New Toy - TYT MD-380

[Andywragg]

My MD-380 (non GPS Variant) arrived today via the slow boat from China. Ordered and dispatched on 19th January.

First impressions.

It's built pretty solid, although I don't care for the belt clip being mounted to the battery pack so much. If I buy another battery, I'll need to buy another belt clip also, so I'm not swapping them over all the time and wearing out the screw threads.

I've loaded the KD4Z MD-380 tools (firmware) to enhance the GUI and applied a code plug developed by one of my club members.

I've tested access to my local digital (DMR) and analogue repeaters and all seems to be in order. Good clear n crisp audio, and good reports into the analogue repeater front end (via the guy that hosts the unit).  These repeaters are co-located about 10 miles away on the other side of the city. Signal in the house on the hand held is poor unless I go and sit on the other side of the house to where my shack is. I could plug the HT into my X50 col-linear but I don't want to mess about unplugging my Leixen vv-898S. 

I may invest in a hot spot at some point to improve coverage in the house.

One of my club mates demo'd his hot spot the other night. His hot spot runs off a USB power bank with a solar panel attached and uses the data connection on his phone. The phone links to the hotspot via wifi. All in all a nice little set up and it uses very little data from his allocated tariff.

If any of you overseas chaps fancy a chat at some point let me know and we can arrange something. I'm still learning about Zones,  time slots and colour codes, so please be patient.

[gil]

I'm on 20859...

Gil.

[Andywragg]

Hi Gil,

I'm just trying to figure out how to add the Lille TG to my radio, and understand how it all hangs together.

[Andywragg]

Calling now.....

[Andywragg]

OK I got through to the Lille repeater on TG 20859 but it was in use. My French is very rusty and certainly not up to holding a conversation, so I didn't break in.

[gil]

Awesome! I am not always on, mostly when driving...

Gil.

[Jon_Garfio]

Congrats for the rig.

If there isn't repeaters  near your home, you can built a Hot spot based in a Raspberry Pi.



Enviado desde mi Redmi Note 4 mediante Tapatalk

[Andywragg]

Yeah,

Quite a few of the guys at my local club have them already. It may take me a while to get one as I need to equip the shack for HF ops first. I can use the local repeater GB7SR until then.