This project strives to provide a convenient way to support a group of amateur radio operators who wish to share a frequency plan and DMR code plug files. The basic approach is to use Google Drive for managing an ICS 217A spreadsheet containing the group's frequency plan and a separate Google Drive spreadsheet containing the group's base DMR code plug entries. This software then looks for named regions within those spreadsheets and produces CSV files from the ICS 217A and RDT code plug files from the DMR sheet on demand.
But wait... There's more! On the DMR side, generating a code plug from a shared spreadsheet isn't really that much better than posting a code plug file to a web site somewhere. So this software goes a bit further. It allows individual operators to have their own personal version of the spreadsheet to add their own customizations and then it layers those customizations on top of the group's base spreadsheet. This allows operators to enter their personal radio ID, menu setting preferences, extra channels, extra zones, etc. one time rather than having to re-enter them each time the group updates the base code plug.
Additionally, it is far easier (IMHO) to manage the channels, zones, etc. in a spreadsheet than through the code plug software that comes with the TYT MD-380 radios.
A blank sample of the ICS 217A that works with this software may be found here. You should make a copy of this spreadsheet into your own Google Drive account and populate it as you choose.
A blank sample of the DMR spreadsheet may be found here. Again, you should make a copy of this spreadsheet into your own Google Drive account.
Once you copy these sheets to your own account, make sure you get a shareable link to each document to enable public viewing via the link. If you don't make your sheets publicly viewable via the shareable link, this software will not be able to access the sheets.
The ICS 217A can be exported as a CSV file for either Chirp or RT Systems. The RT Systems flavor was based on the Yaesu FTM-400XDR RT Systems programming software, so there could be small differences for your version, but they should be minor.
For DMR, currently only TYT MD-380 radios are supported. I suspect that the generated code plug files would work for close relatives of the MD-380, but I have not tested it.
To use this software on your own PHP-capable web site, you will need to do the following:
- Download the project source code to a system with PHP and Composer installed.
- Run composer's install command.
- Run "
./vendor/bin/phing package" to create a plantools.zip file. - Unzip the plantools.zip file under a directory on your web site (let's call this the installation directory).
- In the installation directory, find the sheets-example.json file under the config directory. Rename sheets-example.json to sheets.json. Update the contents to refer to your Google Drive sheets and given them appropriate names and descriptions.
- In the installation directory, place a Google service account credentials file (see below) named google_creds.json under the config directory.
To run this software, you will need to create a Google API service account. You can create a service account at https://console.developers.google.com. Make sure you download the service account credentials file in JSON format (not P12).
You also must make sure to enable the Google Sheets API for your account.