Digital Comms Connector: Development Update

It’s been a while since our last update on Digital Comms Connector, but development has continued behind the scenes.

The software allows our event control room to capture and bring together audio, messages and position-tracking data from the communications systems used during events we support even when there is no Internet available. This information is important to the control team, so reliability and accuracy are essential.

We’ve made progress across the communications interfaces and the event management app. Here’s an update on what’s available, what’s supported, and what we’re working on next.

On our offline DMR logging, tracking and recording project there has been further cleaning of the software and a small architecture change over the last month, slightly delayed due to dependency changes in the app used to view the data.

As mentioned before we have been working to fully integrate DMR position, messaging and audio into a single logging solution for Derby Raynet Control to use during events without needing any complex infrastructure or being dependent on the Internet.

Since the last update we have overcome most of our issues and are now working on reliability and scaling improvements.

Previously we could “listen” to the repeater over RF at control and decode the data side of DMR (messages, position reports and on air caller information), we have recently made progress in a number of areas in order to add audio recording and searching capability.

Derby Raynet has been using a DMR repeater for a few events now. This has improved clarity in noisy control environments and having a second time slot available when more privacy is required is a great advantage. However, we have not been making use of the additional digital features available.

It is common to share APRS like information (position and SMS style messages) over Internet linked DMR repeaters through one of the networks. The networks convert this data, and send it to APRS-IS, which can then be easily viewed on a map. For emergency scenarios or charity events in isolated areas we aim to create our own independent networks to provide redundancy when possible, so try to avoid relying on this.