Anyone into DMR? I bought a HT and have been talking all over the world with 5 watts. Quite a learning curve to program the radio but had a local help me out.
I have a couple DMR radios (...but you already knew that since I use them to talk over the hump with you on them!).
NYCOGunsmith: The 146.790 and the 449.975 repeaters on High Potosi are definitely full time DMR now. I've heard that the owner of them may put the VHF machine back on analog (more likely mixed mode), but don't have any idea how accurate that is.
For those that may come upon this and not know anything about DMR, it's one of the three major digital modes in use on the amateur VHF / UHF bands (there are others... like P25). The other two popular modes are D-Star (primarily Icom, but now also on a Kenwood HT) and System Fusion (Yaesu). DMR is adapted from the commercial market. They aren't programmable from the front panel, and they aren't known to be particularly amateur friendly in the way that the traditional analog radios from Kenwood, Icom or Yaesu are. Almost all are analog capable, so programming normal ham simplex and repeaters along side DMR talkgroups is the norm. DMR uses 12.5 kHz (compared to 25 kHz for analog), and two conversations can happen simultaneously with TDMA (time-division multiple access - the two conversations are essentially interwoven into the signal).
To the point about talking long distance on 5 watts, a lot of what goes on with DMR is indeed using internet linked repeaters. There are DMR talkgroups for most any interest / geographical area, and connecting to them is just a matter of programming the radio. There is an older chap in the UK that I get a kick out of listening to on talkgroup 3100. Iweb's 5 watts are getting him to the top of the hill, and the linked network brings the rest of the world to the top of the hill.
The two major DMR networks are the
Brandmeister network and the
DMR-MARC network. There are pros and cons with each, but (for simplicity sake), Brandmeister is more like Android (looser rules, more end user latitude in choosing talkgroups) and DMR-MARC is more like Apple (repeater owners decide what you can listen to). Having said that, Iweb and I talk over the mountain on just the repeater since we can both reach it. Or, if one of us is out of town, we can almost certainly hit a Brandmeister repeater where we are and reach back to that same repeater using one of the linked talkgroups. As with analog radios, cheap DMR radios are starting to hit the market. Instead of a $500 Motorola or Hytera, users can find capable DMR radios for under $100 (new!). That price point makes DMR pretty appealing compared to D-Star / System Fusion radios.
In Vegas, there are at least two VHF and a plethora of UHF repeaters that run DMR (a good mix of both Brandmeister and DMR-MARC). I don't know of any linked DMR repeaters in Pahrump, but fortunately the one high up on the mountain covers it pretty well it seems. There are no 900 MHz DMR machines here, although there are in other cities (there are a number of 900 MHz analog machines though). Some say that DMR's popularity in Vegas already peaked, which may be true (I've only had one since August). More likely, though, is that there are now a number of personal hotspots (like the
SharkRF openSPOT) available for DMR (and D-Star / System Fusion) that individual users can use to link into the network (...via internet).
I see DMR as another tool on the belt. Most of my time is spent on HF, but I do spend a few minutes each day chatting with friends on V/U (analog or DMR), typically during the commute (...as I'm listening around on HF with my other ear).
Yikes... that got longer than I intended!