DMR / D-STAR Gateway

The Germans have done it again!

From the folks that brought us the ircDDB network, we hear from Hans-Jürgen Barthen, DL5DI, that there is now a gateway between D-STAR (DCS Gateways) and Hytera DMR Repeaters using the AMBEServer with either the DV3000 or ThumbDV™.  This gateway is in use at a handful of DMR repeaters in Germany and Austria with systems soon to be implemented in Sweden and Switzerland.
You can download executables for the gateway and combine with the AMBEServer to create your own gateway. The software does D-STAR callsign to DMR radio ID mapping and transports audio between networks using the Hytera API.
Another step toward Universal Digital Radio from the community of amateur radio developers using products from NW Digital Radio.

DMR just my opinion

DMR is great. I can drive across the state of Michigan and be in coverage of the 12 linked 

DMR repeaters, the radio will 'roam' from site to site without changing channel!
comparing prices d-star is NOT cheap either

DSTAR HT's : id51a $640, IC91 $540, IC92AD $555, ID31 (monoband) $300
DSTAR Mobiles: IC-2820H $944, ID1 $950 ID880H $500
compare that to the price of motorolas DMR's
DMR HT's: XPR7550 $700, XPR6550 $629, SL7550 $700
DMR Mobiles: XPR4550: $550 XPR5550 $600
Also motorolas xpr3500 series is a cheaper DMR radio line with less features then the 6550/7550's

Its true moto makes you Buy CPS, Hytera i think is FREE.

My Opinion

INHO DMR is an answer to a question nobody asked. It's very, very expensive, it's radios are only available in single band configuration at a time when a majority of new radios sold are at least dual banders and they have no amateur radio embellishments that are built in like D-Star. Both technologies use the AMBE vocoder and thus have to pay license fees to Digital Voice Systems, Inc., who holds the patent, and that's what keeps the cost high. The D-Star protocol was developed as an open standard by the Japan Amateur Radio League (JARL) and as such, is much more in tune to what hams want in a radio system. Because DMR systems are marketed solely as commercial systems, they have almost nothing of such embellishments and such things are add-ons and modifications designed by various amateur groups that must be added to TDMA radios. D-Star has most of such things already, for about the same cost as the single band DMR radios. So why spend about the same amount for a radio that only does a small portion of what D-Star already does? With D-Star you can talk to hams in Nigeria. You can't do that with DMR.

Canadian DMR C-Bridge Launches

On February 23rd, Canada took it’s first step toward the creation of a national amateur radio DMR network with the launch of the first inter-provincial DMR networking server. This server, known commonly as a “c-Bridge”, which is manufactured by Rayfield Communications, will serve as a network hub for Canadian amateur radio DMR repeaters, allowing them to reliably link to one another and to the larger DMR-MARC global network using the Internet. The Canadian c-Bridge is located in Montreal and is currently supporting several DMR repeaters in Ontario and Quebec, including the VA3XPR digital DMR repeater located in downtown Toronto.