dcdm/ even the channel config page is identical, including the DCDM mode! [which was unexplained in the Tyt documenation])

What may be most significant is: viewtopic.php?t=3483 which does not list any specific solution but does mention that it seems to be dependent upon the BM server to which one is connected.

--
AF6VN
Dennis L Bieber
G8OGJ
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Joined: Mon May 06, 2019 8:13 pm
Location: Matlock
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Re: Needed: SMS how-to guide...

Post by G8OGJ »

I have made some progress:

There are a couple of guides about which are helpful but which don't make clear a couple of things:

1. The address for weather reports and the 'echo' function is 262993;
2. The address for repeater status queries (and, apparently for POCSAG messages) is 262994;
3. The address for the SMSC is 262995; and
4. The address for sending messages to the SMSGTE is xxx999 where xxx is your country code.

So I am, as I type, in 5B and sending a text message using my Irish call requires me to send the message to 272999.

What I have also discovered is that the process (directly via a DMR repeater) is somewhat haphazard. Only about 10% of messages are getting anywhere. I have not succeeded in getting the repeater status report at all and off-net text messages are very variable.

This is all direct to a nearby DMR repeater. So far my success rate via my pi-star mmdvm gateway has been zero but I will have another go when I return in the next couple of days.

Any thoughts on this unreliability? The repeater signal is good. I am using a local tg on TS2 as there is traffic on TS1.
Amateur Radio Station G8OGJ
G8OGJ
Posts: 64
Joined: Mon May 06, 2019 8:13 pm
Location: Matlock
Contact:

Re: Needed: SMS how-to guide...

Post by G8OGJ »

Nothing whatsoever is going through my hotspot in terms of messaging. Nada.
Amateur Radio Station G8OGJ
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