How to update Contacts in the CS-700 codeplug


Here's the writeup I did for our club as an intro, in case it works for anyone else.
Radio ID Database
Every DMR ham has a Radio ID assigned to them by DMR-MARC, which is where this database comes from.
(Request link is here: http://www.dmr-marc.net/request_subscriberID.html) This same Radio ID can be programmed into all your radios, since only one will Tx at a time. 
It’s maintained by a team of guys that do a great job with really fast turnaround on updates and new registration.  The whole database is here:

Filter the Listing
Go to Filters and set up:
State -- Equal to -- California
or whatever fits your most common users.

Nice!  Fresh up-to-date data.  Unfortunately, there’s no Export, so we have to improvise..

Export
Click “Print Preview” to simplify the HTML a bit.
Today that gives me 514 records.
Save the web page as HTML (I use Chrome if it matters).
Save it as "trbo_users_view.php.htm"

Scrape the Data
Now we have to extract the RadioID & Callsign entries from that table.
I have attached a small Perl script that does it (scrape.pl), but you can cut & paste text into Excel or work whatever awk/sed/python magic you like best.  There is an earlier writeup on how to use Excel-fu to extract the right parts from cut & paste, but I like the Perl approach for speed.

The goal is to get to a .CSV file as
RadioID#,Callsign,Firstname

Save the resulting .CSV file.

Merge with Codeplug
Then you run G4EML's CS700 Contact Manager app, load your CS-700 codeplug into it, and “Delete to End” to remove all your existing contacts.  (Keep your actual talkgroups, of course).

Import the CSV, and bam – everyone’s listed by callsign and name.  Save and program to the radio.

It sounds like a lot of steps, but it’s less than a minute from start to finish.


DMR-MARC CSV Contact Generator
 http://kd0wdq.com/getcsv.html

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3 comments:

  1. Anonymous9/21/2015

    It seems to be that the new code plug has a different setup/extension. Wondering if this wil work with the new codeplug. With the new Beta Version.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous9/21/2015

    Yes, I noticed this too. I have a CS700 code plug to load but the extension isn't correct for the beta software. That seems odd. The new software should at least have an import function for 'old' code plugs so that they can be converted to the new format.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous9/21/2015

    "Delete to end" will delete any talkgroups that I have added after the contacts. How do I avoid this?

    Also, have you tried DMR-MARC CSV Generator ?
    http://kd0wdq.com/getcsv.html

    ReplyDelete

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