Phone Apps

#1 · November 14, 2022, 11:01 pm

On the Rag Chew the other night we talked about phone apps. Below is a list of a few that were mentioned, if I forgot to list your favorite, feel free to add it in the comments.

DVSwitch This is great to GmrsLive, AllStar, DMR, YSF, NXDN, P25 and D-Star
DroidStar Does everything DVSwitch does but you can only setup one account
Net Scraper This app will show you all the current HAM nets going on.
BM Repeater Shows you all the BrandMeister hotspot in your area. Great if you need access to BrandMeister
EchoLink allows you to access many HAM repeaters over the internet.
HamAlerts lets you know when your buddy is working the HAM HF Bands
World Clock is nice to display Zulu time on your phone.

#2 · December 30, 2022, 10:08 pm

“RepeaterPhone” is another new iOS app that I occasionally now use with my AllStar nodes and GMRS node. It can do AllStar, EchoLink, and private networks (along with GMRS nodes). It is a paid app, but only $7…

#3 · December 30, 2022, 10:54 pm

I just looked for RepeaterPhone for the Android, nothing found.

Thx for the post I know there a lot iOS users here.

Thx for joining us on the rag chew.

#4 · January 11, 2023, 11:10 pm

While not a phone app, there is also a new program called “Transceive” for MacOS. I’ve been using it on my MacBook Pro to monitor my AllStar nodes and GMRS node. While you can talk through it, I mainly just use it to watch and listen and if I want to join in then I’ll grab one of my actual radios…

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#5 · January 12, 2023, 12:20 am

Very nice. Is there a way to get your GMRS Call in for your to show in your GMRS Node? I noticed all the node have your Ham call.

Ray

#6 · January 22, 2023, 8:25 pm

I have way to my awesome apps on my phone to type them all out. So here are some screenshots instead. If you have any questions feel free to ask.

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#7 · April 14, 2024, 10:34 am

Quote from WRFD401 Ray on January 12, 2023, 12:20 am

Very nice. Is there a way to get your GMRS Call in for your to show in your GMRS Node? I noticed all the node have your Ham call.

Ray

Hi. Its been a while since I've been here and I must've missed your reply, but to answer I'd have to look and see. It think I might be able to set it so that it'll display my GMRS info where its saying "Unknown", but offhand nor sure if its type of configuration (different than the AllStar ones) pulls data off the node for data in that location or not. All the "unknowns" in the list probably could be set if I made a table by hand for them on the node, so it just "might" just my GMRS call up there for 108 as well. I'll have to try it. I was just too lazy to type out a table. As for where its displaying my amateur call in the top right corner, that's a hard set general setting that makes every node window display it regardless of the type of configuration it has....

#8 · April 14, 2024, 10:37 am

Quote from WRTK330 on January 22, 2023, 8:25 pm

I have way to my awesome apps on my phone to type them all out. So here are some screenshots instead. If you have any questions feel free to ask.

Nice. I also use many of those on my Samsung Galaxy tablet, but see a few there I'll have to check out! 🙂

#9 · April 14, 2024, 11:41 am

Some apps I use that aren't mentioned:

Rattlegram - Android, sends text messages using audio encoding on GMRS (and all VHF/UHF, another name for this program is Ribbit Radio)
Peanut - Uses some DStar via Android
Specdroid - a great free and effective spectrum analyzer for Android
RS-MS1A - sends texts, picture messages, and user location mapping using DStar on Android and iOS, is for ICom but works well with my Kenwoods as well
APRSISMO - APRS app for Android

One app I no longer have but used to open constantly was the QRZ app. A shame that's discontinued and blocked now.

#10 · May 5, 2024, 2:39 pm

Quote from WSCQ554 on May 5, 2024, 2:39 pm
there's also groundwire by acrobit both ios and android it's on little bit of a high side approx $10 but worth it i use it for hamshack hotline but you can add your IAX login to it using the SIP account the only downfall is for my case i have to leave the app running in the background to get the incoming calls coming through the hotline on my iphone and the contacts stored on my shack phone does not get synced but can make and recieve calls on both sides with the app but in your case you can use your node on groundwire and after adding your IAX login to the app you can just dial your node number and call in and you won't have to keep muting and unmuting your mic because when you call in it des not go on air yet you'll have to dial *99 that acts as pressing and holding the PTT and when done you'll have to dial # that acts as releasing the PTT but the $10 is worth it

also another downfall is at times i find that using the call in to get into your node when i dial the PTT command sometimes it PTT's but does not release and sometimes it does not PTT's at all so i would suggest if you normally call in for a weekly or daily net to setup an automated asterisk restart using crontab so that way when you join in it won't glitch out on you i set my allstar to do that 10 minutes before net time where i have some users from hamshack hotline that calls in so that way it won't glitch out on them

if you want to set it up in shell you just have to enter the command crontab -e then on a blank area you type in the command

MM HH * * * /usr/local/sbin/astres.sh

if you want a specific day change the 3rd * to that day so 1 is mon 2 tues 3 wed 4 thurs 5 fri 6 sat and either 7 or 0 is sun don't remember and if it's a through schedule like mon through fri you do 1-6 and if you had one set and you want one to be canceled or postponed for a day you can just # that out and it won't run until you remove that out

you can also go to crontab.guru to see what you would enter based on your rule you want to set

there's also groundwire by acrobit both ios and android it's on little bit of a high side approx $10 but worth it i use it for hamshack hotline but you can add your IAX login to it using the SIP account the only downfall is for my case i have to leave the app running in the background to get the incoming calls coming through the hotline on my iphone and the contacts stored on my shack phone does not get synced but can make and recieve calls on both sides with the app but in your case you can use your node on groundwire and after adding your IAX login to the app you can just dial your node number and call in and you won't have to keep muting and unmuting your mic because when you call in it des not go on air yet you'll have to dial *99 that acts as pressing and holding the PTT and when done you'll have to dial # that acts as releasing the PTT but the $10 is worth it

also another downfall is at times i find that using the call in to get into your node when i dial the PTT command sometimes it PTT's but does not release and sometimes it does not PTT's at all so i would suggest if you normally call in for a weekly or daily net to setup an automated asterisk restart using crontab so that way when you join in it won't glitch out on you i set my allstar to do that 10 minutes before net time where i have some users from hamshack hotline that calls in so that way it won't glitch out on them

if you want to set it up in shell you just have to enter the command crontab -e then on a blank area you type in the command

MM HH * * * /usr/local/sbin/astres.sh

if you want a specific day change the 3rd * to that day so 1 is mon 2 tues 3 wed 4 thurs 5 fri 6 sat and either 7 or 0 is sun don't remember and if it's a through schedule like mon through fri you do 1-6 and if you had one set and you want one to be canceled or postponed for a day you can just # that out and it won't run until you remove that out

you can also go to crontab.guru to see what you would enter based on your rule you want to set

WRFD401 Ray has reacted to this post.

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Phone Apps