I have been using DMR since the beginning of 2020. I bought a Tyt uv380 with mmdvm hotspot. Got them packaged together for $200. It was a great deal at that time. I used the radio to listen most of the time and I just idled on the America Link and Worldwide brandmeister TGs. I just didn't really do much with it. It was pretty boring and basic to me. A few months ago I just happened to come across a video about the WPSD dashboard for Raspberry Pi. I was amazed. It was very cool looking and very active development going on almost daily. The regular Pi-star dashboard was archaic and seemed forgotten about to me. The WPSD dashboard got me excited and interested in DMR again. Then I discovered the TGIF network. It was very different than BM from my perspective. It just seems more alive and more various active TGs. BM has many, many people talking all the time but most are talking in regional TGs and others that I just had no interest in. TGIF has also really revived my interest in DMR. I find myself talking a lot on DMR now. It just took me finding a new flavor of it I guess.
Oh yeah. My whole point to that comment was that being the catalyst for me finding this video. WPSD makes it so easy for me to understand how to connect to multiple DMR networks at once. I don't have to do anything special to switch DMR networks. It's as easy as changing my channel knob to switch between Brandmeister,TGIF and now xlx. I had no clue what xlx was so here I am lol
Wow this content is over my head haha! You clearly are very handy with IT stuff. I watched another video of yours that said you were born in 1995 - I graduated HS and got licensed in 1995 😅 I've been in and out of the hobby over the years (more out than in) so i'm by no means proficient in any aspect of amateur radio. I am a General Class and working on my Extra. I found your channel because I'm interested in YSF and looking into getting a hotspot. The closest YSF repeater to me is 28 miles (per Repeater Book) so I doubt I can hit that with my FT5D. I'm also in Kentucky and a veteran (Navy). Looking forward to learning from you! Happy New Year! 73 - Jeremy KF4CHW
Happy New Year, and thank you for your service! There's a lot to learn about all these little sub topics of ham radio. Maybe I'll hear you on the air in Kentucky sometime!
@@ModernHam And thank you for yours! I'm out in the boonies of eastern KY - in Pike County on the Virginia Border. Would definitely be cool to hear you on the air!
Just to be clear, you need to register the YSF, DSTAR and DMR to have your own "talkg roups". 2nd question, while these modes are "connected", can they (sans D-Star unless you have a transcoder if I understood you properly) to the same talk group?
@@wspivak1 Talk Groups are just a digital ID transmitted by your DMR radio used for segregation of traffic within the same frequency almost like a PL tone. This doesn't really have anything to do with registration online. Your hotspot sends that digital identifier known as a talk group to the reflector, so the reflector can know which module to output our voice on. But DMR, YSF can talk on the same module without transcoding. Talk Groups are only relevant to DMR systems. D-Dtar requires a special hardware for talking with the other modes in the form of transcoding.
Hey sick video! Do you have any advice on re-compiling? My reflector is up and running, but i Need to make changes to my main.h file, but not sure how i’ll recompile
Great video and should get me easily up & running with an XLX reflector. What I really want to do is have it connect to an existing YSF or XLX reflector/server. I also want it to bridge to a Brandmeister DMR talkgroup. Will it do this/ is it capable of doing this? I have a Brandmeister connected DMR repeater and from that Repeater I'd like to be able to "bring up" this connection to YSF and talk to my friends that are on a given YSF room that is always up. Is XLX reflector/server a good choice for doing this or do I need to find a different bridging server option? I know there are a few out there including XLX/REF but I am not familiar with any of them. I'm a pro with this server, networking and DNS stuff but no experience bridging DMR and Fusion myself yet. Thanks!!! -Steve N8LBV
So these Linux tutorials come with an assumption you know some of the basics of Linux, as you will need to know them to perform maintenance and updates on your reflector into the future. This means you probably need to install "make" or "sudo" depending on which wasn't found. The video installs both, so one of the install commands must have errored out. You will need to figure out which one and why, as almost all flavors of all Linux distros can come with their own quirks sometimes. You will need to diagnose these little error messages in the future if you intend on up-keeping the reflector, so I would dig in and figure out why the install failed for one of those packages.
I had two users on my xlx reflector today, one direct with radio?? other through openspot. they could not here each other. do I need to change a setting?
your video suggest editing the ip address for a transcoder service. where can I find such a service? w/o transcoding, Im really struggling with the value of a reflector hosted on a remote server.
The only use case for a Transcoder on XLX is for D-Star users to talk to others because its requires hardware AMBE. You can host your own transcoding server with the hardware at home. Your other users would still enjoy the uptime and low latency that comes with a remote server, but if transcoding goes down, D-Star would lose the ability to talk to the others again. It all comes down to the users you are serving. I'm not a fan of our current popular digital modes for these little reasons. In 2023, still relying on hard transcoding chips created in 1989 is really silly. C4FM and DMR rely on AMBE2, which is software, but it is still proprietary, and has caused division in the community.
@@ModernHam Would be nice if you include similar comment in video when you get to transcoding I guess I jumped the gun thinking a remote hosted xlx was all I needed. I’ve hosted myself in local dedicated server I could do it again, and get the hardware How many “chips/dongles” are required to fully implement transcoding. Also, I saw on other reflectors thing like peers What are peer, how do I add them?
So the transcoding works out of the box between c4fm and DMR. But for D-Star, you need 2 AMBE devices because of proprietary technology. They cost about $100 dollars each. Id make a video on how to get those working, but I don't want to personally pay into that. I honestly am not a fan of many digital voice modes because of that fact the manufacturers use them as a way to separate themselves from others and lock their users into using their proprietary codecs. It's not consumer friendly, not in line with the spirit of amateur radio, but I know it's popular.
I tried running through the installation scripts several more times. I still have just one error in the Starting the Server section. When trying to run the line: sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/log/xlxd.xml I get the error: chown: cannot access '/var/log/xlxd.xml' : No such file or directory. I searched for xlxd.xml on the Debian 12.4.0 computer, and it does not exist. I get the Apache2 Debian Default Web Page with my fully qualified domain name on a web browser, not the XLX Multiprotocol Gateway Reflector web page.
The XLX Reflector server is built on Debian 12.4.0. All the commands seemed to run normally with no errors, until the Start Server section. I ran into two errors, one in the Start Server section, one in the XLX web page. ky0l@XLX-Reflector:~/xlxd/src$ sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/log/xlxd.xml chown: cannot access '/var/log/xlxd.xml': No such file or directory The other error is when I enter my domain name on a web browser, I do not get the XLX Reflector page, I get an Apache2 Debian Default Web Page, that says the Apache2 is working.
I'm getting the same thing, the default apache2 html page, not the dashboard. The index.html is in the www/html folder, while the index.php is in the www/xlxd folder. Hower do I change the default to look at the correct page?
@@trex700ful That doesn't seem to fix the issue mentioned above, been through this guide a few times- always same results - goes to the default Appache2 this server is working page- not the reflector page- anyone got this to work after the above landing instead of the reflector landing page, if so, how? - seems like a possible error in the commands path move in the guide I'm guessing
Made a mistake in the video.
Make sure to point your domain/subdomain at your IP using an A Record, not a CNAME.
You make the very best guides for all things HAM. Your blog is pretty awesome too. Thanks so much for all the help you've provided me.
I'm glad I could help and that you found my blog useful!
Im hammered in a hot tub in florida and im just watching this vid enjoying people like you exist
Might be the nicest UA-cam comment I have ever seen. Thank you lol.
Great video and great article. Just what I was looking for. Many thanks!
I have been using DMR since the beginning of 2020. I bought a Tyt uv380 with mmdvm hotspot. Got them packaged together for $200. It was a great deal at that time. I used the radio to listen most of the time and I just idled on the America Link and Worldwide brandmeister TGs. I just didn't really do much with it. It was pretty boring and basic to me. A few months ago I just happened to come across a video about the WPSD dashboard for Raspberry Pi. I was amazed. It was very cool looking and very active development going on almost daily. The regular Pi-star dashboard was archaic and seemed forgotten about to me. The WPSD dashboard got me excited and interested in DMR again. Then I discovered the TGIF network. It was very different than BM from my perspective. It just seems more alive and more various active TGs. BM has many, many people talking all the time but most are talking in regional TGs and others that I just had no interest in. TGIF has also really revived my interest in DMR. I find myself talking a lot on DMR now. It just took me finding a new flavor of it I guess.
Oh yeah. My whole point to that comment was that being the catalyst for me finding this video. WPSD makes it so easy for me to understand how to connect to multiple DMR networks at once. I don't have to do anything special to switch DMR networks. It's as easy as changing my channel knob to switch between Brandmeister,TGIF and now xlx. I had no clue what xlx was so here I am lol
Many thanks. Made the setup really easy to follow.
Glad you found it useful!
Wow this content is over my head haha! You clearly are very handy with IT stuff. I watched another video of yours that said you were born in 1995 - I graduated HS and got licensed in 1995 😅 I've been in and out of the hobby over the years (more out than in) so i'm by no means proficient in any aspect of amateur radio. I am a General Class and working on my Extra. I found your channel because I'm interested in YSF and looking into getting a hotspot. The closest YSF repeater to me is 28 miles (per Repeater Book) so I doubt I can hit that with my FT5D. I'm also in Kentucky and a veteran (Navy). Looking forward to learning from you! Happy New Year! 73 - Jeremy KF4CHW
Happy New Year, and thank you for your service! There's a lot to learn about all these little sub topics of ham radio. Maybe I'll hear you on the air in Kentucky sometime!
@@ModernHam And thank you for yours! I'm out in the boonies of eastern KY - in Pike County on the Virginia Border. Would definitely be cool to hear you on the air!
I'm from Pennington Gap/Harlan. I know that area well.
Just to be clear, you need to register the YSF, DSTAR and DMR to have your own "talkg roups". 2nd question, while these modes are "connected", can they (sans D-Star unless you have a transcoder if I understood you properly) to the same talk group?
@@wspivak1 Talk Groups are just a digital ID transmitted by your DMR radio used for segregation of traffic within the same frequency almost like a PL tone. This doesn't really have anything to do with registration online. Your hotspot sends that digital identifier known as a talk group to the reflector, so the reflector can know which module to output our voice on.
But DMR, YSF can talk on the same module without transcoding. Talk Groups are only relevant to DMR systems. D-Dtar requires a special hardware for talking with the other modes in the form of transcoding.
Thanks for answering, so if I’m creating my own TG I then register is and the XLX reflector will be able to receive and transmit to where ever.
Hey sick video! Do you have any advice on re-compiling? My reflector is up and running, but i Need to make changes to my main.h file, but not sure how i’ll recompile
Great video and should get me easily up & running with an XLX reflector.
What I really want to do is have it connect to an existing YSF or XLX reflector/server.
I also want it to bridge to a Brandmeister DMR talkgroup.
Will it do this/ is it capable of doing this?
I have a Brandmeister connected DMR repeater and from that Repeater I'd like to be able to "bring up" this connection to YSF and talk to my friends that are on a given YSF room that is always up.
Is XLX reflector/server a good choice for doing this or do I need to find a different bridging server option?
I know there are a few out there including XLX/REF but I am not familiar with any of them.
I'm a pro with this server, networking and DNS stuff but no experience bridging DMR and Fusion myself yet.
Thanks!!!
-Steve N8LBV
try to follow the instructions and when you get to the "sudo make install" part it says command not found. any suggestions?
So these Linux tutorials come with an assumption you know some of the basics of Linux, as you will need to know them to perform maintenance and updates on your reflector into the future. This means you probably need to install "make" or "sudo" depending on which wasn't found.
The video installs both, so one of the install commands must have errored out. You will need to figure out which one and why, as almost all flavors of all Linux distros can come with their own quirks sometimes.
You will need to diagnose these little error messages in the future if you intend on up-keeping the reflector, so I would dig in and figure out why the install failed for one of those packages.
I had two users on my xlx reflector today, one direct with radio?? other through openspot. they could not here each other. do I need to change a setting?
They need to be on the same module, and if they are different modes, software transcoding must be supported for them such as c4fm and DMR.
@@ModernHam
Modules
That’s a-j correct?
Both showed on module “B”
“Ear” at top
Does that mean I could listen w/o a radio?
your video suggest editing the ip address for a transcoder service. where can I find such a service? w/o transcoding, Im really struggling with the value of a reflector hosted on a remote server.
The only use case for a Transcoder on XLX is for D-Star users to talk to others because its requires hardware AMBE. You can host your own transcoding server with the hardware at home. Your other users would still enjoy the uptime and low latency that comes with a remote server, but if transcoding goes down, D-Star would lose the ability to talk to the others again. It all comes down to the users you are serving. I'm not a fan of our current popular digital modes for these little reasons. In 2023, still relying on hard transcoding chips created in 1989 is really silly. C4FM and DMR rely on AMBE2, which is software, but it is still proprietary, and has caused division in the community.
@@ModernHam
Would be nice if you include similar comment in video when you get to transcoding
I guess I jumped the gun thinking a remote hosted xlx was all I needed.
I’ve hosted myself in local dedicated server
I could do it again, and get the hardware
How many “chips/dongles” are required to fully implement transcoding.
Also, I saw on other reflectors thing like peers
What are peer, how do I add them?
@@ModernHam so I think
I hear you saying that there are no cloud servers that already have the hardware that I could point my server?
How about a video on add transcoding capabilities
So the transcoding works out of the box between c4fm and DMR. But for D-Star, you need 2 AMBE devices because of proprietary technology. They cost about $100 dollars each. Id make a video on how to get those working, but I don't want to personally pay into that. I honestly am not a fan of many digital voice modes because of that fact the manufacturers use them as a way to separate themselves from others and lock their users into using their proprietary codecs. It's not consumer friendly, not in line with the spirit of amateur radio, but I know it's popular.
That's the best and clearest explanation of how to do this I've ever seen. Thank you! 73 de G0TVJ
Glad it came through that way! 73 de KN4MKB
A CNAME points to another (DNS-)name, not an IP :-)
Shoot your right. No wonder the records didn't update for the example. I'll patch that out of the video.
I tried running through the installation scripts several more times. I still have just one error in the Starting the Server section.
When trying to run the line:
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/log/xlxd.xml
I get the error:
chown: cannot access '/var/log/xlxd.xml' : No such file or directory.
I searched for xlxd.xml on the Debian 12.4.0 computer, and it does not exist.
I get the Apache2 Debian Default Web Page with my fully qualified domain name on a web browser, not the XLX Multiprotocol Gateway Reflector web page.
The XLX Reflector server is built on Debian 12.4.0. All the commands seemed to run normally with no errors, until the Start Server section.
I ran into two errors, one in the Start Server section, one in the XLX web page.
ky0l@XLX-Reflector:~/xlxd/src$ sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/log/xlxd.xml
chown: cannot access '/var/log/xlxd.xml': No such file or directory
The other error is when I enter my domain name on a web browser, I do not get the XLX Reflector page, I get an Apache2 Debian Default Web Page, that says the Apache2 is working.
I'm getting the same thing, the default apache2 html page, not the dashboard. The index.html is in the www/html folder, while the index.php is in the www/xlxd folder. Hower do I change the default to look at the correct page?
cd /var/log
mv xlxd.pid xlxd.xml
sudo systemctl restart xlxd
@@trex700ful That doesn't seem to fix the issue mentioned above, been through this guide a few times- always same results - goes to the default Appache2 this server is working page- not the reflector page- anyone got this to work after the above landing instead of the reflector landing page, if so, how? - seems like a possible error in the commands path move in the guide I'm guessing
@@n8sdr473 There may be a problem with the choice of board software . It works on my Generation 3 board