Well, it's a success story. Of sorts. When my new DV-Mega Genesis hotspot arrived, I was very excited about connecting my Yaesu FTM-400D to it and having some QSOs on C4FM/Yaesu Fusion.
The excitement soon gave way to frustration. The hotspot came with no instructions (no fault of the maker - he just builds them, and they look fantastic), so a period of two full days was spent mostly watching YouTube videos to determine how to get everything set up.
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| Success! I'm finally able to access reflectors using the DV-Mega Genesis hotspot! |
An important step in getting everything working is to connect your DV-Mega to your PC using an ethernet cable, and to access the settings in a web browser by either typing in the device's IP address or entering "pi-star" (which prompts you for a username and password, which are "pi-star" and "raspberry").
I knew I was making progress when the radio burst into life receiving signals. I had connected to the GB-CQ-WORLD reflector, and was not only hearing QSOs, but seeing the callsigns of the various hams operating on the system.
However, when I pressed the DX button on my radio, no connection was being made to the hotspot, and I was unable to transmit on any reflector.
I watched numerous YouTube videos, including those my Andreas M0FXB, who has a wonderful channel and LOTS of content which has helped many hams to get their equipment working properly.
But still no joy. I couldn't get the Yaesu radio to transmit through the DV-Mega Genesis hotspot.
And then I heard/saw Seamus GI4SZW chatting on the reflector. I have known Seamus for years. I reached out to him for help. We chatted on WhatsApp. In one comment, he mentioned "expert settings" and "tx offset". Apparently some radios do not transmit exactly on frequency, and a compensation has to be made on the Pi-Star expert dashboard. He told me how to do it.
I tried to adjust the tx offset on the Pi-Star window, but still nothing was happening. More frustration.
And then a flash of inspiration!
I have several handheld transceivers, including a few inexpensive Chinese-made models which have a "scan" feature, enabling you to determine the exact frequency of a nearby transmitter. So I put my Baofeng UV-32 into scan mode and keyed up the FTM-400D.
Imagine my surprise to find that the radio was -1,500Hz off frequency. I made the concomitant adjustment in the Pi-Star browser window and rebooted the DV-Mega hotspot.
Shortly afterwards, I long-held the DX button on the FTM-400D and VOILA! I was connected to the system, and for the first time I saw my own callsign - EI2KC - on the screen of the Genesis.
My first QSO, through the GB-CQ-WORLD reflector, was with JA2SYJ, Mac, about 250km north of Toyko. I was delighted!
Since then, I have been slowly figuring out how to disconnect from a reflector and connect to another one using ONLY the radio (i.e. without the hotspot being connected to the computer via ethernet). Now I am getting the hang of it.
I look forward to making a contact with some of you on the YSF/C4FM reflectors. It took a while to figure it all out.
PS: I should note that the DV-Mega won't work with my home Wi-Fi. I think this is because my shack is too far from my Wi-Fi router. So I enabled my phone's hotspot and configured the DV-Mega to look for it/connect to it also. It works perfectly well through the phone's hotspot. I might have to figure out a way to boost my router's signal to the shack. But that's for another day!
