One of the advantages of Digital Mobile Radio (DMR) is the ability to take our equipment on vacation and remain in contact with our friends back home. One way to do this is by using repeaters close to your current location with wide area talk groups or Brandmeister. Another method is to utilize a hotspot connected back to your home area via the internet.
In this article we are going to assume that you already have an operational hotspot. Our focus is going to be on establishing the internet connection for your hotspot. I use a ZUMspot (Photo A) that is available from Ham Radio Outlet and others.
If you are using a hotspot at home connected to your Wi-Fi, all you needed to do was enter into the hotspot’s configuration the SSID and PSK (publicly shared key) for your Wi-Fi and the hotspot automatically connects to it when powered up. The same is true if you use your cellphone’s Wi-Fi hotspot. Using your cellphone is great if you have cellular service available and an unlimited data plan. Otherwise, you will be looking at using a public Wi-Fi, which can present some challenges.
Most of these Wi-Fi systems, especially those on which you “pay to play,” require a more complex login procedure requiring you to enter some additional credentials in addition to the password, such as your name, credit card, room number, etc. The hotspot is not programmed to provide this additional logon information.
