I've been playing around with OpenGD77 on a Baofeng DM 1701 for a little over a month, and didn't know about the automatic AGC feautre! That's a game changer for DMR!
After months of research and after I've actually done it, finally someone mentioned that this can be done on the MDUV390. All I found around the web was just "maybes". Thank your for sharing this.
Open GD77 made the Radioddity GD-77 an actually good useable radio.. Its amazing what a group of talented like minded people can do.. I really like satellite mode and hotspot mode with either blue dv or pi-star. Like I said, these creators are soo smart !
They've had a lot of input from annoying folks like me asking for features and bug fixes. Definitely a very skilled team and I very much like their work. The latest update is pretty awesome!
Great video Ben! Thanks for mentioning about not posting users information online and potentially causing problems. One of the biggest catalysts for encryption has been people streaming received radio traffic online.
7:30 is where you got the absolute best feature of OpenGD77! The ability to not have to create a pair of frequency and talk group for every single hotspot/repeater and talk group I want to join. You didn’t show how to join a talkgroun dynamically with the # key just by entering the talk group number! That is the key to this firmware value proposition!!!!
I have been using OpenGD77 on my GD77 for many years. The main thing that got me to change over was promiscuous mode. I was surprised the GD77 wasn't capable out of the box. Since then every firmware update has been better and better and keeps alive a radio I probably would have sold long ago without it.
@@radiosification Thanks, I will. Hopefully I can find a prog cable that works. I have about five seemingly identical ones that only seem to read certain radios!
Wow…I’d been thinking of upgrading my older AnyTone 878 Mark 1 to the newer one with room for more contacts…but now I wonder about getting one of these other radios instead to run OpenGD77. Looks like there’s lots of fun stuff to play with there. And satellite tracking! Cool!
Hello, to everyone. It appears to me this channel is full of well versed people on the topic of radio communication. I'm based in the USA at the moment. I wanted to know, just as to point me in the right direction, what do i need in a handheld and mobile units that will allow me to communicate with handhelds up and down the East Coast? Tier 2? I do not need Trunking as it will just be myself and my family in the vent of an emergency. I have no problem studying to ge a license, if needed
Thank you for your practical presentation. BTW, If you could introduce how to install the same feature onto HD-1, I would be very appreciated it. Thank you in advance.
Unfortunately you can't do it on the HD1. It's not compatible and there is no other firmware for that radio apart from the official one as far as I know.
As much as I enjoyed them project when it was open source, I wouldn't touch it nowadays. You might be better looking at OpenRTX firmware which has the added benefit of supporting the open M17 mode as well.
I thought it was still open source? See the other comment about this topic. I did try OpenRTX but it's not very useful at the moment. Doesn't even do DMR mode and to do M17 requires hardware mods. So you basically downgrade from a DMR radio to an FM only radio unless you're willing to do a hardware mod to get M17 which nobody uses yet anyway. OpenRTX is a great project but it's not ready for mass consumption yet in my opinion.
Thanks for the explanation! I’ve had or have the MD380 (gateway drug), MD390, MD2017, MD UV380, RT3S and other radios. I may try this on the RT3S, then UV380, so they’ll both have the same firmware along with a few new features. Which CPS works with the GD77 firmware?
I think it probably could be, but firmware development on those radios is basically done now. Chinese manufacturers generally tend to abandon their radios after a while and never bother to implement any new functionality.
@@radiosification two all i need, buy the bitrate is to low in my opinion. DMR sounds really bad, that people can listen to that. Analoge is more clear
@@radiosification Unless you -didn't have access to one to test it. -had not heard that it was compatible or not. -totally forgot that the radio even existed since i did not hear it mentioned. :) Informative video. Good to know that we might get better software sooner then later. Thinking ARDN or Hamnet mesh networks.
It's definitely not compatible. The Anytones have decent stock firmware out of the box, but OpenGD77 is built from the ground up for amateurs, while everything else is originally designed to meet the needs of a very different, commercial market. I have radios from both companies and I greatly prefer my TYT MD-UV390 with OpenGD77 over my Anytone 878 and 578.
Own an MD-UV380 running OpenGD77 and the Retevis 3TS running regular firmware. I hate OpenGD77 and the TYT radio doesn't work. The OpenGD software cannot see the radio port on any of four different PCs and the only advice the OpenGD77 people have is try another USB port. I have. All of them. And yes the cable and ports work. I can program and whatever I want to the Retevis. No issues at all. They warned this was all technically unsupported and user's own risk and they were not kidding. I deeply regret ever putting OpenGD77 on my UV380. It is effectively useless without being programmable. At least I can use the batteries on the Retevis.
Does the CC scanning work if I have a TG already programmed? My local fire department is operating in X frequency and I have all the settings (TG, CC, TS and RAS) but I think they changed something because I cant listen to it. I just get the activiy green led. I have CC Scan ON, TS Fitler OFF, CRC OFF. Should this work? Thank you again.
I think that should work. It sometimes takes a few seconds to lock on to the right colour code. The first thing I'd do is try listening on an analogue radio at the same time to see what's going on and if it even sounds like a DMR signal still. They could have changed to a different digital mode or to FM.
FWIW, my MD-UV390 currently has the entire database loaded, at 50 characters per entry. That's 251816 at the moment. It says it can hold a total of 342864. Lower the character count and you'll get more. Between this and Talker ID, I don't think you need to worry about running out of space.
DMR color code agnostic scanning isn't impossible or a hardware limitation - thats like saying that you can't to NAC agnostic P25 scanning or PL/DPL agnostic analogue "because its a hardware limitation." Thats fundamentally wrong - the color code is done entirely in software, there's just no color code to receive all traffic (as $F7E NAC does for P25). Whoever wrote this firmware just handled color code "scanning" the laziest way possible.
@@radiosification No - color code is literally just DMR's equivalent of CTCSS - it is selective unmute and is done entirely in software. If the DMR standard were better-written, a default all-call color code could have been implemented, but it wasn't. There is no reason any DMR-compliant radio can't receive all color codes at once (you can test this by scanning a channel on every color code at once - I've done this on a great variety of MotoTRBO radios and it works without issue.
@@henryatkinson1479 "if the DMR standard were better written" So what you're saying is the DMR standard doesn't allow it? Then another company made a chip that follows the DMR standard and exposed certain functionality only, which did not include being able to turn off the colour code filtering. So the people who wrote this firmware did the best they could with the hardware they're working with. What do you want them to do? Rewrite the DMR standard? Manufacturer a new chip that lets them turn off CC filtering?
@@radiosification I'm not sure how else to say that it's not a hardware limitation or anything to do with any chips - its entirely down to the software running on those chips. Everything on these cheap radios is done in software - there's no FPGAs or specialized DSPs in these things, everything is off the shelf. The standard does not include a value for color code that by default unmutes for all traffic, but implementing it at a firmware level without doing some sort of bodged rolling scan is trivial. Every competently designed DMR radio does this - use any commercial radio to scan a large conventional system, and you can see it in action.
@@henryatkinson1479 I don't see how a commercial radio scanning a conventional system would turn off cc filtering. If it did that, then another system operating with a different cc would also be heard, right?
@@Ross13ful You can certainly buy one and just listen, without a license. Better yet, get your license and join in! I'm sure you've got local radio clubs that could help and there are TONS of online study guides and other resources these days.
Sadly it's no longer truly open source firmware. They gone to the dark side and against the spirit of open source. (Due to some reasons which they unfortunately care). Beside that - great firmware.
As far as I'm aware it's still officially open source but they don't release the source in git. They just release it as a zip or something once a feature is stabilised. At least that's what I understood from a thread of their forum. But I agree with you, they should really release the source code continuously such as in GitHub or another git platform. If they give up developing it in between major releases then we may end up with the last released source code not being the latest.
Probably the main reason why the Baofeng DR-1801 has a locked Firmware. But that aside. What I don't understand is why we need to program every channel again with talkgroups for different repeaters. Isnt anybody come up with the idea to put repeaters in a list and substitute all the talk groups (channels) with a variable that consists of a repeater TX/RX frequency from that list. A single up or down that list would step into another repeater on the fly, maybe even automatically. Nos such thing yet.
You don't need to reprogram every channel with talkgroups for each repeater. You just make the group list once and then you can make a single channel for the repeater and use all the talkgroups on it. If you want to use another repeater you make one channel for that repeater and use the same group list.
@@radiosification Yeah cool, but in that grouplist every talkgroup has already a frequency listed (programmed) from a single repeater. Does not work that way. Just acknowledge the fact that programming talkgroups has a primary flaw with repeaters. There is no trunking mechanism yet. I do think you are mislead by scanlists, those work I agree.
@@QUADBOYification I'm confused by what you're saying. Every talkgroup is not associated with a frequency. It's just a talkgroup. You can use it with any channel on the radio. With this firmware you make a list of talkgroups for convenient use. Like for example I have a brandmeister talkgroups list and a DMR plus talkgroups list. Then I can use the brandmeister talkgroups list on every brandmeister repeater etc.
@@radiosification Basically : Cloning channels is made specifically for this purpose so you can easily add the same talkgroups to another repeater. If you had a list of repeaters, cloning is not necessary.
Thanks for taking the time to do this Ben. It has sparked my interest in dabbling with the TYT/Opensource stuff again. Thank you Adam M6XYT
Wow Ben! Always learning from you. The band scope is great
Yeah! Thanks Lewis
Audio levelling, what a Wonderful feature! Tnx bro.
Yeah it's great. Every radio should have this feature
I've been playing around with OpenGD77 on a Baofeng DM 1701 for a little over a month, and didn't know about the automatic AGC feautre! That's a game changer for DMR!
After months of research and after I've actually done it, finally someone mentioned that this can be done on the MDUV390. All I found around the web was just "maybes".
Thank your for sharing this.
Yeah, I don't really know why they don't list it officially. It's just the same as the MD-UV380 for firmware.
Open GD77 made the Radioddity GD-77 an actually good useable radio.. Its amazing what a group of talented like minded people can do.. I really like satellite mode and hotspot mode with either blue dv or pi-star. Like I said, these creators are soo smart !
They've had a lot of input from annoying folks like me asking for features and bug fixes. Definitely a very skilled team and I very much like their work. The latest update is pretty awesome!
WUT!!! HUH! WOW! Awesome. I use OpenGD77, and now that it is supported on the others, holy crap thats great!
Great video Ben!
Thanks for mentioning about not posting users information online and potentially causing problems.
One of the biggest catalysts for encryption has been people streaming received radio traffic online.
I love in depth information like this!
More to come! I've got a few interesting videos planned for the next few weeks!
7:30 is where you got the absolute best feature of OpenGD77! The ability to not have to create a pair of frequency and talk group for every single hotspot/repeater and talk group I want to join. You didn’t show how to join a talkgroun dynamically with the # key just by entering the talk group number! That is the key to this firmware value proposition!!!!
Agreed, thats the way DMR should have been from day one!
You're right, that is a really important feature. Thanks for mentioning this.
I have been using OpenGD77 on my GD77 for many years.
The main thing that got me to change over was promiscuous mode. I was surprised the GD77 wasn't capable out of the box.
Since then every firmware update has been better and better and keeps alive a radio I probably would have sold long ago without it.
Cheers! 🍻 I’m going to install this firmware tomorrow - sounds like what I’ve been looking for, for years!
Glad I could help
@@radiosification All installed and working! :)
@@Geekchess Great! Do you like it?
@@radiosification Way better then the stock firmware. So much easier to program a code plug too 🍻
The thing that appeals to me the most about this firmware is the monochromatic screen theme. Seems like it goes easy on the battery and eyes :)
Thank you for the video. It clearly differentiates the differences between these radios. -G7UNF
Just what I was looking for 😄
I think I'll be digging out my RT3S and having a go with this. Looks very interesting.
Make sure you do the necessary backups of flash before installing it in case you want to go back to the official firmware
@@radiosification Thanks, I will. Hopefully I can find a prog cable that works. I have about five seemingly identical ones that only seem to read certain radios!
Great.... Now I need another radio to my wish list! (This is great stuff!)
Thanks for the comment
Very useful information. Thank you for sharing.
Glad it was helpful!
Wow…I’d been thinking of upgrading my older AnyTone 878 Mark 1 to the newer one with room for more contacts…but now I wonder about getting one of these other radios instead to run OpenGD77. Looks like there’s lots of fun stuff to play with there. And satellite tracking! Cool!
Yeah! Very cool. I recommend it
Great video!!
Hello, to everyone. It appears to me this channel is full of well versed people on the topic of radio communication. I'm based in the USA at the moment. I wanted to know, just as to point me in the right direction, what do i need in a handheld and mobile units that will allow me to communicate with handhelds up and down the East Coast? Tier 2? I do not need Trunking as it will just be myself and my family in the vent of an emergency. I have no problem studying to ge a license, if needed
I appreciate this comment is pretty old now, do you still want an answer?
Interesting. Thanks for posting. 73
DMR auto leveling should be standard on every dmr radio.
I totally agree. It's surprising so many radios still don't have it as standard.
This is auwsome. Thanks...
Great video... of the radios that are compatible, which one has the best specs? If I am sold and want to jump on in?
Sorry, I have no idea which is best (I don't own all of these radios). You could try asking in the forum which is linked to in the video description.
Thank you for your practical presentation. BTW, If you could introduce how to install the same feature onto HD-1, I would be very appreciated it. Thank you in advance.
Unfortunately you can't do it on the HD1. It's not compatible and there is no other firmware for that radio apart from the official one as far as I know.
Will it tell you the exact frequency received? This would be helpful in programming the TX offset of a Pi-Star hot spot. Do tell!
I wish there was an open-source firmware for the Ailunce HD1!
Yes, that would be really good. Maybe if enough people ask Ailunce to open source the firmware they'd do it.
Thanks for your nice DMR video. Goog day!
Thank you! Good day to you also
Can you program digital or analog channels manually from the radio and add it to a specific zone ?
Check the description for the link to the user manual.
As much as I enjoyed them project when it was open source, I wouldn't touch it nowadays. You might be better looking at OpenRTX firmware which has the added benefit of supporting the open M17 mode as well.
I thought it was still open source? See the other comment about this topic.
I did try OpenRTX but it's not very useful at the moment. Doesn't even do DMR mode and to do M17 requires hardware mods. So you basically downgrade from a DMR radio to an FM only radio unless you're willing to do a hardware mod to get M17 which nobody uses yet anyway. OpenRTX is a great project but it's not ready for mass consumption yet in my opinion.
Thanks for the explanation! I’ve had or have the MD380 (gateway drug), MD390, MD2017, MD UV380, RT3S and other radios. I may try this on the RT3S, then UV380, so they’ll both have the same firmware along with a few new features. Which CPS works with the GD77 firmware?
Haven't used the CPS in a while but I think you have to use their one that's provided by the same people who make the firmware
OpenGD77 has made my DMR HTs 10X better. TYT's factory firmware is awful, as is their CPS.
I can't disagree! OpenGD77 is miles ahead of the official firmware.
My @@radiosification
Which Brand do you need to choose in brandmeister SelfCare to use TYT UV-390?
I wonder if the feature to ignore DMR CRC check can be implemented in more DMR radios such as Ailunce HD1 or in TYT MD-2017?
I think it probably could be, but firmware development on those radios is basically done now. Chinese manufacturers generally tend to abandon their radios after a while and never bother to implement any new functionality.
Does the GD-88 included in in there
Anything for the QUANSHENG?
They should make the data-stream wider, I hate the sound of compressed speech on DMR
You mean in this firmware they should make it wider? But then it wouldn't be able to talk to other DMR radios
@@radiosification two all i need, buy the bitrate is to low in my opinion. DMR sounds really bad, that people can listen to that. Analoge is more clear
Fair enough. P25 radios tend to sound a bit better because they have a higher bitrate. Same for TETRA. Also Fusion if you set the radio to VW mode.
Wonder if the Anytone 878 Gen 1 is compatible?
Well it would have been on the list if it was
@@radiosification Unless you -didn't have access to one to test it. -had not heard that it was compatible or not. -totally forgot that the radio even existed since i did not hear it mentioned. :) Informative video. Good to know that we might get better software sooner then later. Thinking ARDN or Hamnet mesh networks.
It's definitely not compatible. The Anytones have decent stock firmware out of the box, but OpenGD77 is built from the ground up for amateurs, while everything else is originally designed to meet the needs of a very different, commercial market. I have radios from both companies and I greatly prefer my TYT MD-UV390 with OpenGD77 over my Anytone 878 and 578.
cant DMR radios Frequency hop pretty easily?
No, that's not a feature of any dmr radio that I know of
Do any of these radios receive to 490mhz?
Baofeng UV-5R Two Way Radio Dual Band does it have those features?
No, it's not a DMR radio
Are any of the GD77 usb-c charging? Drives me crazy having a desktop charger
You can buy batteries with usb c charging sometimes
Own an MD-UV380 running OpenGD77 and the Retevis 3TS running regular firmware. I hate OpenGD77 and the TYT radio doesn't work. The OpenGD software cannot see the radio port on any of four different PCs and the only advice the OpenGD77 people have is try another USB port. I have. All of them. And yes the cable and ports work. I can program and whatever I want to the Retevis. No issues at all. They warned this was all technically unsupported and user's own risk and they were not kidding. I deeply regret ever putting OpenGD77 on my UV380. It is effectively useless without being programmable. At least I can use the batteries on the Retevis.
What about the Ailunce hd1? Any firmware analogue?
no, if it's not in the list it's not included
Does the CC scanning work if I have a TG already programmed? My local fire department is operating in X frequency and I have all the settings (TG, CC, TS and RAS) but I think they changed something because I cant listen to it. I just get the activiy green led.
I have CC Scan ON, TS Fitler OFF, CRC OFF. Should this work?
Thank you again.
I think that should work. It sometimes takes a few seconds to lock on to the right colour code. The first thing I'd do is try listening on an analogue radio at the same time to see what's going on and if it even sounds like a DMR signal still. They could have changed to a different digital mode or to FM.
@@radiosification I already did that and It sounds like a regular dmr system.
Did you manage to get it working?
@@radiosification yes! I left the radio near the window and it suddenly received my local fire department. It took a couple of minutes.
@@bynlb Ah great, nice!
will this work for the Baofeng DR-1801
Is it in the list of supported radio I read off right at the start of the video?
what about tyt 380 MD, can't you get a software that works for it ??
You can but it's a different firmware to this. I made some videos about it years ago when it was popular
How many contacts does Open GD77 allow you to load into the radio?
I think it probably varies by radio since some have more memory than others.
FWIW, my MD-UV390 currently has the entire database loaded, at 50 characters per entry. That's 251816 at the moment. It says it can hold a total of 342864. Lower the character count and you'll get more. Between this and Talker ID, I don't think you need to worry about running out of space.
Will it display colour codes ?
That is mentioned already in the video
DMR color code agnostic scanning isn't impossible or a hardware limitation - thats like saying that you can't to NAC agnostic P25 scanning or PL/DPL agnostic analogue "because its a hardware limitation." Thats fundamentally wrong - the color code is done entirely in software, there's just no color code to receive all traffic (as $F7E NAC does for P25). Whoever wrote this firmware just handled color code "scanning" the laziest way possible.
@@henryatkinson1479 is it not possible that the chip the radio is based on that handles part of the DMR functionality doesn't allow it?
@@radiosification No - color code is literally just DMR's equivalent of CTCSS - it is selective unmute and is done entirely in software. If the DMR standard were better-written, a default all-call color code could have been implemented, but it wasn't. There is no reason any DMR-compliant radio can't receive all color codes at once (you can test this by scanning a channel on every color code at once - I've done this on a great variety of MotoTRBO radios and it works without issue.
@@henryatkinson1479 "if the DMR standard were better written"
So what you're saying is the DMR standard doesn't allow it?
Then another company made a chip that follows the DMR standard and exposed certain functionality only, which did not include being able to turn off the colour code filtering. So the people who wrote this firmware did the best they could with the hardware they're working with.
What do you want them to do? Rewrite the DMR standard? Manufacturer a new chip that lets them turn off CC filtering?
@@radiosification I'm not sure how else to say that it's not a hardware limitation or anything to do with any chips - its entirely down to the software running on those chips. Everything on these cheap radios is done in software - there's no FPGAs or specialized DSPs in these things, everything is off the shelf. The standard does not include a value for color code that by default unmutes for all traffic, but implementing it at a firmware level without doing some sort of bodged rolling scan is trivial. Every competently designed DMR radio does this - use any commercial radio to scan a large conventional system, and you can see it in action.
@@henryatkinson1479 I don't see how a commercial radio scanning a conventional system would turn off cc filtering. If it did that, then another system operating with a different cc would also be heard, right?
Do I need a license to use one of these dmr radios just to listen ?
Probably depends on the country but I know in the UK you don't
@@radiosification oh ok I see yeah I’m in the USA
I think you should be fine without a licence in the US too if you're just using it for receiving.
@@Ross13ful You can certainly buy one and just listen, without a license. Better yet, get your license and join in! I'm sure you've got local radio clubs that could help and there are TONS of online study guides and other resources these days.
Sadly it's no longer truly open source firmware. They gone to the dark side and against the spirit of open source. (Due to some reasons which they unfortunately care). Beside that - great firmware.
As far as I'm aware it's still officially open source but they don't release the source in git. They just release it as a zip or something once a feature is stabilised. At least that's what I understood from a thread of their forum. But I agree with you, they should really release the source code continuously such as in GitHub or another git platform.
If they give up developing it in between major releases then we may end up with the last released source code not being the latest.
Probably the main reason why the Baofeng DR-1801 has a locked Firmware. But that aside. What I don't understand is why we need to program every channel again with talkgroups for different repeaters. Isnt anybody come up with the idea to put repeaters in a list and substitute all the talk groups (channels) with a variable that consists of a repeater TX/RX frequency from that list. A single up or down that list would step into another repeater on the fly, maybe even automatically. Nos such thing yet.
You don't need to reprogram every channel with talkgroups for each repeater. You just make the group list once and then you can make a single channel for the repeater and use all the talkgroups on it. If you want to use another repeater you make one channel for that repeater and use the same group list.
@@radiosification Yeah cool, but in that grouplist every talkgroup has already a frequency listed (programmed) from a single repeater. Does not work that way. Just acknowledge the fact that programming talkgroups has a primary flaw with repeaters. There is no trunking mechanism yet. I do think you are mislead by scanlists, those work I agree.
@@QUADBOYification I'm confused by what you're saying. Every talkgroup is not associated with a frequency. It's just a talkgroup. You can use it with any channel on the radio.
With this firmware you make a list of talkgroups for convenient use. Like for example I have a brandmeister talkgroups list and a DMR plus talkgroups list. Then I can use the brandmeister talkgroups list on every brandmeister repeater etc.
@@radiosification Basically : Cloning channels is made specifically for this purpose so you can easily add the same talkgroups to another repeater. If you had a list of repeaters, cloning is not necessary.