Folks,
So much has been going on lately, it’s time for a general update. First off, KS-DMR is now officially an independent group, and not just part of K0USY. The dream of KS-DMR was to have a local, independent DMR network in KS. This was the goal back in 2011 when we bought a c-Bridge, and was one of the motivations behind writing our own software for DMR networking. Until recently, there was not enough momentum behind that dream for it to live independently of K0USY. But with the addition of NV8Q/KS0LNK – making the partnership now K0USY, K0PRO and NV8Q/KS0LNK – there’s now enough steam behind it to stand on its own.
K0USY Group still does all that we have. But we’re now sharing both governance and operation of KS-DMR with more people. More details at http://ks-dmr.net <http://ks-dmr.net/> and in particular, our combined coverage footprint at http://ks-dmr.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/kansas.jpg. Very excited to have this group take off on it’s own. For a long time, the Regents of the K0USY Group felt like we might be the only who valued the true autonomy of a truly independent network. Glad to know we were just ahead of our time!
Why an independent network? Because no matter what you’re told, you can’t connect to any of the “big networks” and truly be autonomous. I liken it to installing a Web browser on your own computer instead of going to the public library to use a browser on one of theirs. Both get the job done, but which one do you prefer? We also don’t have to fling our packets around the whole US just to get to and from two sites in KS. Many of our paths between repeaters never leave the state, and those that do, typically stay in the central states. The independent network has also allowed us to do things like construct a VPN for all of our repeaters that includes the server doing the call routing. No more NAT problems, port forwarding messes, etc. The reliability, uptime, and quality of our own systems connecting to each other is drastically improved, while we still have upstream connections to multiple other networks that allow us to still bring in popular wide-area content (TGIDs). And maybe the best part for me is, since we wrote the software right here in Kansas, if we want a feature, we add it. If we have a problem, we fix it.
In other news:
* The repeater replacement project is complete, and we picked up an additional machine in the process. We have replaced the following Motorola XPR repeaters with Motorola MTR2000s running MMDVM:
Lecompton
Topeka
Manhattan
Hays (West)
* The Lawrence 443.800 repeater was also replaced with an MTR2000. It had been a random assortment of parts running MMDVM.
* We have taken over the 442.000 repeater site in Basehor from long-time K0USY affiliate N0RC. We also replaced Reid’s XPR at that location with an MTR2000 and as of yesterday, Basehor is back on the network!
* We added an MMDVM-based repeater in El Dorado (previously reported project with NV8Q)
Now it’s time to take a break and maybe actually just talk on the radio for a while. We do have 5 more MTR2000s in inventory, an expect to replace Hays (East) with one eventually, and perhaps deploy one more somewhere.
0x49 DE N0MJS
Cort Buffington
785-865-7206
