N6JET

Welcome to n6jet.com. Here you'll find plain-language guides to amateur digital voice (D-STAR, DMR, C4FM, M17, P25, and NXDN), how repeaters, reflectors, and networks actually work, a side-by-side comparison of all six modes, plus lots of AM broadcast history, technical information, and trivia — plus a bit about shortwave, past and present.

Scroll on down and have a look around. ↓

Purpose

n6jet.com is a personal, noncommercial amateur-radio site — part working lab, part plain-language reference. It grew out of a simple habit: when I want to understand something — say, how a D-STAR repeater works — I build a document about it with AI, study that document until the topic is mine, and then post it here. What starts as my own way of learning becomes a ready reference that I can return to later, and that anyone else can use too.

Basically, I used to google it — now I AI it. Instead of my working through a dozen web pages and stitching the pieces together myself, AI searches across dozens of sources and hands me one in-depth summary of exactly what I was after — ready to study in minutes, not hours. The time I used to spend hunting and assembling now goes straight into learning.

Because these are study notes, getting them right matters to me as much as sharing them. And the honest truth is that no source is infallible — the internet, AI, and even printed references can all get a fact wrong, and now and then they simply disagree. That’s exactly why, before a fact goes in, I try to confirm it against at least five independent sources of different origin — five copies of the same claim don’t count — and more whenever I can.

Even so, I’m not claiming this is the last word on anything. Every reader brings their own understanding, and reasonable people will read the same facts a little differently — that’s just how it goes. So treat what you find here as a carefully-checked starting point, not the final say. What you do with any source is your call: use it, set it aside, or dig deeper and find more of your own. And if you catch a mistake, please tell me — I want these right, and I’ll fix it.

So this site is really a record of learning by building — a set of compiled research notes, not original scholarship. I don't claim to be the author of the facts here; I gather them from public sources, organize them into plain-language references, and post them. Everything is shared freely and openly: use anything here, for any noncommercial purpose, without asking permission. Alongside the written guides, the site runs a set of open digital-voice reflectors, free for any licensed operator to use — for newcomers finding their way, for old hands, and honestly for my own future self when I need to look something up again.

Everything on this site was built by a hobbyist. I'm a retired Fire Prevention Officer, an Extra Class Amateur Radio Operator licensed since 1979, and a lifelong tinkerer. Since March 2026 I've used AI as my assistant, and open-source software alongside it lets me build things I could once only dream about. I pitch a concept, and AI helps me organize and refine my thoughts into a workable plan — handling the heavy lifting so I can focus on the goal instead of getting stuck for hours on obstacles.

To some that might sound like the easy way. But I'm not getting any younger, and I want to make the best of the years I have left — living a healthy retirement by keeping my mind actively engaged with projects and learning. I believe you have to exercise your mind to keep it healthy, the same way you do your body. It's what Dr. Andrew Weil calls “use it or lose it.”

73 de N6JET

Contact: chris@n6jet.com

DMR Code Plug Tools — Downloads

Hand-curated DMR talkgroup list files for English-speaking hams — not raw database dumps. Every list is edited, sorted and trimmed to talkgroups that are actually active and actually in English, then formatted to import straight into your radio’s CPS. Download the CSV, import, and you’re on the air.

Curated, not exported
English-language talkgroups
Dead talkgroups removed
Sorted for real-world use
Updated July 2026

BrandMeister — Talkgroup Lists

For BrandMeister-only hotspots and repeaters. Standard, unpadded TGIDs.

AnyTone BrandMeister DMR Talkgroup CSV for AnyTone Rigs — Ready to Import CSV · Talkgroup list · 319 talkgroups · Updated July 2026 Download

TGIF Network — Talkgroup Lists (WPSD Padded TGIDs)

TGIF talkgroups with TGIDs padded to the WPSD standard, so they can run alongside BrandMeister on the same WPSD hotspot without colliding.

AnyTone TGIF DMR Talkgroup CSV for AnyTone Rigs — WPSD Padded TGIDs CSV · Talkgroup list · 63 talkgroups · WPSD padded · Updated July 2026 Download

BrandMeister + TGIF Combo Talkgroup Lists (WPSD Padded TGIDs)

One list, both networks. TGIDs are padded to the WPSD standard so BrandMeister and TGIF talkgroups coexist on the same hotspot without colliding.

AnyTone BrandMeister + TGIF Combo Talkgroup CSV for AnyTone — WPSD Padded TGIDs CSV · Talkgroup list · In preparation Coming Soon

Features

VHF/UHF Digital Voice Guides

Why these guides are here. Digital voice looks like six protocols to learn. It’s closer to six of the same ideas wearing six different names. These are my notes from working that out — free for anyone who wants them.

Start Here

Pros and Cons of the Six Modes
Top Ten Must-Knows for the New Digital Voice Ham
What Bands Is Digital Voice On?
Reflectors and Talkgroups Explained
Access and Squelch Codes Explained
Each Digital Mode Explained (in Brief)
Digital Voice Modes Compared
Rosetta Stone for the Digital Modes
The Digital CliffInteractive
Simplex Range: Which Mode Goes Further?Interactive
What a Signal Occupies: The Spectrum BenchInteractive
The Three Vocoder FamiliesInteractive
The 4FSK BenchInteractive

DMR

D-STAR

C4FM / System Fusion

M17

P25

NXDN

Reflector Systems

Specialized Digital Voice Networks

Analog Linking Systems

AllStarLink, EchoLink, and SVXLink Explained

Infrastructure & Tools

With Thanks: The Hams Who Built Digital Voice

Reference

VHF/UHF Digital Voice Modes Tools

Digital voice should be the easy part of the hobby, and for a lot of newcomers it’s the part that makes them quit — not because the mode is hard, but because of how it’s handed to you: a wall of settings and a talkgroup list with hundreds of entries you’re told to load all at once. You end up scrolling past talkgroups you’ll never key up, hunting for the two or three that matter.

This section is the opposite of that — a small, growing set of tools built on one idea: do the sorting for you, so what’s left is short enough to actually use. Each one is a starting point you can load today and understand in one sitting, then grow later if you want to. Lean beats complete: a list you can read top to bottom is worth more than a “complete” one that’s too long to use.

Start Here

DMR