I’ve been working with the DMR2 programming software that shipped with the Tytera MD-380 and I have to say, as a programmer and interface designer myself, it really isn’t particularly intuitive or user friendly.
First, it opens a blank RDT called, imaginatively, “default1”. It does not open the last file you opened and it doesn’t provide a list of recently-viewed files in the File menu. That’s just annoying, not buzz-killing.
Second, rather than using a tabbed interface like so many modern Windows programs do, it opens a separate MDI window for each item you click on. So you can end up with a buttload of windows open and not even realize it. You can use the Window menu item to navigate between windows, but wouldn’t a tabbed interface make more sense?
Next, as seems usual and proper for most radio-oriented software, there is no integrated help file. Since the manual for the radio is nearly unreadable to a native English speaker — well, I exaggerate, but the Chinglish factor is high — that is a significant omission.
Programming a contact is fairly simple once you understand all of the options you can set and which of them you need to leave the hell alone. But, for instance, let’s look at what I had to do in order to add the Parrot channel to the Indy zone (for some reason it didn’t pre-exist in the CS700 codeplug I hacked for the MD-380).
First, I looked at one of the other Parrot channels that was already in place. I created an Indy Parrot channel based on those settings, and programmed it with the information for the Floyd Knobs Parrot which was right above it at the end of the list. I only had to change the repeater frequencies so they matched the W9AMT repeater in Indy.
I tried to find a way to move the new channel up the list so that it would be in the same part of the list with the rest of the Indy channels, but no dice on that. No huhu, you set the channel number and assign it to a zone in another part of the program.
Yeah, that’s right. You now have to assign the channel to the zone IN A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT WINDOW. So you run up the list to Zone Information, and click on the Indy zone. That brings up a selection window, and you run down the list, find the Indy Parrot you just made, highlight it, and click the “Add>>” button. That adds the channel to the smaller list of channels that are specific to the Indy zone.
For some reason it didn’t penetrate my head that I had to take that second action. I made the channel and updated the radio and “Indy Parrot” wasn’t in my Indy zone. After some head-scratching, I realized my mistake, and took the second action to add it to the zone, and re-uploaded the codeplug. Ah! Now I have an Indy Parrot.
It seems to me that this ought to be part of the channel programming information, and I thought it was — because I did set the Scan List parameter in the channel screen to “DMR Indy”. I know now that that is not the same as adding the channel to the Indy zone.
At the very least I would have thought that would be in the help file. Oh, wait — no help file! And frankly, the information on the web that “explains” how to program a DMR radio isn’t all that great.
These radios are just aching for someone like RT Systems to come along and write usable programmers for them.