Question from a ham 📻🍖

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This question came in via my Blog's contact form the other day. It's quite a broad question which is difficult to satisfactorily answer, but here goes. I split the question into two:

I am a ham radio operator. I am not asking for a commercially viable solution or something that can be used in a commercial environment this is all about experimenting / etc etc

I would like to know if there is any opensource RM system to be used in amateur radio.

The details about the internal workings of programming software, used by all well-known DMR equipment manufactures, is proprietary and confidential. There is no open source version of any Motorola configuration tool - this is true for almost all manufacturers of professional equipment.

...because DMR has taken the masses by surprise and I am really thinking to try and find some solution for Pseudo Tier 3 DMR protocols like over the air provisioning ( especially commercial grade radios like Motorola's and Hytera's ) because programming radios on the fly is a pain.

Currently we use a pi-star image on most home made repeaters and also if commercial radios used they use what ever proprietary they have ( for instance I have a Motorola DMR rep. ) If you have any ides how to interface such a thing with out spending a lot of cash like deff. I can't afford what ever licenses Motorola would need for over the Air updates.

The programming software for manufacturer A cannot be used to configure a radio from manufacturer B. This is because there is no standard governing how this should be done with hundreds of possible radio models and software variants from each vendor. Creating; implementing and maintaining a documented standard for this would be a mammoth task for which there is no business case nor any appetite from any manufacturer.

Over the air programming is not part of the DMR standard, though, in the case of MOTOTRBO, the parts of the standard which describe how packet data is handled, is used at a system level for things like OTAP etc.

MOTOTRBO Radio Management is available free of charge and can manage the configuration of up to 50000 (MOTOTRBO) radios and repeaters (or more if you upgrade SQL). No licence is required to use Radio Management. If you use a control station, no licence is needed to do over the air programming (just remember to keep the TX power low if the control station will be busy).

A feature licence is only needed if you want to do OTAP via a MOTOTRBO repeater using the NAI data feature.

With Radio Management, you are able to update the configuration in any connected MOTOTRBO device, either via a USB cable; over the air (RF/OTAP); via Wi-Fi or (in the case of repeaters) via IP. These configuration updates can be scheduled to run after hours so as not to busy up the system.

When updating over the air, only the change is sent, not the entire codeplug, so small changes (e.g. contact list entry) can go out using a comparatively small amount of data.

Above is a diagram of a live Radio Management deployment. The locations I; B and K are several hundred kilometers from each other and all are connected via a corporate WAN and/or VPN. It only serves a few radios but could support thousands if needed.

The Device Programmer host at Location A is a low-spec SFF PC with just enough disk space to host the applications. 

I have several posts and videos about MOTOTRBO Radio Management if you are interested. A link to my YouTube channel is on the top right of this page (if you're viewing on a tablet or PC).