Just recently we got or Amateur call sign for the Lone Wolf System N0LWS. We decided to create a DMR Talkgroup.
It's still in its infancy and hopefully, we will get the word out and have some people using it.
Why DMR?
DMR stands for Digital Mobile Radio and uses the Motorola TRBO protocol for communications. Like other digital modes such as D-Star, C4FM, and APCO P25, the TRBO protocol converts your voice into a digital form and sends it out via RF (with other bits of information included) and allows you to communicate to other DMR radios and also DMR repeaters, which are networked together around the world via the internet.
What makes DMR stand out from some of the other digital modes is that it utilizes TDMA (Time-Division Multiple Access) to divide a single frequency into 2 distinct channels or time slots. By doing this, you can have two conversations going on at the SAME TIME, using one frequency.
Imagine using one frequency while radio A is talking to radio B on time slot 1, and radio C is talking to radio D in time slot 2 ... SIMULTANEOUSLY. Pretty neat, huh?
Why ALLstar?
Unlike other Radio-centric VOIP technologies, such as Echolink or IRLP, etc, AllStarLink and the app_rpt/Asterisk technology have been specifically designed to be part of, and to link together parts of the very infrastructure of the radio systems that it implements, as opposed to be an end-to-end protocol like others.
All systems (nodes) are either repeater controllers or remote-base controllers. They connect directly with the radio hardware (thus replacing/outdating) current controllers on a system that is already up and operating. Just simply as a repeater controller, the amount of functionality and flexibility is very impressive, and when you also consider its remote base, linking (full-duplex), and VOIP (for autopatch, remote control, etc) capabilities, it's amazing.