Over the last month, I’ve started to notice the limitation in the GD-77’s callsign lookup, based only on using the Digital Contacts.
To improve things a bit, I added a new screen into the Community CPS a few weeks ago, to allow the DMR ID database to be updated, using the same data download, from Ham-digital.org.
As far as I’m aware, this is working OK, but has a drawback, because of a bug in the GD-77 firmware, which causes the data (i.e callsign) to be retrieved from the DMR ID data, even if the same ID exists in the Digital Contacts
So to resolve this problem, I’m probably going to replace the “Download contacts” screen with a modified version of the DMR ID screen.
This will allow a list of DMR ID’s, callsigns, names and ‘last heard’ (inactivity count – in days), to be downloaded like it currently is. But there will be options to update the Digital contacts with this data first, and to upload the remaining ID’s into the DMR ID system in the GD-77
This may require 2 separate uploads, or I may be able to do in one upload (using 2 uploads will be my initial approach as its safer to use the existing codeplug update system to upload the contacts to the GD-77) , however in the long term, it should be possible to upload the Digital Contacts and the DMR ID in what appears to be the same upload (even though it will be uploading to 2 separate blocks of Flash memory in the GD-77)
Another change in the pipeline, is to improve the Channels export and import, so that it exports (and imports) all settings, not just a subset of the settings. I have this working already, but it needs more testing before its ready to be released.
I’m also going to change the import feature, so that it does not delete all existing channels before importing, but will instead check each channel name in the CSV file to see if the same channel already exists in the codeplug, and if so, it will simply update that channel.
New channels (ones not matching the name of an existing channel in the codeplug), will be added.
This will allow channels to be added a lot more easily, but will only fully work if the channels use Rx Group lists and Digital Contacts and Scan lists, that are already in the codeplug.
If these new channels reference anything thats not already in the codeplug, the values e.g. of Contact, will be set to “None” and these will need to be changed manually after the new Contact (Talk Group) etc has been added.
In the longer term, I’m considering getting the Channels export to save the associated Digital Contact, Rx Group and also Scan list data, in the same CSV file.
I’m probably going to add a new column at the start of every line, which indicates what that line in the CSV file holds.
e.g. Channel, Contact,RxGroup, Zone or Scan list
Then when the Channels import system reads the CSV file, it will first process Contacts and add and update as necessary. Then process Rx Groups (as they reference the Contacts), then process Scan lists, before finally importing any Channel data , followed by any Zone data (because Zones use Channels)
I’ll also need to decide which screens export this data. Currently AFIK, only the Channels and Contacts screens have the ability to export and import. All the other sections, do not currently have the same sort of listing screen (Data Grid View) which the Channels and Contacts have, and I’d probably need to add something similar, to each of these sections before I can add the export/import features to them
This is especially true of the Rx Group lists, as they have no overall settings screen at all.
However, I will be doing this one step at a time, and I’m not likely to release anything until I have the Channels export/import system working well
I’m keen to have user feedback, so if anyone can think of a flaw in my plan, or has another approach, I’d be interested to hear, but I can’t guarantee I’ll have time to implement any of this, in the immediate future.