Thursday, June 29, 2023

GPS Roaming Zones on Anytone 878UV

GPS Roaming

Anytone releases frequent firmware updates for its most popular radio - the Anytone 878UV DMR hand held radio, mostly feature additions and bug fixes. I have not seen any other radio getting the extent of new features as this radio. Another testimony that the underlying hardware is future proof, having plenty of cpu cycles on demand.

One of the recent feature addition was GPS position based roaming feature, which basically switches the Zone based on the user position. A lot of use cases are possible, one of which is selecting the local repeaters automatically based on the location. 

 VU Repeater Zones


I made zones for the various VU repeaters and grouped them so they can be auto selected based on the location. Repeaters with wide coverages are included in multiple zones.

I tried it and it works very well during the initial testing on a road trip.

Code plug including the GPS roaming settings can be found here:

https://github.com/bejoysat/amateurradio/tree/master/digital/Anytone

The repeater channels start from 200. Zone starts from 20. This way, it will not conflict with your existing codeplug. You may use MS Excel or OpenOffice to merge the data. (Export current codeplug -> Merge -> Import again)

Further reading:

  1. https://theblackmoor.net/anytone-878-gets-firmware-upgrade/