The SRARC has seen a large growth in members becoming involved with DMR Radio. Many, including myself, (V.P. Glenn Clute, W1KOM) became interested after our DMR Training last month. Others through several club gatherings we’ve had these past few weeks. Members worked with members going over programming and the use of DMR.
For this reason, we wanted to have a page specifically for DMR related topics so we can continue to teach and learn more together about Digital Mobile Radio.
The following article is from the ARRL website on the topic of Digital Modes and the misconception many Hams have about it.
Letters: On DMR
A lot of hams tend to discount the newer digital modes, mainly for the reasoning that they depend on the Internet to link to reflectors, or master servers in the case of DMR, somehow making them not ham radio. That argument usually extends to the contingency scenario of a loss of infrastructure, such as telephone, Internet, cell phones, etc. Those same hams seem to think that a DMR repeater becomes a paperweight; nothing can be further from the truth. DMR (as we use it) is a Time Domain Multiple-Access (TDMA) protocol that provides two voice/data channels in the same spectrum space as a narrowband analog voice channel. A DMR repeater will continue to function as a conventional (non-Internet linked) repeater when the Internet is not available, repeating both timeslots the same way it would with the network up. DMR provides emergency communicators with twice the number of channels in the same bandwidth (actually less) as an analog repeater. It also allows emergency coordinators and communicators to segment their traffic by talkgroups, providing even more capability. — Greg Horine, N9PBD, Trustee, KD9JNB Multi-Mode Digital Repeater Southwestern Illinois Digital Group
Now that we have that out of the way we should always remember that what we do is all about communication.
The more ways we can learn to communicate effectively the better we will be as ham operators.
Our knowledge and the many tools we use to communicate gives us more ways to spark an interest in ham radio with future generations.