How to get you ready with your GD-73 in 30 minutes? Although this article can in no way replace the existing Radioddity GD-73 Extended Manual for your radio, it is intended to get you ‘on air’ the direct way in a short time. Therefore this article only describes the mandatory steps to get you ‘on air’. In order to do so, just get along the following steps: 1. Apply for and receive your DMR ID 2. Gather information about the DMR station(s) you want to operate 3. Install USB-driver 4. Install CPS Note: Before run CPS for the first time, you should install USB-driver first, turn on GD-73, then connect USB cable. 5. Create new codeplug from scratch   a. Enter your call-sign and your DMR-ID   b. Create your Digital Contacts / Talkgroups (TG)   c. Set up your Digital RX Group Lists   d. Program your Channels, and attach a Digital Contact for TX and attach a Digital RX Group List for RX to each channel.   e. Program your Zones by attaching Channels to each zone.   6. Save your codeplug and transfer it to your radio 7. Get ‘on air’ with your freshly created codeplug 1. Requesting a DMR ID To work in a DMR network, you must register for a DMR ID number. For amateur radio this can be https://www.radioid.net/ or https://register.ham-digital.org/ depending on where you live. Normally, new DMR IDs will be issued within 24 hours. 2. Gather information about a DMR station There are various sources to gather the details required to setup a channel for operating a specific station such as: https://brandmeister.network/ http://www.dmr-marc.net/repeaters.html Or just check with your local amateur radio group. 3. Installation of the USB driver 1. Locate the file ‘usblib_hrc7000.exe’ in the software package. 2. Run this program as an Administrator 3. If possible, do not save the generated .inf driver on the desktop, but place a different directory of your boot drive. 4. The driver is then automatically installed 5. Wait until the installation is complete 6. Once driver installation is complete you will see a message indicating success In case of an error, stop the installation process and then repeat the process one more time by saving the file ‘walkie-talkie-C7000.inf’ and the other files in a different location. Use Windows Device Manager to verify that the computer has loaded the appropriate driver for the device. Additional configuration of the driver is not required. If the driver does not load automatically, you can CLICK HERE to download the correct 32-bit and 64-bit drivers. 　 CPS and firmware updates provided by Radioddity The computer programming software (CPS) for the GD-73 is updated by Radioddity as new features are added, detected bugs are fixed or other improvements made. For updates, visit our download block at radioddity.com/pages/radioddity-download 　 4. Installation of the CPS Before you may start programming your codeplug using the Radioddity CPS you need to install the USB-Driver as described in the previous chapter and the CPS as described in this chapter. 1. Locate the installer for your CPS, named e.g. ‘GD-73_CPS_v1.00.exe‘ in the software package. 2. Run this program as an Administrator 3. The path (1) you want the CPS to be installed may be changed (2) before hitting the next-button (3) to continue installation of the CPS: 4. If you want to change the folder name (1) or don´t want the installer to create a startmenu folder (2), feel free to change those options before hitting the Next-key (3). 5. It is a good idea to tick the checkbox in order to create a desktop shortcut before once more hitting the Next-key. 6. The final click on ‘Install’ now installs the CPS with the settings you provided. 7. After just a few seconds, the installation process will be completed and a click on ‘Finish’ will get you right to the CPS. Congratulations, that´s it! 　 5. Create a code plug from scratch To begin creating a code plug for your GD-73, first read data from the radio to your PC to create a first CPS template, and at the same time save the factory data for future use. When reading or writing data to or from the GD-73, the software offers several options: Read Data To read all frequency settings and other settings of your GD-73 radio, use this option. Write Data Whenever you have made your changes and additions to the settings of your GD-73 radio, use this option to transfer your settings to the radio. Note: It is highly advised to create a code plug from scratch rather than taking a code plug from someone else. 　 5a. Enter Call sign and DMR ID into code plug To store your personal DMR ID into your codeplug, click on ‘Edit’ → ‘General Settings’ Note: Never operate the radio with an ID that has not been assigned to you. In amateur radio networks this can lead to the loss of your license. 5b. Create Digital contacts Up to 1024 digital contacts can be stored. These digital contacts are used for storing talkgroups (TG) as well as individual stations DMR ID numbers. Select ‘Edit’→ ‘Digital Contacts’ to edit the digital contacts. 5c. Setup Digital RX Groups Each digital channel can receive one or many talkgroups. The actual talkgroups that are able to be heard are defined in a Digital RX Group and attached to the channel. Creating a digital RX group allows you to group your digital Talkgroups (TG) into logical groups so they can be targeted later on within the channel settings.   • Up to 250 individual Digital RX groups can be created and named to identify each group   • Each group can contain as few or as many contacts as you like.   • Groups should be named with something meaningful to the user   • Only contacts that are stored as group calls can be added to a group.   • Each Digital (DMR) channel must have a Digital RX Group List, with at least the transmit Talkgroup contact for the channel a member of the group you attach to the channel.   • If you do not attach a Digital RX Group List to a DMR channel, you won’t be able to hear or receive anything on that channel. To edit these groups, use ‘Edit’→ ‘Digital RX Group List’. A typical group may look like: By clicking on the ‘Add’ button, you can now add another ‘Digital RX Group’. A click on the ‘Delete’ button deletes the displayed ‘Digital RX Group’. Note: To start with, it is a good idea to group all those digital contacts (TG) that are active on time slot 1 within the very same group and name it ‘ts1’. For those that are active on time slot 2, name the corresponding group ‘ts2’. 　 5d. Setup of channels To edit the channels, click on ‘Edit’ →‘Channel Information’. You can then select one of the existing channels. Name the channel is a way, that there is also some information about the talkgroup (TG) within its name. This will be very helpful in later operation. e.g. <location of station/repeater>-<talkgroup> such as ‘Cologne-262’ By clicking on the ‘Add’ button, you can add another channel. Note: It is helpful, but not essential, to have the DMR channel name indicate what TX talkgroup is assigned to the channel. Most of the fields will be prefilled with the proper values. For DMR-operation it is mainly the fields Mode, Channel Name, RX/TX frequency, TX Contact, Slot, Color Code, RX Group List that need to be aligned to the specific station you want to operate. 5e. Bundling of channels into zones A zone is a collection or group of channels. They may be grouped any way you wish, for example a zone for each geographic area, or a zone with different talkgroups for one repeater, or any other way you find useful or convenient. Once you have defined your channels, you are ready to bundle them into zones for later use. Up to 16 radio channels can be stored in one zone of your GD-73. A total of up to 64 zones are possible. It makes sense to bundle channels according to their use. For example, it makes sense to bundle all channels of a DMR repeater within one zone. Another zone could contain all analogue radio channels of a geographical region. 1. First give the zone a meaningful name (1), such as the identification of the repeater whose channels you want to store in the zone. 2. Then select from the list of available radio channels (2) on the left all those you want to bundle in that zone. 3. Click the ‘Add’ button (3) to accept each channel. 4. The added channels will then be listed in the right window (4) under the heading ‘Members’. That is all what is required. 6. Transfer the codeplug to the radio After completing all the above steps, it is adviseable to save the data locally to the PC first (‘File’ → ‘save’/’save as’) before you transfer the data from your PC to the GD-73. To do so, click on ‘Program’→ ‘Write Data’ 7. Get ‘on air’ Now you are prepared to get ‘on air’. Radioddity GD-73 Basic Operation Selecting a Zone A zone is a collection of radio channels grouped together. Your radio can store up to 64 such zones, each with up to 16 channels. 1. Press the MENU button to enter the menu. 2. Using the buttons and navigate in the menu and confirm your selection by pressing the MENU button again. 3. Select ‘settings’ in the menu 4. Then select ‘zone’ in the sub-menu 5. Using the buttons and navigate to the desired zone and confirm selection of your chosen zone with the MENU button. 6. The display now shows the selected zone in the middle. 7. The line below shows the currently selected channel in the zone. Selection of a channel Navigate with the buttons and to select the desired channel. Confirmation with the MENU key is not required here. Receive and answer a DMR group call In order to receive a DMR group call, a group (talkgroup or TG) must first be selected on the radio. Each DMR channel can be assigned exactly one group using the CPS. Receiving DMR group calls First, a channel must be selected on the radio to which a group (talkgroup or TG) is assigned. Only then can a group call be received. 1. The status LED lights up green 2. If the channel is not active, then the display shows:   • in the middle line the name of the zone   • in the bottom line the name of the selected group 3. If the channel becomes active, then the display shows:   • in the top row ‘Group’   • in the middle line, the DMR ID of the caller   • in the bottom line ‘Calling’, followed by ‘end call’ if the channel was not previously active. Answering a DMR group call 1. Hold the radio vertically, about 2.5 to 5cm from your mouth 2. Now press the PTT key to answer the call. The status LED lights up red. You can talk now. 3. Once finished speaking, release the PTT key to return to receive 4. If a response is not heard within a predetermined time, the call is terminated. Initiating a DMR group call All radios that you wish to communicate with must be on the same group. 1. Select the desired channel using the and buttons. Programming channel names with a name that associates with the Talkgroup is useful to facilitate this. 2. Hold the radio vertically, about 2.5 to 5cm from your mouth 3. Now press the PTT key to transmit. The status LED lights up red. The group name appears on the display 4. Once finished speaking, release the PTT button to return to receive. If a response is not heard within a predetermined time, the call is terminated. 5. When the call is answered, you will see the status LED light up green. 6. On the display you will see:   • in the top line ‘Group’   • in the middle line the DMR-ID of the caller   • in the bottom line ‘Calling’ is displayed, followed by ‘end call’ if the channel was not previously active. 7. If the Channel Free Indication Tone feature is enabled, you will hear a short beep as soon as the transmission has finished. 8. When the group call is over, the display changes back to the previous display. 9. A group call can also be initiated from the contacts. 　 For more detailed operation and programming tips, please refer to Radioddity GD-73 Extended Manual

A while ago, back in April 2021 we did publish our first edition of “Getting on Air with Your DMR Radio”. Since then, we introduced two more DMR-radios, the GD-AT10G handheld and the DB-25D mobile. As we noticed that both radios are often bought by ham operators new to DMR, our engineers updated the existing document to include references for those new radios. The 43-page document starts with the very basics, such as how to apply for a DMR ID and continues with chapters on gathering information about the DMR station(s) you want to operate up to the point where it guides you on how to create your own, working codeplug (that´s the settings file for your DMR radio). What can you learn from this document? 1. Intention of this document 2. Make yourself familiar with DMR 3. Apply for and receive your DMR ID 4. Gather information about a DMR station 5. Install any USB-driver that might be required 6. Install CPS according to your DMR-capable radio 7. General process of creating a DMR code plug from scratch 8. Sample codeplugs You want the easy way? Get your copy of the document, together with sample codeplugs for Radioddity GD-73, GD-77, RD-5R, GD-AT10G, DB-25D as well as Baofeng DM-1701 and TYT MD-9600 > CLICK HERE <

--- by Jason Reilly Introduction: "The nice thing about standards is there are so many to choose from." I love the ironic humor in this statement; a standard should result in everyone doing things the same way in order to be compatible, and prevent having to constantly re-invent the wheel. Yet, everyone has to have their own standard! Just take two-way radio digital voice systems for example: there’s P25 phase 1 and phase 2, NDXN, DMR, TETRA, OpenSky, Provoice, and dPMR, along with a whole host of legacy digital voice modes as well. That doesn’t even consider the ham radio contenders, such as DStar, Fusion, FreeDV, some old offerings from Alinco & AOR and so on. And guess what? Absolutely none of them are compatible! Choosing what digital voice standard you'll go with can be daunting. For emergency services and government communications, P25 is by far the most dominant, there’s no doubt about that. For business & private radio, DMR followed by NXDN is the two most popular choice. In the ham radio arena, the picture is a little less clear. DStar took an early lead, but Yaesu is keen to take market share with their Fusion offering. Hams have always been keen to leverage off existing commercial equipment, and it seems the most popular commercial system adopted presently is DMR. Personally, I think DMR will take the lead in both the commercial business & private two-way radio field as well as in ham radio. This is helped in no small part by the ready availability of DMR radio equipment at prices that rival traditional analog two-way radio, and that one of the biggest names in two-way radio, Motorola, are throwing their weight behind DMR. 　 Motorola's SL7750 blurs the line between DMR radio and cellular mobile phone 　 Three flavours: There are three "tiers" or levels of functionality for DMR systems. Tier 1: The simplest form of DMR is Tier 1, which is mainly used for simplex communications, with no repeaters. The human voice is digitally sampled and compressed with the AMBE+2 codec, and then transmitted in this digital form to another radio. Tier 2: Things start to get a bit more complicated here. With Tier 2 DMR, repeaters are used in a TDMA arrangement, with two "timeslots. What this means is that two completely separate radio transmissions can be going through the repeater at the same time; each radio takes turns in transmitting in short 27.5 millisecond bursts. In addition to this, radios can be set to logical closed groups called ’talk groups’, which you can think of as ’virtual channels’. Repeaters can be linked via the internet to form networks that can be as small as just two repeaters, or thousands of repeaters across the world. Again, the AMBE+2 codec is used to turn speech into compressed data for transmission. All amateur radio DMR systems are Tier 2, as are many business / commercial radio DMR systems. Tier 3: This is effectively a trunked radio system on top of Tier 2. A pool of frequencies are used to carry the TDMA transmissions. This is used by more complex or larger networks for big businesses and commercial radio users. 　 The advantages of DMR: So why go to all this trouble, when plain old analogue FM works perfectly well? DMR has the advantage that it four times more efficient when it comes to spectrum usage. For one 25 kHz analogue FM channel, you could fit four DMR transmissions. Not only that, but DMR offers some very flexible calling facilities - you can call one person, a group of people, or everyone in your fleet at once. While not every DMR network supports it, sending of data and short messages is also possible. DMR is also designed to be easy to network, with connections using IP, so creating wide coverage areas using a network of DMR repeaters is already built-in; cover your city or cover the entire country! Yet another advantage is because a DMR transmitter is only turned on about half the time due to it transmitting in bursts, battery life is longer. 　 TYT's hugely popular MD-380 can be bought for around $100 　 Some DMR Jargon: Colour codes: Every DMR transmission uses a "colour code" which is very similar to CTCSS or PL tones in the analogue radio world. On a repeater or simplex frequency, every radio must use the same colour code to be able to communicate together. The main use for colour codes is for where two repeater coverage areas on the same frequency may overlap, different colour codes are used to ensure each radio accesses the correct repeater. Timeslot: For Tier 2 and 3 systems, a timeslot is a slice of time, about 30ms long, that a radio can transmit in, or receive in. There are two timeslots per frequency, and you need to have your radio configured for the right colour code for the repeater, the correct timeslot and correct talkgroup for you to be able to hear anything. Zones: This is simply a collection of channels & talkgroups, all grouped together in one "zone" or bank. A radio user can switch zones to access a different lot of channels & talkgroups that they may wish to use. Typically a zones are divided into repeaters for different areas, so you might have one zone for the west side of a city, and another covering the east side of the city - but there's nothing to say that you must set up a zone that way. Code Plug: This is a Motorola term that has stuck over the years, and in the DMR context means a complete configuration file of channels, talkgroups, zones, contacts etc. for a radio. The code plug can be saved to computer disc, and is used to program a radio to give it the functionality a user requires. CPS: Another Motorola term, meaning Customer Program Software. Simply put, this is the software you’d use to create a "code plug" and configure your radio. Hotspot: A small box that connects to the internet and acts like your own personal low power DMR repeater, useful if you're not in range of a DMR repeater to access. You can even take them with you and use your cell / mobile phone wireless data to connect the hotspot to the internet and be able to use DMR anywhere you get cellular signal. Most hotspots are multi-mode, handling not only DMR but DStar, Yaesu Fusion and P25 as well. ZUMspot, Jumbospot, Openspot, MMDVM etc are all examples of hotspots that you can buy or build yourself. 　 Radioddity GD-77, dual band, DMR & FM, I think the best bang-for-your-buck DMR portable, also around $100 　 So what's in it for me? The use of DMR in radio hobbyist circles falls into two categories: ham / amateur radio and scanning receiver use. Lets take a quick look at each: Ham radio: Hams have long taken advantage of surplus, second hand, or even new commercial radio equipment and re-purposed it for their own use, and DMR equipment is no exception. Worldwide, DMR enabled and connected repeaters are appearing and are interconnected to provide a huge linked network spanning the entire globe. Depending on the talk group selected, you could be communicating just around town, across your region, across the entire country, and some groups even cover the world. Motorola DMR equipment is frequently used, but increasingly the cheaper units, in particular TYT, have increased the affordability and availability of DMR equipment to the mass market. In some cases, you can get on air to the DMR scene for less than a hundred dollars! Scanning: As the world relentlessly marches on to a digital future, many businesses and commercial interests have migrated their legacy analogue FM two way radio systems to DMR. There are scanners available that can hear DMR, enabling the scanning hobbyist to continue to listen to such transmissions. For those hobbyists who can’t justify the high price tag of those scanners to listen in to DMR, there are other alternatives: certain computer software can decode DMR with a regular scanner and a ’discriminator tap’, or a ’virtual audio cable’ if using an SDR, or if portable DMR reception is desired, an entry level DMR transceiver from TYT or Radioddity will do the job very well - to keep yourself on the correct side of the law, you should disable any transmit capabilities of these transceivers. If you are looking for a quick guide on how to program the digital channels for your Radioddity GD-77 or RD-5R, take a look here: http://members.optuszoo.com.au/jason.reilly1/Radioddity-DMR-Quick-Start-Guide-GD-77&RD-5R.pdf (1.1 Mb)