If you've been using digital voice modes on VHF or UHF in the last few months, you've probably heard of hotspots.
But what are they, and why are they so popular?
Within amateur radio, a hotspot is a short name for a digital voice radio to internet gateway.
It allows you to connect to other amateur radio operators on repeaters and on other hotspots
and talk to them on your radio through the internet.
The hotspot receives and transmits over the air to your radio
and works with multiple digital voice modes including DMR, Yaesu system fusion, D-STAR, P25, and NXDN.
The hotspot requires either a WiFi or an ethernet connection to the internet depending on the model of hotspot.
MMDVM stands for multi mode digital voice modem.
It's a very clever piece of software that is not only used for hotspots like this one,
but also for multi mode digital repeaters.
It allows people to set up digital voice repeaters at a fraction of the cost of buying a conventional digital repeater
and is the backbone of most hotspots.
For a long time I was quite hesitant to get a hotspot
because I thought that it's not real radio.
And to be honest, it's not.
It goes over the radio for all of about 10 metres and is completely useless if the internet goes down
or if you don't have an internet connection.
But nevertheless, it's great fun, and it has given me access to modes and networks that I never before had access to.
Hotspots like this one allow you to easily chat to other people from the comfort of your own home.
There's no need to stand up on a windy hill in the cold to get a signal into the nearest repeater.
And you're no longer stuck with using whichever mode or network your local repeaters have.
You can choose whichever you like.
And that's why hotspots are so popular now.
Not only do they offer convenience, they also give access to a lot more modes and networks than most people had before.
A lot of people do say that it's not real radio,
but neither is talking through a repeater to someone on another repeater via the internet.
If the internet goes down then neither hotspots nor internet connected repeaters will work,
excluding local traffic on the repeaters.
These hotspots also allow you to use your radio on other digital modes.
The vocoder is the part of the radio that converts your voice into digital data.
If the vocoder between two standards is the same,
then the hotspot can convert the signal for you into the mode you want to use.
So with a DMR radio you can get on Fusion and NXDN
and with a Fusion radio you can get on DMR, NXDN and P25.
Now P25 doesn't have exactly the same vocoder as Fusion,
but that's a topic for another video.
If you're thinking of getting one of these hotspots, you should be aware that you need to have an amateur radio licence,
because it does transmit on amateur radio frequencies.
You'll also have to put your amateur callsign in when you set it up.
If you don't have an amateur radio licence then why give it a go?
It's quite easy these days in many countries to get the lowest level of licence
and it gives you access to a whole new world of radio.
At the time of making this video, you could expect to pay around 80 US dollars
for an assembled hotspot like this one.
If you find them significantly cheaper, then you're probably looking at just the top module.
You need the raspberry Pi too, which is underneath.
There are a range of different hotspots on the market right now.
This one I have, known as the jumbospot, is probably the cheapest and most common one out there.
I'll put a link in the description to where you can buy it.
If you want to spend quite a lot more then there are better quality products out there like the Openspot 2,
which seems to get good reviews from its users,
but costs close to 3 times what the jumbospot costs once the ridiculous 25 euro shipping fee is included.
So what do you think of hotspots?
Will you be getting one?
Let me know in the comments down below, and I'd appreciate it if you clicked on the like button if you enjoyed this video.