DMR

DMR stands for Digital Mobile Radio.

DMR is an open digital radio standard specified by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI TS 102 361 parts 1-4).

DMR radios are capable of two transmissions on a single frequency (Slot 1 & Slot 2), and include such features as text messaging and paging/alerting.  This allows for conversations in less than one-third of the bandwidth required for conventional FM voice traffic (6.25 kHz vs 25 kHz).  Because the DMR transmitter is only transmitting on a single slot (either Slot 1 or Slot 2), the transmitter is idle for one-half of the transmission time.  This leads to a battery life increase vs an identical battery on a conventional FM transmitter by about 40%.  Because of the excellent digital error correction (Forward Error Correction [FEC] and Cyclic Redundancy Checking [CRC]) and narrow bandwidth of the transmitted signal, received voice quality is excellent too.

Commercial radio vendors such as Motorola, Vertex, Kenwood, Icom, Tait, and Hyterra have formed a "DMR Association" to keep all radios within specified standards, ensuring full radio interoperability from manufacturer to manufacturer.  Motorola markets their DMR series radios as MOTOTRBO, while other manufacturers simply state the radio is "DMR Compatible".

A very popular low-cost DMR radio is available from Connect Systems Inc. (CSI).  Look here for details on the CS700 DMR HT. A higher end DMR radio is the Anytone 878 UV II+ with APRS.

The Northern Alberta Radio Club supports a DMR Tier II repeater - VE6VPR (70cm)

VE6VPR-DMR  440.8000 MHz (+5) Colour Code 1

VE6VPR is connected to the world-wide DMR-MARC system of DMR repeaters.  If you are new to DMR, please register with DMR-MARC and obtain a radio ID number BEFORE transmitting on the VE6VPR repeater.  Obtaining a radio ID number usually takes less than 24 hours and will ensure that your radio (and call sign) is entered into the world-wide DMR user database.

Group

Call 

Slot 

 Function

1

1

World Wide 

2

2

Local (Edmonton Area)

3

1

North America Wide

13

1

World Wide (English)

302

1

Canada Wide

310

1

TAC 310

3022

2

Quebec Wide

3023

2

Ontario Wide

3024

2

Manitoba Wide

3026

2

Alberta Wide

3027

2

British Columbia Wide

3029

2

New Brunswick Wide

 70cm DMR Simplex:  446.0750 MHz, Slot 1, Group Call 99

 Watch live DMR traffic here.

For more info on DMR: