DSDPlus/HowTo

This article was written for the RTL-SDR v3 dongle, but the instructions are very similar for Airspy and SDRPlay devices, you just have to open the corresponding files instead.

Initial setup

1. Create a directory for DSDPlus to live in. I used C:\DSDPlus
2. Download DSDPlus v1.101 and DSDPlus v1.101 DLL Files from the DSDPlus website.
3. Extract the contents of DSDPlus v1.101 and DSDPlus v1.101 DLL Files to the directory you created in step one.
4. Download libfftw3f-3.dll from the link in the notes.txt file and put that in the folder from step one.
5. Download the DSDPlus Fastlane directory emailed to you and put the contents in the folder from step one. Overwrite any existing files.

Optional steps to populate license and radio ID information

1. Download the USA or Canada license data file (links in notes.txt file) to the DSDPlus directory.
2. Rename the file to FreqList.csv
3. Download the DMR ID file using the link in the notes.txt file and open it
4. Copy-paste the contents of that file into the DSDPlus.radios file in the DSDPlus directory
5. Open the FMP24.cfg file in your DSDPlus directory and change the "search origin" row to match your longitude and latitude. I got this data from Google Maps by right-clicking on my house.

Usage

At this point, you can start monitoring many systems immediately. Double-click 1R.bat to launch DSDPlus, then double-click FMP24-CC.bat to launch FMP. Use the left/right arrow keys to adjust frequency, use G/g to adjust gain. You can also type in a frequency directly then hit enter. Use the D key to adjust between AM (yellow) and FM (green). At any time, you can press the ? key to dump a list of keyboard shortcuts in the command prompt window.

If you want to monitor an analog signal, go to the input menu heading of DSD and select "monitor source audio if no sync and signal present".

For simple digital audio, like D-STAR, Fusion, or single-channel DMR, just tune to the frequency. DSD will automatically start decoding the audio.

Project 25

For Project 25 systems, DSDPlus is able to start tracking without any real configuration, but there's a few things you're going to want to do for your own sanity.

1. Go to the corresponding trunked system page in the RR database and make note of the system ID and WACN
2. Open the DSDPlus.networks file and add the system using the following syntax P25, WACN.SYSID, "System Name"
   For example, I use P25, BEE00.1D9, "Palmetto 800" for the Palmetto 800 network in South Carolina
3. Press the menu button on the trunked system page on Radio Reference and then click downloads.
4. Download both the DSD Formatted Sites Data File and DSD Formatted Talkgroup Data File
5. Copy-paste the site data file you downloaded into the DSDPlus.sites file in your DSDPlus directory.
   You may wish to add a note at the top to indicate which system the sites belong to. Put a semicolon at the front of the line for DSDPlus to ignore it.
6. Copy-paste the talkgroup data file into the DSDPlus.groups file in your DSDPlus directory. Semicolons can also be used here to add notes.

Site Loader feature

The site loader allows you to pick a frequency or system without having to manually tune the frequency.

1. Open the DSDPlus.siteLoader file in your text editor
2. At the bottom of the file, begin by adding a "header" line with the network info. For a P25 system, this takes the form of P25,WACN.SYSID, 0,"System Name"
   For my example Palmetto 800 system, I added P25, BEE00.1D9, "Palmetto 800"
3. Copy-paste the site list you added to the DSDPlus.sites file below the network header.
4. In the DSDPlus event log window, go to the control menu and select the "Open Network/Site Loader Window" option. (The "L" key is supposed to be the keyboard shortcut, but I can't get that to work)
5. Use your mouse to select a site you want to monitor.
6. If the site is red, DSDPlus doesn't know the frequency for that site.
   For a P25 system, manually tune to a control channel and DSDPlus will collect the frequency information for that site and neighboring sites.
   For other trunked systems, you'll have to manually add frequency information to DSDPlus.frequencies
7. You can also add non-trunked systems here. For those, consult the "conventional channel entries" section at the top of the DSDPlus.siteLoader file

Spectrum survey

1. Open the FMP24.SurveyList file and add frequencies you want to survey in 2 MHz chunks. The frequncy you add is the "center" of the survey.
2. While FMP24 is open, press y to start survey. Observe the FMP24 command prompt window to see what frequency is being surveyed.
3. When survey is done, press escape key to stop.
4. Open the Survey.exe program in your DSDPlus directory to view results. Use the left/right arrows to move frequencies. Mouse-over to see the exact frequency of a signal.

Scanning

1. Create a blank FMP24.ScanList file in your DSDPlus directory. If you have a newer version of FastLane, .scanlist files for Rtl, Airspy and Duo sdr's are in the basefiles download.
2. Add frequencies, one per line. Examples provided by the developer include 118.3 AM BW=12.5 DELAY=2 Miami Tower where 118.3 is the frequency in MHz, AM is the encoding type, BW=12.5 is the bandwidth of the signal in kHz (optional), DELAY=2 is the "wait for reply" delay (optional), and Miami Tower is the alpha tag.
   For encoding types, you can put AM, FM, DMR, D-STAR, P25, etc
3. Open DSDPlus and FMP24 via the 1R.bat and FMP24-CC.bat files
4. Press S to begin scanning
5. Press escape to stop scanning

NEXEDGE systems

1. Open the DSDPlus.networks file
2. Add the network using the following format NEXEDGEXX, SYSID, "SYSTEM NAME" where NEXEDGEXX is either NEXEDGE48 or NEXEDGE96, SYSID is the decimal system ID provided by RR, and system name is the system name
3. Open the DSDPlus.sites file
4. Add sites using the following format NEXEDGEXX, SYSID, SITEID, "SITE NAME" where NEXEDGEXX is same as step 2, SYSID is same as step 2, SITEID is the two digit site number from RR (if there's more than two digits use the last two), and site name is the site name
5. Open the DSDPlus.siteLoader file
6. Add the network using the following format NEXEDGEXX, SYSID, 0, "SYSTEM NAME", values same as step 2
7. Add the sites below the network using the following format NEXEDGEXX, SYSID, SITEID, "SITE NAME", values same as step 4
8. Open the DSDPlus.frequencies file
9. Add the frequencies each site uses with the following format NEXEDGEXX, SYSID, SITEID, CHANNELID, FREQ, 0, 0 where NEXEDGEXX is same as step 2, SYSID is same as step 2, SITEID is same as step 4, CHANNELID is the obtained from Radio Reference (click on the individual site for more details), and FREQ is the channel frequency corresponding to the site
10. Open FMP24 and DSDPlus, open the site loader, and pick a site. Now you're listening!
11. At this point you can open the DSDPlus.groups file and start filling in talkgroup IDs when they start populating

Connect+ systems

1. Open the DSDPlus.networks file
2. Add the network using the following format Con+, SYSID, "SYSTEM NAME" where SYSID is the decimal system ID provided by RR, and system name is the system name
3. Open the DSDPlus.sites file
4. Add sites using the following format Con+, SYSID, SITEID, "SITE NAME" where SYSID is same as step 2, SITEID is the site number from RR, and site name is the site name
5. Open the DSDPlus.siteLoader file
6. Add the network using the following format Con+, SYSID, 0, "SYSTEM NAME", values same as step 2
7. Add the sites below the network using the following format Con+, SYSID, SITEID, "SITE NAME", values same as step 4
8. Open the DSDPlus.frequencies file
9. Add the frequencies each site uses with the following format Con+, SYSID, SITEID, CHANNELID, FREQ, 0, 0 where SYSID is same as step 2, SITEID is same as step 4, CHANNELID is the LSN obtained from Radio Reference (click on the individual site for more details), and FREQ is the channel frequency corresponding to the site
10. Open FMP24 and DSDPlus, open the site loader, and pick a site. Now you're listening!
11. At this point you can open the DSDPlus.groups file and start filling in talkgroup IDs when they start populating

Capacity+ systems

1. Open the DSDPlus.networks file
2. Add the network using the following format Cap+, SYSID, "SYSTEM NAME" where SYSID is a fake number. The developer recommends using the unique ID from the corresponding RR page, which is the numbers at the end of the URL.
3. If the system has multiple sites, open the DSDPlus.sites file
4. If the system has multiple sites, add them using the following format Cap+, SYSID, SITEID, "SITE NAME" where SYSID is from step 2, site ID is the numerical site ID from Radio Reference, and site name is the site name
5. Open the DSDPlus.frequencies file
6. Add each frequency for the system using the following format Cap+, SYSID, SITEID, CHANNELID, FREQ, 0, 0 where SYSID is from step 2, SITEID is from step 4, CHANNELID is the LSN from the site detail page in Radio Reference, and FREQ is the frequency from the Radio Reference
7. Open the DSDPlus.siteLoader file
8. If there's multiple sites, add the network using the following format Cap+, SYSID, 0, "SYSTEM NAME", values same as step 2
9. Add the sites using the following format Cap+, SYSID, SITEID, "SITE NAME", values same as step 4
   If there's only one site, use 1 for the site ID
10. Open FMP24 and DSDPlus, open the site loader, and pick a site. Now you're listening!
11. At this point you can open the DSDPlus.groups file and start filling in talkgroup IDs when they start populating

Dual SDR

Complete the "Initial setup" section as before, and the "Optional steps" if desired.

Run CC.bat then VC.bat, this will launch two copies of DSDPlus. Now run FMP24-CC.bat then FMP24-VC.bat, this will launch two copies of FMP24.

At this point you can either directly tune FMP24 to a control channel or open site loader to have it tune automatically.

Pay particular attention to the DSD+ Channel Activity window. This will show all current calls. You can left/right click on the priority to change it. The lower the number, the higher the priority. You can also left/click on the target or target alias to adjust the priority override. Spacebar clears a hold even if the talkgroup isn't currently transmitting. If you have a hold active, it says so in the title bar of the channel activity window.