Brandmeister Users On PNWDigital – What’s Different?

There are a few important settings that must be changed to mesh up correctly with the c-Bridge based network that is PNWDigital.

Many things are the same between the networks and some talkgroups are shared. But there are a few important differences at the base level that you should know before transmitting on our network. Operationally, talkgroup availability is not in the hands of the user. Talkgroups are “hard-coded” to be available as FT or PTT (User Access)

  1. Turn OFF Talker Alias – We don’t use it and it muddles up your transmit audio
  2. Set your Tx Permit to Same Color Code – NEVER set it to Always on PNWD repeaters!
    1. If your radio supports Transmit Interrupt, please use it for best performance
    2. MotoTRBO: enable it fully for every selection and checkbox
    3. The c-Bridge uses TXI for call arbitration and call collision avoidance
  3. Set your Group Call Hang Timer to 1 second – Best performance on PNWD
  4. Anytones: Never use Radio Check or Roaming – It doesn’t work and gums up the network
  5. Never use Private Call – It is not used on the PNWDigital Network
  6. Enable your Talk Permit Tone for digital – Users need to know when the network sez OK to speak
  7. If you use our APRS Gateway, Keep your reporting to a minimum
    1. If moving and talking once or twice a minute is OK (less is better)
    2. If stationary, 15 minutes or 4 times per hour maximum.

PNWD has about 60 talkgroups available (including BM 31771, PNW Regional). Users are not able to add talkgroups nor can they use their own. Only the talkgroups listed on our Talkgroup Listing page are potentially available on a repeater or hotspot. Our TG Picker will list what is available to the user. Talkgroup 4000 is not used and no “private call” groups are used at all.

We highly recommend that you use our Anytone starter or community codeplugs.  Most Importantly, the setting mentioned above are set correctly (Anytone default settings do not work well) and there are samples or complete zones for our repeaters and hotspot servers that include only the TG’s that are valid for that repeater or MMDVM server.

Your radio can support both networks easily, Just use our setting on our channels. But also keep in mide that the general or radio-wide setting listed above must be adhered to please.

There is more but this will get your out the gate successfully. This page will be expanded to include more differences especially at the operational level.

Questions or Comments are welcome below

First Published: January 3, 2022 Last Updated: 1 year ago by Mike – NO7RF

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