When I first got my DMR radio, I found the whole process around codeplus very frustrating. Even if your local area repeater group maintains a codeplug, as soon as you travel you're back to trying to find a codeplug with the area repeaters or at least locate repeater and talkgroup data so you can build your own.
dmrfill trys to solve this problem by gathering repeater data and adding it an exiting codeplug. So, you start with a minimal codeplug in QDMR Extensible Codeplug format and use dmrfill to query RadioID or RepeaterBook for repeater data and then create the proper zones, channels, contacts, and group lists. You can do this multiple times for different areas by piping the results through dmrfill multiple times, building up a custom codeplug.
dmrfill runs on Linux and MacOS, because those are the platforms QDMR and dmrconf run on. To install it, go to the latest release page, and download the executable for your operation system and processor architecture. darwin means MacOS, so dmrfill_darwin_amd64 is the choice for older Intel Macs and dmrfill_darwin_arm64 is for new Apple silicon (M1, M2, M3) machines. You can rename the downloaded file to dmrfill, place it in your PATH, perhaps in /usr/local/bin or ~/bin, and make it executable (chmod +x dmrfill).
dmrfill -v -in base.codeplug.yaml -ds RADIOID_DMR -f 'band=2m,70cm' -f 'state=Maine' -f 'county=York,Cumberland,Sagadahoc,Oxford,Androscoggin' -zone 'ME W $city:6 $callsign' | dmrfill -v -ds REPEATERBOOK_FM -zone 'ME W Analog' -f 'state=Maine' -f 'county=York,Cumberland,Sagadahoc,Oxford,Androscoggin' -f 'band=2m,70cm' -out maine.codeplug.yaml
This example starts with a base codeplug (base.codeplug.yaml) containing basic radio setup (radio ID, callsign, defaults, APRS setup, etc.). It then queries RadioID.net for DMR repeaters in the 2m and 70cm bands in the Maine counties of York, Cumberland, Sagadahoc, Oxford, Androscoggin. It places each repeater that matches the criteria in a zone matching the ME W $city:6 $callsign pattern, so the W1IMD repeater in Portland is in the zone ME W Portla W1IMD.
The | character sends the resulting codeplug to a second run of dmrfill. This one queries Repeaterbook for FM repeaters also in the 2m and 70cm bands in the Maine counties of York, Cumberland, Sagadahoc, Oxford, Androscoggin. It places the repeaters that matches the criteria in a zone named ME W Analog and writes the codeplug in the file maine.codeplug.yaml. That file can be edited further with QDMR or written to the radio with QDMR or dmrconf.
Because dmrfill uses codeplugs read and written by QDMR or dmrconf, it should work with any radio supported by those programs. As of this writing, that includes:
- Open GD77 firmware
- Radioddity GD77
- Radioddity GD73
- Baofeng/Radioddity RD-5R & RD-5R+
- TYT MD-390 / Retevis RT8
- TYT MD-UV380
- TYT MD-UV390 / Retevis RT3S
- TYT MD-2017 / Retevis RT82
- Anytone AT-D878UV
- Anytone AT-D868UVE
- Anytone AT-D878UVII
- Anytone AT-D578UV
- BTECH DM-1701 / Retevis RT84
- BTECH BF-1801A6
- BTECH DMR-6x2
Check the QDMR Github project for the current list.
You need a QDMR codeplug YAML file for your radio as a base. So start at the excellent QDMR website to read about installing and getting started. Once you have QDMR running, you can read a working codeplug from your radio and delete the channels, callgroups and zones that you don't want to be in every codeplug you create. That is, leave things that should be in all codeplugs, like simplex channels and zones, but remove the rest. The source codeplug YAML is specified using the -in argument. If it's not provided, dmrfill expects to read it from stdin.
Each invocation of dmrfill does a query to an external source of repeater data, then creates codeplug entries like channels, zones, group lists and contacts in a customizable way. It then merges them into the source codeplug and outputs the updated YAML.
Currently dmrfill has two datasources:
REPEATERBOOK_FMqueries for analog FM repeaters from RepeaterBook.RADIOID_DMRqueries for DMR repeaters, including talkgroups, from RadioID.
A datasource must be specified using the -ds argument.
Each invocation of dmrfill should include one or more filters. A filter takes the form -f 'field=value1[,valueN...]', for example -f 'state=Maine' or -f 'county=York,Cumberland,Sagadahoc,Oxford,Androscoggin'.
Primary filter fields are:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| callsign | Repeater callsign |
| city | Repeater city |
| state | State / Province unabbreviated name (Maine not ME) |
| country | Repeater country unabbreviated name (United States, not US) |
| county | Repeater county (US only) |
| band | Frequency band, one of 10m, 6m, 2m, 1.25m, 70cm, 33cm, 23cm |
Multiple filter values can be provided, separated by commas. A repeater that matches any of the values will be included in the codeplug, so -f 'band=2m,70cm' will include repeaters in both the 2m and 70cm bands.
The -zone and -gl arguments allow you to specify a pattern for building the DMR zone or group list names. The value is be a string that interpolates values from the repeater being processed along with a maximum length, in order to enable building unique names in the small number of characters available.
Syntax: Text $var:length
| Variable | Description |
|---|---|
| state | US/CA State Name (ex. New Jersey) |
| state_code | US/CA State Code (ex. NJ) |
| city | City Name (ex. Newark) |
| callsign | Callsign (ex. N1ADJ) |
| frequency | Frequency (ex. 147.21) |
| band | Band (ex. 2m) |
Example: -zone '$state_code $city:6 $callsign' might produce the output ME Brunsw N1ADJ.
In the case of analog FM zone names, all repeaters go into the specified zone, so there is no need for per-repeater values.
dmrfill can accept input from a file (using the -in argument) or from stdin. It can output to a file (using the -out argument) or to stdout. So it can be run in a pipeline to assemble a codeplug from a variety of sources. The first invocation uses -in to read from a base file, then the output is piped to additional instances of dmrfill to add more repeaters. The final instance uses -out to write to an output file which can be loaded to the radio using QDMR or dmrconf.
-ch string
Pattern for forming DMR channel names (default "$tg_name:8 $tg_number $time_slot $callsign $city")
-ds string
Repeater data source, either RADIOID_DMR or REPEATERBOOK_FM (required)
-f value
Filter clause of the form 'name=val1[,val2]...'
-gl string
Pattern for forming DMR group list names (default zone + ' $time_slot')
-in string
Input QDMR Codeplug YAML file (default STDIN)
-loc string
Center location for proximity search, e.g. 'Bangor, ME', 'München'
-na
Use North American RepeaterBook database. Set it to 'false' to query outside the US, Canada and Mexico. (default true)
-name_lim int
Length limit for generated names (default 16)
-on_air
Only include on-air repeaters (default true)
-open
Only include open repeaters (default true)
-out string
Output QDMR Codeplug YAML file (default STDOUT)
-power string
Channel power setting, one of ('Min' 'Low' 'Mid' 'High' 'Max') (default "High")
-radius float
Radius for proximity search (default 25)
-tg
Only include DMR repeaters that have talkgroups defined (default true)
-units string
Distance units for proximity search, one of ('miles' 'km') (default "miles")
-v verbose logging
-vv
more verbose logging
-zone string
Pattern for forming DMR zone names, zone name for analog (default "$state_code $city:6 $callsign")
RepeaterBook is Amateur Radio's most comprehensive, worldwide, FREE repeater directory. Garrett Dow, KD6KPC runs RepeaterBook as a free service and depends on advertising revenue and donations to keep it going, so please visit the site or use their mobile app.
RadioID issues DMR and NXDN ID's. It also maintains a DMR repeater database that includes talkgroup information. The site also includes a repeater map and contact generator tool.
QDMR is the open source tool that inspired dmrfill. By defining and documenting a codeplug standard file format, along with tools for reading, writing and editing them, QDMR made dmrfill possible.
Geonames provides a geographical database that covers all countries and contains over eleven million placenames that are available for download free of charge. dmrfill uses their API to convert placenames to longitude/latitude in order to do proximity queries.