Trying out C4FM with a DV-Mega hotspot

 Although licenced for almost 16 years, and despite having been active on VHF (2 metres) since my very first day as a licenced ham, I have only just - in the past week or so - finally had a digital QSO on 145Mhz.

This was on C4FM on Yaesu with another local Yaesu-owning ham on 2 metres.

I decided recently to try to connect to the world of digital communications, taking advantage of my shack's Yaesu FTM-400D. This would require a hotspot, for which I took the advice of Andreas M0FXB and opted for one of those really cool-looking DV-Mega Genesis hotspots.

The DV-Mega Genesis Nextion 3.5" is a beautifully attractive bit of kit.

Fast-forward to today, and the DV-Mega is here, and EI2KC (yours truly) is completely clueless as to how to actually get the radio working with the hotspot. Yes, I programmed the correct frequency into the radio for the hotspot - 434.5125Mhz (on the 70cm band). Yes, I made sure no repeater splits or CTCSS tones were programmed. Could I get the radio and the hotspot "talking" to each other? Not on your nelly.

Fast-forward again - this time by many hours - and while watching one of the many great instructional videos by M0FXB on his YouTube channel, I finally stumble upon the reason the two pieces of technology won't interface. It turns out to be one single setting in the Pi-Star configuration (auto AP should be set to "off), and once I changed that, I finally started getting a list of "last heard" stations appearing on the screen of the DV-Mega Genesis 3.5.

Now, to get a QSO! I'll keep you posted!

EI2KC