Contacts vs Talkgroups?

[N1LSJ]

Took me a while to figure out (?) that Contacts and Talkgroups are both kept in "Contacts".
Is this because they are in fact identical, with talkgroups being those DMR ID's below 10000 and contacts being those above?

Sure would be easier to keep things straight if they were separate, even if it was an artificial separation...

Or and I totally confuzed ?

[VK3KYY]

Took me a while to figure out (?) that Contacts and Talkgroups are both kept in "Contacts".
Is this because they are in fact identical, with talkgroups being those DMR ID's below 10000 and contacts being those above?

Sure would be easier to keep things straight if they were separate, even if it was an artificial separation...

Or and I totally confuzed ?

This is normal for DMR

[W9YA]

Took me a while to figure out (?) that Contacts and Talkgroups are both kept in "Contacts".
Is this because they are in fact identical, with talkgroups being those DMR ID's below 10000 and contacts being those above?

Sure would be easier to keep things straight if they were separate, even if it was an artificial separation...

Or and I totally confuzed ?

Yeppers ..the network (tier 3 in dmr language) doesnt care...it's just a number in the protocol where such routing information (numbers) are placed.....

I am guessing you want some sort of conformity thats not actually present. For me; I'm a.o.k. with things as they are since I can use someone's id (user id) for a tg as easily as I use any other number for a tg.....i.e. same thing to the network, same thing to me....

[G4EML]

Talkgroups and individual calls are just 24 bit numbers that are used as the destination address for the transmitted packet.

The theoretical limits for both are from 0 to 16777215.
However some values are defined as reserved, so in practice the available range is from 1 to 16776415.

Both Talkgroups and individual calls can have any value in this range. There is a separate bit that defines if the address is a talkgroup or an individual address. In the CPS contact list this is shown as a Group Call or a Private call.

It is quite valid to have a Group Call (Talkgroup) address of 12345 and also a private call address of 12345, these are treated differently by the radio and the networks. The amateur radio convention is to use higher numbers for private addresses and lower ones for Talkgroups but there is no technical reason for doing this.

It is the DMR convention (probably started by Motorola) for both Talkgroups and Private calls to be combined into one Contact list.


Colin G4EML

[N1LSJ]

Thanks to both of you for the info!

I would like the "Group Call" / "Private Call" dropdown list on the "Contact" edit page to select which are displayed to help in maintaining those "two" lists separately. Also a similar functionality on the "TG List" edit page.

But perhaps I don't yet understand what happens when you import 100,000 contacts from a database? I'm assuming it will be dumped into the present list of contacts? That would suck eggs in trying to then find the talkgroups in there
BTW the only source for such a list I've found so far is a pay site - is there a free one out there somewhere?

[G4EML]

The database is completely separate to the contacts and is used to identify received calls.

You would normally only have your friends and regular contacts in the contact list if you want to private call them. So in practice the contact list often only has talkgroups in it.

The CPS will download and install the database for you on the OpenGD77 support menu. There is no charge for this.

[N1LSJ]

Thanks for the clarification to that!