Posted by: @kk7je

I am new to PNWDigital, and DMR. I am trying to figure stuff out and can use some help. I have tried to listen in to the Oldies Net a couple of times on Cougar Mountains UHF, talk group Washington 2. I have my handheld in the window and my base station up and programed correctly, but never hear a thing on either. My setup is Bellevue/Cougar UHF, 441.2875 removed link , CC1, Slot 2, ID 103153. What am I doing wrong.

 

Not sure at this point. 

Where are you located, would you expect to hear Cougar normally, did you kerchunk the talkgroup, did you try other repeaters or even hear other repeater's normal traffic, are you using the community codeplug or did you code it from scratch?

Just some of the things that would help diagnose your issue if you share those details and then,  hopefully, we can provide better help than my opener.

73

@no7rf 

Mike,

Thanks for responding. I am in Bothell, and can "see" Cougar. I also did a radio setup using Parrot to make sure I wasn't using too much power. I didn't get a chance to try other repeaters as the group was gone before I figured out I missed it. I do hear other traffic from the repeater. I did write my own codeplug. I also was monitoring with both my handheld BTech DMR 6X2 and base station TYT MD9600.

The kerplunk thing was something I thought about after I posted the question. I did not kerplunk the group. I happened to want to hear a different talk group and noticed I couldn't hear it until I had kerplunked. So that left the question if I had to do it for the net as well. 

Not new to radio, but definitely green on DMR. Some things are intuitive, but many aren't. So if Washington 2 is part time on Cougar do I need to hit the repeater on Washington 2 to open it up to be able to hear the net? That would also explain why my scanner is picking up traffic on some other talk groups.

Thanks for the help! Darryl

Posted by: @kk7je

So if Washington 2 is part time on Cougar do I need to hit the repeater on Washington 2 to open it up to be able to hear the net? That would also explain why my scanner is picking up traffic on some other talk groups.

What I missed was that we now have Cougar VHF, new just in the past several weeks.  Cougar VHF was Rattlesnake VHF until DNR kicked us off their treasured land.  So UHF is full time on WA 2.  Rattlesnake VHF was PTT but is now changed to full time on Cougar VHF.

So if you were trying to listen (without a kerchunk), there would be no traffic over Cougar VHF.  If you were listening on UHF, you should have heard traffic on WA 2.

Another wrinkle may have been that there was no Oldies net that day/time.  They have been hit and miss on holding their nets I believe.  Not sure as I don't listen to that net.

I'd suggest you use callwatch while Tx'ing into Cougar VHF.  If you see your traffic normally, then you are likely good to go.

Mike,

Once again, thanks for the help. My guess is that there was just no net yesterday. I will keep trying, and on other repeaters as well. I get Tiger Mtn, Seattle Metro and PSRG Digital really well. That's four to try. That and to keep learning.

Thanks again. Darryl