Roaming Talkgroups & Timeslots

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W3AXL
Posts: 114
Joined: Fri Sep 04, 2015 9:02 am
What radios do you own?: an unhealthy amount of them

Roaming Talkgroups & Timeslots

Post by W3AXL »

I've been playing with DMR roaming on a 7350, for ham use on the various networks. Obviously being a 32-channel radio I need to get creative to be able to use all the talkgroups I want.

The way I've currently got it set up is that each channel represents a talkgroup, tied to a roaming list which finds the nearest repeater. The roaming channels are stored in the channel pool, and the roaming function seems to work fine.

I've noticed one peculiar thing, and this might be a feature as opposed to a bug. Basically, I've got one channel with a roaming list. The master channel has a dummy frequency pair (this is so I can always confirm roaming is programmed correctly) and every roaming channel in the pool has a real frequency, CC, TS, and contact. What I've been noticing is, when I roam to a site, the timeslot, color code, and frequency used follow the roamed channel, but the contact ID remains whatever is in the dummy master channel. So, if my dummy master has contact ID 2, and I want to roam to a repeater where I need contact ID 9, it will roam to the repeater, use the correct CC and TS for that talkgroup, but use ID 2. Not sure if that's how it's supposed to work, but that's how it's functioning.

I'm not sure if I explained that well so let me know if you're confused. I'm not terribly familiar with TRBO programming coming from an Astro/APX background, so I may be biting off more than I can chew here.

Cheers!
n1gtl
Posts: 113
Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2008 12:43 pm
What radios do you own?: XPR5550, XPR7550e

Re: Roaming Talkgroups & Timeslots

Post by n1gtl »

When you say "contact id", I assume you are referring to the Talk Group ID? Not your user id? Right?

If so, you need to program each channel with a Talk Group ID. Say channel one is North America, you'd program that with Talk Group 3. The radio will them roam to repeaters in your channel pool. If you want Talk Group ID 9 (I believe that is used for local only and time slot 2), you need to program another channel with that and assign your roam list to that. You need to create at LEAST 2 roam lists. Each repeater should be in a roam list twice, once as slot 1 and once as slot 2. Then, you need to assign the roam list to the channel based on the time slot the Talk Group uses.

Interesting idea putting a dummy frequency as the "main" channel. It doesn't find it so it hits the roam list and connects?
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W3AXL
Posts: 114
Joined: Fri Sep 04, 2015 9:02 am
What radios do you own?: an unhealthy amount of them

Re: Roaming Talkgroups & Timeslots

Post by W3AXL »

Okay, I think I've been overcomplicating things. You've just shed some better light on roaming.

I was originally under the impression that each talkgroup needed to have its own roaming list. Now that I've seen how it behaves, and now that you've explained the way you've programmed roaming, I realize that I've been doing a lot of unnecessary work.

That explains why the talkgroup follows whatever's programmed on the primary channel. So whatever talkgroup is programmed in to the channel pool channels is ignored. That actually makes more sense now that I think about it.

That should also slim down my channel pool significantly. Right now I've got about eight or nine channels per repeater for the various TGs.

My original intent behind having different talkgroups in the same roaming list was to work with different networks. For instance local on Tri-State DMR is TG 8, while it's 2 on MARC/Brandmeister.

And for your last quesiton: I put in 444.0/440.0 as the repeater frequency for each of the main channels tied to roaming lists. That way I know that roaming is functioning properly right away. It'd work the same if I just entered a pair for a DMR repeater far away, but this way no matter what I'm in range of I know it's using the roaming list properly. It's just a sanity check for my programming.
n1gtl
Posts: 113
Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2008 12:43 pm
What radios do you own?: XPR5550, XPR7550e

Re: Roaming Talkgroups & Timeslots

Post by n1gtl »

Correct...you do not need to put the Talk Group in the repeaters in the channel pool. When it roams to that repeater, it will take the Talk Group of the channel you selected. Keep the number of repeaters in the roam list as low as you can. I made the mistake of putting about 30 repeaters that cover my state. Once it roams off the selected on, it takes forever to find an active one.
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