The ZS1I DMR Bridge was activated today (31 August 2023) on World Wide Talk Group 91 to allow Echolink and AllStar users to be ported to DMR. No announcement was made in this regard and it was not long before there were some action taking place via the ZS1I DMR Bridge.
First up was Gerrit ZS1KLO, using a 2M analog radio to work VU3ITI VARADARAJAN "Varadan" G, Bangalore, India at 09h20 SAST and later he worked HL2BOP Cheol Heon Jang, Gyeong, South Korea at 09h25 SAST. At 10h45 he worked M3FGR Dave Rootes, Swinden, England. Now this was a very interesting contact. Dave was also using Echolink. Now what makes this so interesting? Dave heard Gerrit via the ZS3JDL-R Kimberley Repeater which was linked to the ZS1I GRHub Network. Gerrit used his 2m Analog Radio via the ZS1I-L 145.550 Mhz Analog Simplex Link. Still nothing special? Yours truely (ZS1I) was monitoring on the DVSwitch DMR Dashboard and could clearly hear both stations via DMR. Both these stations could be heard simultaneously on Echolink, AllStar, DMR, ZS3JDL-R Kimberley Repeater and the ZS1I-L 145.550 Mhz Simplex Radio Link. What makes the above contacts special is the fact that all these systems worked flawlessly when linked together. The cherry on top was the fact that analog radios was used to make contacts on DMR. The audio quality of all the systems/stations that was linked together was great and no packet loss was experienced on either DMR or Analog.
Just to confirm yours truely also made contact with Dave M3FGR and DS4AKP Park Soon Bok, Gwang yang City, South Korea.
Now why all the excitement? 1. Well this confirms that the ZS1I DMR Bridge is working as it should locally as well as to other parts of the world. 2. That the audio quality is set correctly and that good audio is received and transmitted on Analog and on Digital (DMR). 3. The system is setup correctly and is now fully functional.
I did however observe the following. Stations tend to use the ID System be it on their radio or any DMR Dashboard. They would see my call sign ZS1I and if another station call via the ZS1I DMR Bridge they use my call sign instead of the callers call sign. I will look if I can find a solution to this, but surely one cannot just except that it is ZS1I calling. Please listen to the call sign of the caller. On the DVSwitch Dashboard there is Src column that shows LNet while normal stations just reflect Net and RF. This means the source of the signal. I presume LNet stands for Linked Net. Maybe somebody can assist in this regard. In other words the DMR Bridge is identified by LNet while other stations by Net and RF. I will however do a bit of further research in this regard.
Finally: A big thank you to the following stations: ZS1KLO, VU3ITI, HL2BOP, M3FGR and DS4AKP that assisted me to ensure that the system is working optimal.
I would like to invite other radio amateurs to use the ZS1I DMR Bridge Network when it is active. I will later issue certain time periods of when the bridge network will be active on a daily basis.
