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What does a Hot Spot do and why do I need one?

 Reasons why you might consider buying or building a Hotspot



My MMDVM hotspot runing Pi-Star

The control panel



  • Enables reception in areas of the house and around it that may be poor reception otherwise.
  • Many people live in flats or cannot mount antenna due to housing or local council regulations, this provides them with a link, via the internet to multiple digital voice systems and talk groups.
  • Allows easy access to additional talk groups. Some repeaters may provide access to talk groups, possibly on a schedule. This is great but also can be limiting if your local repeater is dedicated to TG91 worldwide and you wish to use TG2350 UK. Having your own node allows you to be in control on-demand.


 

  • Allows Multimode operation from different radios. You can have a single node and select from DMR, C4FM/Fusion, YSF, P25, NXDN, POCSAG. The node is generally capable of switching automatically once a transmission has ceased for a selected time period
  • Allows mobile operation - You can set your mobile phone up as a mobile hotspot and link to the node from anywhere with mobile phone reception. This is also useful for operating, say from a work location without directly connecting to the internet at work.
  • You can talk to other Digital Modes operators, you will soon discover that every mode has it fans and because we are communicating via the internet the system becomes mode-agnostic. That is you can talk to Fusion (or anythign else) from DMR for example.

I have heard people say 'It's not proper radio', well it allows people to communicate and radio is generally involved at at least one end of the transmission, so I say the advantages outweight any prejudice if it allows more people to do radion!

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