User guide

How to get your account, hotspot, app or repeater onto the BC-TRBO NextGen network.

Before you start

This guide is for licensed amateurs who want to put a hotspot or a repeater on the BC-TRBO NextGen network. Listening needs no account: the monitor, the repeater and talkgroup lists, and the live player are all open to anyone.

You will need:

• An email address you can read now. The site emails you links to confirm the address and to reset a password.
• Your callsign.
• A DMR ID from RadioID.net. A hotspot connects with your personal DMR ID. A repeater connects with its repeater ID, registered at RadioID with you as trustee.
• A RadioID.net login (recommended). It confirms your callsign in under a minute. Without it, a volunteer checks your callsign by hand, which usually takes a day or two.

The site is at https://bctrbo.net. Emails come from noreply@bctrbo.net, and their subject lines start with “BC-TRBO:”.

1. Create your account and confirm your callsign

An account takes three things: sign up, confirm your email address, then confirm your callsign. The callsign check is needed only to add a hotspot or a repeater.

Sign up

1. Go to the site and choose Sign in at the top right. Under the sign-in box, choose Create an account.
2. Fill in the form:
   • Email: the address you want to sign in with.
   • Name: your name as other hams know you (optional).
   • Callsign: letters and digits only, 3 to 10 characters, for example VE7ABC.
   • Password: at least 12 characters. There are no rules about symbols or digits, so a short phrase works well. Do not use your email address.
3. Choose Create. The page says “check your inbox for a confirmation link”.

Confirm your email address

1. Open the email titled “BC-TRBO: confirm your email address”.
2. Click the link in it. The link works once, within 48 hours.
3. The page says “address confirmed; you can log in”. Choose Log in.
4. Sign in with your email address and password.

You can now use the site as a member: the monitor, your saved player scan list, and the account page.

Confirm your callsign

The site asks for this when you first choose Add a hotspot or Add a repeater. You can also do it ahead of time: open the account menu (your name at the top right), choose Account, and find the Callsign section. There are two ways.

With RadioID.net (instant, recommended)

1. Choose Confirm with RadioID.net.
2. Sign in at RadioID.net with your RadioID login, and allow BC-TRBO to see your callsign. BC-TRBO asks RadioID for your callsign only. It never sees your RadioID password or your email address.
3. RadioID sends you straight back. The Callsign section now reads “Callsign VE7ABC is verified with RadioID.net”. Below that it lists your personal DMR IDs and any repeaters RadioID shows you as trustee of.

By a volunteer (a day or two)

1. Choose Ask an admin instead.
2. Enter your callsign. Add your DMR ID, and a repeater ID if you are its trustee; both make the check quicker. Add a note if something needs explaining.
3. Choose Ask an admin. A volunteer checks your callsign against ISED’s amateur list and RadioID’s registrations. You get an email when it is done.

Got a new DMR ID, or taken over a repeater? Choose Verify again with RadioID.net in the same section to pick up the change.

Optional: two-factor sign-in

On the account page, Two-factor authentication → Set up. Scan the QR code with an authenticator app (Google Authenticator, Aegis, 1Password and the like), type the six-digit code, and choose Verify and turn on. From then on, signing in asks for a code from the app as well as your password.

If something goes wrong

2. Set up a hotspot or app

Add the hotspot on the site, copy its server, port, ID and password into the hotspot, then choose talkgroups. You can have up to 5 hotspots. A phone app such as QSO One counts as one.

Add it on the site

1. Sign in and choose My Hotspots in the top bar.
2. Under Add a hotspot, if the site asks you to confirm your callsign, do that first (section 1). It brings you back here.
3. Under What are you connecting?, pick A hotspot (Pi-Star, WPSD, openSPOT, an MMDVM board) or An app.
4. DMR ID: your personal DMR ID is filled in from RadioID. If you have more than one, choose the one this hotspot uses.
5. ESSID: leave it blank for your first hotspot. Give each further hotspot or app its own two digits, 01 to 99. The page shows the result, for example “Hotspot DMR ID: 302712301”. Two devices on the same ID knock each other off the network.
6. Name: anything that helps you tell them apart, such as “openSPOT4 at home”.
7. Single slot or dual slot (hotspots only): pick Single slot unless you have a duplex board or a hotspot running as a repeater. If in doubt, single slot. Apps are always single slot.
8. Tick any talkgroups you want always on (static). You can leave them all unticked; see Talkgroups below.
9. Choose Add hotspot. A box shows the settings for your hotspot:

Copy these somewhere safe, then choose Done. You can see the password again later with Show password on the hotspot’s card.

Enter the settings in the hotspot or app

The hotspot connects to BC-TRBO as an MMDVM server, also called HomeBrew (the same thing under two names; openSPOT says MMDVM, Pi-Star says HomeBrew). Whatever the device, it needs the four values from the box: server, port, DMR ID and password.

• Pi-Star or WPSD: set the DMR ID to your personal DMR ID and choose the same ESSID, so the two together make the hotspot DMR ID shown on the site. Add BC-TRBO as a custom DMR master (MMDVM / HomeBrew) with the server, port and password above, and apply the changes.
• openSPOT: use the MMDVM connector with the server, port, password and the whole hotspot DMR ID.
• QSO One and other apps: add an MMDVM or HomeBrew server with the same four values. If the app asks for a timeslot, use 2.

For the radio: program your hotspot channels on timeslot 2 for a single slot hotspot, with the colour code your hotspot is set to (usually 1).

Talkgroups

A talkgroup reaches your hotspot in one of three ways. Each hotspot’s card shows which talkgroups it has right now, under the same three headings.

Things to know:

• The simplest setup: leave the hotspot’s Options (or the app’s talkgroup list) empty, tick a few talkgroups on the site, and key up anything else when you want it.
• Keep the static list short, a handful at most. A single slot hotspot carries one call at a time, so each extra static talkgroup can block the call you actually wanted. Above 6 the page warns you; 8 is the most.
• If your hotspot sends its own list, that list wins. While it is connected, a ticked talkgroup missing from that list is off (crossed out on the card), and one on the list but not ticked is on.
• Only transmissions from your hotspot keep a PTT talkgroup alive. One PTT talkgroup per timeslot: keying another replaces it.
• A talkgroup marked quiet here is allowed, but nothing brings it to the hotspot server yet, so you would hear nothing on it.
• Other networks’ words: BrandMeister’s “static” is our Static, and its “dynamic” is PTT activated.

To change talkgroups later, choose Edit talkgroups on the hotspot’s card, tick or untick, and choose Save. The change reaches the hotspot server within seconds; the hotspot does not need restarting.

Check it works

1. Power up the hotspot. Within a minute, its card on My Hotspots shows a green Online and a line like “Reports as MMDVM_HS · Pi-Star”.
2. Key up the Parrot, TG 9998, say a few words and let go. It plays you back, which tests the whole path both ways.
3. Your hotspot also shows on the public Monitor, under its Hotspots tab, and the home page counts it among the hotspots connected.

If something goes wrong

3. Put a repeater on NextGen

If RadioID.net lists you as the repeater’s trustee, you can add it yourself: add it on the site, program it from its codeplug sheet, then choose its talkgroups. No approval step is needed.

Before you start

• Your callsign must be confirmed (section 1), and RadioID.net must list one of your callsigns as the repeater’s trustee. If you look after a repeater but are not its RadioID trustee, update RadioID first, or use Contact to ask a BC-TRBO admin to add it.
• Is it already on the public Repeaters list as “NextGen: not yet”? Then it is still linked through the C-Bridge, and BC-TRBO is already planning its move. Do not add it again; use Contact to arrange the switch-over.
• Have CPS (MOTOTRBO) or the MMDVM configuration to hand, and access to the repeater’s internet connection. The repeater connects out to BC-TRBO, so it needs no open inbound ports.

Add it on the site

1. Sign in and choose My Repeaters in the top bar.
2. Under Add a repeater, the page lists the repeaters RadioID shows you as trustee of that are not yet on BC-TRBO. Choose Add next to yours. (If the page asks you to confirm your callsign, do that first. Mention the repeater ID in the request if you ask an admin.)
3. Check the details filled in from RadioID: Callsign, Location, Colour code, Transmit (output) and Receive (input) in MHz. Correct anything wrong; the public Repeaters page shows these.
4. Kind:
   • MOTOTRBO (IPSC) for Motorola repeaters (SLR, XPR and similar).
   • MMDVM (HomeBrew) for MMDVM-based repeaters.
5. IPSC role (MOTOTRBO only): leave it at BC-TRBO is its master (usual). Choose “it is its own master; BC-TRBO joins as a peer” only if the repeater must stay master of its own IPSC network, for example with other repeaters linked behind it. Then give that master’s address and UDP port.
6. Choose Add & apply and confirm. The page explains that the BC-TRBO core restarts once, after waiting for a quiet moment, so every repeater on it drops for a few seconds.
7. The page shows “… is on BC-TRBO — program it with this” and the repeater’s settings. This is the codeplug sheet. It stays on the repeater’s page, below its talkgroups, so you can come back to it. Keep it private: it holds the repeater’s password or key, and every view is logged.

Program a MOTOTRBO repeater (CPS)

Open the repeater’s codeplug in CPS and enter the values from the codeplug sheet:

Older repeaters (XPR 8300, XPR 8400 and anything before the SLR 5700) take no hostname. Use the IP address printed under the master address on the sheet.

Write the codeplug to the repeater. It connects within a minute or so.

If you chose “BC-TRBO joins as a peer”, the sheet lists BC-TRBO’s peer IPSC ID, address, port and key instead. In CPS, the repeater’s IPSC network must accept that peer, with authentication on and the key from the sheet.

Program an MMDVM repeater

Point the repeater’s MMDVM / HomeBrew server settings (in MMDVMHost, DMRGateway, Pi-Star or WPSD) to:

Do not set talkgroup options on the repeater: talkgroups come from the site.

Choose its talkgroups

1. On My Repeaters, pick the repeater at the top if you have more than one.
2. The talkgroups are listed by Timeslot 1 and Timeslot 2. Each talkgroup has a fixed timeslot across the network.
3. Tick a talkgroup to carry it, then choose its Mode:
   • full time: always on.
   • part time: comes up when someone keys it on your repeater, and drops after the Timer runs out (1 to 1440 minutes) with no traffic from your repeater.
4. Some talkgroups are marked 🔒 mandatory: BC-TRBO requires them on every repeater, and they cannot be turned off. For a mandatory part time talkgroup, you can still change its timer.
5. Choose Save & apply. The change goes live at once: no restart, and nobody is dropped.

Helpers on the page:

• show every talkgroup: untick it to see only what the repeater carries.
• filter: type a name or number to find a talkgroup.
• Reset to the standard lineup: stages BC-TRBO’s standard lineup for you to review. Nothing changes until you save.
• reaches nobody next to a talkgroup: nothing on the network takes it anywhere yet, so only your own repeater would hear it.
• not allowed means BC-TRBO does not permit that talkgroup on this repeater.

Check it works

1. Open the public Repeaters page. Your repeater is listed under NextGen with its talkgroups. Its own page at /repeaters/ followed by the radio ID shows its lineup by timeslot.
2. On the Monitor, the Repeaters tab shows it connected.
3. Key up the Parrot, TG 9998 on the repeater and let go. It plays you back.
4. On My Repeaters, the line under the repeater’s name links to its log, the connection log for your repeater only. It helps when something will not connect.

If something goes wrong

Getting help

• Questions and discussion: the BC-TRBO community on Groups.io.
• Something on the site is broken: sign in, open the account menu (your name at the top right) and choose Report a bug / send feedback. It reaches the admins directly.
• Anything else, including a repeater you cannot add yourself or moving one off the C-Bridge: email admin@bctrbo.net. The site’s Contact page has the same details.

A report gets sorted faster when it includes:

• your callsign;
• the hotspot DMR ID or repeater radio ID;
• what you did, what you expected, and what happened instead, with the exact words of any message;
• roughly when it happened.