zello app linking

[WRUE951]

On 6/8/2025 at 8:46 PM, WRKC935 said:

There are a number of other ways to link your phone or another node to your repeater.  It's just not as easy as downloading a program, installing it and configuring it with some basic information.

All the repeater linking that was done on GMRS, or at least a vast majority of it was done with Asterisk which is an IP PBX with an add in that allowed it to pass E&M and PTT.

E&M in a phone system existed from day one.  Before dialing a phone was even a thing.  E&M is Ear and Mouth. Or for radio people TX audio and RX audio.  Then you add a bit of 'telemetry' in the form of COR (carrier operated relay) and PTT. 

All that software needs is a destination address and that destination address to allow connections.

With the system that was hosted by MyGMRS, there was a server that applied updates to the nodes to maintain the list of active nodes.  But if you go into that list on the node and manually update it, then it will work fine without the database server feeding it. 

There are a few systems still out there that are GMRS related that are running the same node software and allow you to connect via certain phone app's that were designed for ham radio AllStarLink and other RoIP (Radio over IP) systems that are using Asterisk as there back end. 

Now setting that stuff up and getting it working is more involved than just getting a radio interface from Amazon and connecting it to a Windows machine where there is a web server out there managing all the linking and simply allowing you to find your node in a list and connect to it.  You will now have to work at it to get it to happen but it's certainly possible if you put your mind to it and want to learn some Linux and Asterisk configuration along the way.  And it can absolutely be done in a full stand alone manner that only requires a phone with internet access and a computer or Pi connected to the Internet with some fiddling with your router / firewall to allow the traffic in from the web.  If you have carrier grade Internet access, then it becomes a bit more complicated, but still not anything that there isn't a solution for.

 

Some Repeaters,  I.e. my Hytera's, can be set in programing for IP transport basically linking them.  Many Commercial repeater radios can also do this..  Although not legal in GMRS many commerical repeaters can be set in this fasshion but requires like systems.