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Setting up a PI-Star MMDVM hotspot node with a Raspberry PI

 The first thing is to download the Pi-Star software from https://www.pistar.uk/downloads/ , at time of writing the current version is Pi-Star_RPi_V4.1.5_21-Jun-2021.zip ,but you should get the latest available. I used a Raspberry PI 3B but it is possible to use a PI Zero W or other model. You should then use either Etcher, or the Raspberry Pi imager to copy the image to your SD card, which should be at least 4GB and Class 10 or better, I used a 16GB simply because they are available for little money these days. Simply put the SD card into your PI and attach a monitor and keyboard via USB connection. The PI should boot with the usual rainbow screen, the default login is pi-star and the password raspberry. We will change these soon. To find out what IP address your pi is on type ifconfig and hit return. If you are connected via ethernet you will be able to type http://pi-star.local into a browser and access the dashboard as below - This will redirect after 10 seconds and you will be...
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DMR - How it works and how to get set up

And why you shouldn’t import too many repeaters to your codeplug like I did! I have made an accompanying video on YouTube at https://youtu.be/dNkdYzQbISY Setting up DMR takes some patience but once you access the repeaters and talk groups you will be rewarded with many QSOs from all over the world in glorious digital quality. DMR (Digital Mobile Radio) is a great transmission/reception mode, it is clear audio in a resilient wrapper that can withstand a lot of QRM - interference and fading. It is pretty much either working, or not with no real distortion. It has been developed due to the availability of cheap micro processors which can process audio into digital encoding and manage complex transmission systems. The DMR amateur radio system allows people to talk one to one or through a repeater in either simplex mode (same TX and RX frequencies) or duplex mode. You can probably access many DMR repeaters in your surrounding area and they provide access to hundreds of talk groups. Now mode...
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Baofeng UV-S9 - a practical user guide

Having bought one of these transceivers recently I was firstly disappointed in the User Manual, it is in extremely small print, barely 4 point and my first searches online brought a pdf of the same manual scanned badly which was not much of an improvement. Also it is a reference guide rather than a how-to. I think many people would prefer to learn how to use the radio as well as which buttons to press with context. I am only covering the basics as I think once you know those then you will figure out the rest using the two manuals I have linked to below. So here we go! The Baofeng UV-S9 Transceiver, around £25 on Ebay Caution, two things are very important to know before we begin. Firstly it is illegal to transmit on any band that you do not hold a license for. You must check with your licencing authority, which in the UK is Ofcom https://www.ofcom.org.uk. PMR446 is not currently legal for a radio which does not have a fixed antenna and it is illegal to use a Baofeng for this purpose. A...
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