idea: automatically add repeaters for a location

[DC7IA]

QDMR already uses a database to look up repeaters, so my idea is to allow users to enter a location and then all repeaters within a specific radius (like 50 km) get added to the codeplug, sorting them alphabetically or by distance.

Maybe they could even be added to a specific zone, like a "London zone" or whatever place you're adding. :D

I think that makes programming radios a lot easier and a lot less work.

Travelling to a place you don't know? Enter a location and all repeaters in that area get added automatically. :D

What do you think?

[hmatuschek]

I thought about that at the very beginning. In earlier versions of qdmr, there was a disabled button in the toolbar labelled "Wizard" to assemble codeplugs in a similar way you described. This however, is not that simple. In particular with the information provided by https://repeatermap.de. The only reliable information I can extract are the frequencies and calls of the repeater.

For analog channels I also need the CTCSS or DCS settings which are only provided as plain text. Otherwise, it is possible.

For DMR channels it gets more complicated. First of all, I need the color code (again in plaintext in repeatermap). Then I need the network the repeater is associated with. For DMR+ it would be easy, as I would simply create two channels for each repeater with TG9 as the TX contact. For Brandbmeister it is even more complicated: Somehow I need the TX contacts for TS1 and TS2. The latter could be achieved by asking the user for the RX group lists for the two timeslots. Then I could create a channel for each entry of these RX group lists.

I can get this additional information from https://repeaterbook.com. There CTCSS, DCS, colorcode etc is stored in a separate field can could be read reliable. Unfortunately, the access policies of repeaterbook are quiet restrictive. Also, I cannot search repeaterbook for a locator. Just for a country.

[ra1nb0w]

maybe a useful site https://www.iz8wnh.it

[DC7IA]

Looks like we need a sane and open database... 🤔

Most databases are terrible. Either terribly outdated or the data isn't normalised which makes processing quite difficult.

Maybe a database with timestamps for updates, so you know data is very old if it hasn't been updated in more than 10 years.

(I recently found a repeater in a database that went offline more than ten years ago...)

Maybe this should be done similar to OpenStreetMap: There should be a simple app allowing the user to select specific things, but not write text. This should ensure CTCSS data isn't a comment.

Definitely out of scope though.

[ra1nb0w]

https://www.iz8wnh.it is not enough? you can send your suggestions to iz8wnh

[hmatuschek]

Similarly to #157, how about moving this issue to discussions?

[hmatuschek]

I've marked the #134 as a duplicate of this one, so we have a common topic for the discussion.