How's it going everybody? If you watched
my video not too long ago on the CS7000,
you know that I had some difficulty
getting an M17 hotspot running. Well, I
got good news. I have it working. Thanks
to Jeff. I'll leave it at that. Jeff,
you're outstanding as well as a lot of
the M17 community was very kind. Uh
there was actually I don't think they
knew this, but I have been a part of a I
think it's a groups.io or it's an email
like, you know, email box thing. And uh
somebody made an email saying, "Hey,
Josh made a video. Let's be kind to
Josh. Let's Let's help him out. See if,
you know, if if we can if we can better
explain M17 and all the all the workings
there." And they did. So, let me just
say, thank you from the bottom of my
heart. I appreciate it. Particularly
appreciate it when you guys take the
time to explain things that I might have
missed. So, first and foremost, [snorts]
yes, the CS7000 is uh is a dual mode
radio. So, you can hold down a button,
you can put it into DMR. My focus though
is I wanted to see this work on M17. And
it it did on simplex, right? Well, the
good news is I have it working.
>> works just fine. So, standby. I'm going
to jump over to wires-x and take some
check-ins. Standby.
>> I have it working as well on M17 via a
hotspot, which was kind of my last step
to go. So, what ended up being the
solution to it? There is a website. It's
off the M17 page, wiki page, that
explains like how you would use a
hotspot to get on the air. My problem
was I went with this second one, this
M-spot. And I was taken to a GitHub. And
for me, when I see a GitHub and all I
have to do is run a script like this one
here, I'm like, "Ooh, good. That's
exactly what I want." In reality, in
reality, I should have just went with
the WSPSD
WP SDM17 community fork of MMDVM. So,
yes, this is a fork. The last known
working version that MMDVM worked with
M17. I'm going to show you how to
install it. All you got to go do is go
to the fork page, click on download.
I'll put links in the video description
and should bring this up.
Yeah, there you go. And you want this
WPSD
M17 RPI Bookworm is basically what it
says. We can embiggen this a little bit.
So we want this Bookworm one. I don't
know if I've downloaded it yet or not.
Let's go ahead and do that. So I'll
click download. So while that goes off
and downloads I am going to make a quick
modification. So I am using a Raspberry
Pi 4 right now as a hotspot. It's really
not the right way to do this. I have
actually an MMDVM enclosure that another
ham made for me that has a screen. It's
actually really really nice. And I have
a couple of Raspberry Pi lights or
zeros. Sorry, it's a zero 2 watt. This
is a 2 watt version. This is a 1 watt
version.
MMDVM for M17 does not run very well
when you are running on a 1 watt Pi
light or Pi zero. So I'm going to flash
this guy to have the right setup and run
the hotspot off of that. However, you
can see I already don't have the little
headers that I need whereas this one
does. So I need to make a quick change
here. Need to do a little bit of
soldering. You may have to go through
the exact same thing I do. So I'm going
to show you how to do that right now.
This is a great opportunity to use my
tile and this kit that I've had for a
while. This little pitch connector kit.
Now something to note, these are like
doubled up pin headers. It's side by
side pin headers. I don't have that.
I've got these like singles and I don't
know if I line them up next to each
other that they'll fit or not. I think
it will. So I'm going to try it because
that's what I've got. It looks like two
fives.
Two stacks of fives on each end here. So
and we'll go right next to them. And
yeah, those will go in just fine. So the
only thing we have to do is make sure
that we hold them fast while we solder
because that will be the that will be
the failure point here. So let's make up
two more.
Okay, and then we'll check the fitment.
Little off-center.
Straight as an arrow.
Then I'll slide in my next one here
right next to it.
>> [music]
[music]
>> Done.
Okay. So, that was the easy part, at
least for me, soldering. Now, I've gone
ahead and unzipped the image file and
started Raspberry Pi Imager.
I will take a simple USB
memory card reader for my microSD. I'm
using a 32 gig one. A small one, that's
all you need. And then we're going to
select a Raspberry Pi 0 2 W. Remember, 2
W is what you want. By the way, oh my
gosh, have you seen these things? Where
is it?
These things are going for absolutely
insane amount of dollars, and I don't
understand why. We've got one here. Oh,
see, this is the Pi 0 1 W is $38.
And then the other ones are $95.
So, if you've got one of these, oh my
god, you've got a little bit of gold
there. But, anyway, so we're going to
say next on that. And then for an OS,
I'm going to slide all the way down to
the bottom, and I'm going to say use
custom, and then I'm going to point it
at that file that we just unzipped. I'm
going to say open, and I'm going to say
next, and I'm double-checking 28 gigs. I
don't want to use anything other than
that, right? So, I'm going to select
that. You got Make really sure that
you're not screwing this up, cuz you
could flash onto your hard drive here,
and you could kill it. I cannot
It's It affears me. It affears me. So,
anyway, click go, right, and point of no
return, I understand. Yes, yay verily,
USB USB device, SD USB, yep, got it.
Okay. And it's going to go off and do
this thing. Okay, so now I can just add
power to my Raspberry Pi
like a so.
Okay, so this Wi-Fi setup is asking me
to be a little bit more precise here.
So, it's giving me this user login
setup. So, I'm going to go to Wi-Fi
manager.
And I'm going to go through and set up
my Wi-Fi. You will do this on your own.
Go ahead and follow that process now. Uh
I will not show it because obviously
this is my personal Wi-Fi. All right, so
we got to the same page. It's running
now. So, we should be able to go to WPSD
HTTP or WPSD.local
and be able to access it. Now, I also
have the IP address. And since I'm
running two hotspots, it's probably a
better idea that I just go ahead and do
that. Um so, we're going to log in and
check to see if it's there. And then I'm
going to do a final fitment of the
hotspot hat on top of it. And then we
should be ready for final configuration.
And there it is. So, it is on my Wi-Fi
cuz I can access it, right? So, I'm
going to go to admin.
So, this is Pi-Star
Raspberry.
So, do change this after you log in for
the first time.
Save. And then we go to configuration.
All right, so host name for this one is
going to be M170.
Not M1270.
My node call sign is KI6NAZ.
Uh my DMR ID, I actually do have a DMR
ID that I will look up and add, as well
as an NXDN. Go ahead and do that now for
yourself. And then you can change the
frequency to whatever you'd like. And uh
yeah, let's go ahead and populate the
hat. I'll set the time zone to Los
Angeles, where I am at. Okay. Now, I got
to talk about this uh Pi Hat. So,
where's my Where's my other one?
So, this was the hotspot I was running
and this is
way overkill for this project. So, I
want to deploy this for my other thing.
It just happened to be the one that I
grabbed because it it works really well.
Anyway, let me get that off there. So,
great job. Go do other things now. All
right. So, someone a ham made me a
hotspot and uh he's a great guy and I'm
not going to mention his call sign cuz I
think, you know, people will say
something to him. But, he handed me a
hotspot at I think it was Hamvention and
he made a little mistake on my call
sign.
He remedied this. He He sent me a
replacement and I uh I I I misplaced it.
So, it's my bad across the board. Great
guy. Nobody say anything to him, but um
I kind of like it now and I want to I
want to leave it. So, that's my alter
ego is N6NAZ. All right. After a bit of
work, I made a couple of changes. So,
M170, my call sign, my ID. You don't
need to do your DMR ID or your NXDN. Uh
as well as I changed the frequency to
446.55.
That's my own personal preference cuz I
already have the repeater the I already
have the radios keyed that way. Now,
this does have a screen. I've also
clicked the little box here for M17.
Note that. As well as I guess I changed
the whole thing into dark mode without
y'all noticing. So, sorry for the
jarring switch, [laughter] but anyway.
Uh and I don't know what screen I have.
So, I'm going to have to play around
with this for a second or two. I'm going
to go ahead and yeah, enable that.
Rotate display. No. And invert display.
No. Let's apply changes and see if we
get the display working. Kind of curious
uh
if we can get this going or not. All
right. To make my life a little bit
easier, I'm going to click save the
profile. Enter short description
KI6NAZM17.
Save profile. There we go. Very good.
Let's go to the dashboard and see if
things are looking good. We have M17
working but no configuration, so I'm
going to go to admin.
I'm going to go to the M17 manager.
And I'm going to see what we've got
here. Great. We've got a couple of
options in the drop down. So, I'm going
to go to KCW
and I'm going to set this to C. So, KCW
is Kansas City wide. It's a very active
uh reflector and I'm going to click the
link button and then request change and
we should see some stuff happen here.
We're on module A, great. Let's go to
dashboard. Okay, so it looks like we got
it halfway there. It's not picking up my
transmit, which has happened before and
I normally just go through a refresh
cycle and it fixes it. But also my
screen's not doing anything, so I'm
going to go back to that screen setting.
I actually don't know what this screen
is. So, let's go into configuration
again, top right corner, and I'm going
to go down to
my screen.
I set it for the OLED type. I don't
think it's the OLED. Last buttoning up
here, I'm going to change this to M17
Kansas City wide, right? So, we're going
to go KCW. I want this to start on A.
Now, A is going to be the most popular
watering hole, but they have B and C and
you can see there's a whole bunch of
them, but A is the one we want. By the
way, that's a Nextion enhanced with
driver attached to modem screen.
And I think I'll make it a little bit
brighter. So, we'll go and apply those
changes.
All right, we got that figured out.
Let's get this buttoned up in its case
and set up and running.
All right, well, we'll disconnect our
board here.
Little warm.
Oh, yeah. It's getting a little a little
toasty there.
And we'll go in
just through the top here.
Yes.
>> That's going well.
>> Excellent. All right.
Lay down there.
Screen just slaps right in place.
Got a adapter for USB-C.
And oh.
Hold on now. Hold on. Hold on. Hold,
please.
Light is green.
Screen is on.
Hey, how you doing? All right, I copy
you on my hotspot that I have up and
running. How you doing?
>> Doing good. Yeah, you sound really audio
good and everything. Yeah, I don't know
if you remember but last time when we
were flying into Dayton, my friend was
sitting next to you and I was in the
seat ahead and uh he was a fairly new
ham but you were you were loading up him
up with all the ham radio gear.
>> Well, right on. Yes, I do remember him.
Pleased to to make his acquaintance and
thanks for coming back to me. I have
successfully set up a second hotspot
here. So, the one that I really wanted
to have like with the screen on and on a
Pi Zero 2 W so I think I'm good to go.
Thanks for coming back to me for this
test. I'm going to head to bed now. So,
appreciate again so 73 to you. This is
Kilo India 6 November Alpha Zulu. Thank
you.
We got it. We got it. All right, W0AO,
thank you very much for coming back. So,
there you have it everybody. We got it
up and running. I made this video one as
a follow on to say thank you to the M17
folks, the community that's behind it. I
appreciate that
the MMDVM thing kind of sucks and
they're using a fork. Hopefully,
there'll be a solution. Um
hint hint
hint hint to spot, guys. Can we Can we
maybe do that? Can we Can we get Can we
get M17 on the open spot? That would
really make my day a lot easier. Also,
I'm expecting
a couple of videos in the future talking
about M17 with some new updates I've
heard about coming down the pipe here. I
won't say any more than um if what is
happening happens, I am very excited
about what we're going to be able to do
with the mode. But, of course, we have
to wait and see for that to happen.
Anyway, thanks so much for watching.
I hope you enjoyed it. Big thanks again
to everybody at M17 and the community
behind it, and I will talk to you again
real soon. 73 from me, KI6NAZ.