Yes there is, and you can view the WPSD User Manual online. (Note: the WPSD User Manual is a “living document”. Contributors welcome!)

Read this immediately.

WPSD hostfiles are scrubbed for availability – reflectors that don’t respond to connectivity checks are removed before the file reaches your device. If a reflector you use has disappeared, it was unreachable at check time. It will reappear automatically once it passes availability checks again.

See: How WPSD Hostfiles Work – Why Did a Reflector I Use Disappear?

WPSD updates itself automatically between the hours of 0100 and 0359 Local Time (times are randomized daily).

Since I am in USA Central Time (-6 UTC), I sometimes release updates during the day in my local time, and those updates have not been “queued” for the automatic nightly updates yet for your local time; hence the “Update Available” notifications. In these cases you have some options:

• Click the Update button

• Ignore the Update Available notification; and it will auto-update in the middle of the night if left powered-on.

  We recommend that you leave your hotspots powered-on 24/7 to take advantage of the frequent nightly updates.

• Disable Auto-Updates in the Configuration Page (not recommended; and will leave you with an unsupported WPSD installation).

WPSD is “rolling-release software” (look it up), so there are no ‘release notes’. There is a changelog, however, built right into the WPSD software: Admin -> Advanced -> Tools -> ChangeLog.

Simply go to the Configuration page, then click the “Factory Reset” button in the top navigation menu. This will reset your installation and allow you to reconfigure it from a fresh start.

If you want to reinstall/reset the WPSD software, the WPSD User Manual shows you how.

You absolutely need to understand, that this software is very different. Comparing WPSD to “the other software” is largely invalid.

Your hardware is too weak to support these (resource intensive) features. Upgrade to a better SBC to enable them.

If it’s not listed on the website, there is no disk image for it.

When I and the few volunteer developers have access to and time to work on other platforms and architectures, we plan on supporting and providing disk images for those platforms. You can help too.

No. It’s from 2015 and is too slow to support the feature-rich nature of WPSD. You can perform an inline replacement with a Pi Zero 2W with no additional configuration. Don’t ask for support for this model – upgrade to a better, more modern SBC.

Yes, WPSD works with all Pi 5 models.

Yes they are! 😄 These vendors use the exact same custom disk images on their devices. We created them to their exacting standards/requirements, and per our policy and open source license, we release and make them available as free and open source software for everyone.

These are disk images, sanctioned by the vendors/manufacturers, as the official software for their devices. We work directly with them, and create these custom disk images to their specifications. The disk images are the exact ones they use to install and ship WPSD on their devices. The disk images are made publicly available here, because they are Free and Open Source.

Yes. We currently have official custom disk images for the DVMEGA EuroNode hotspot, as well as the DVMega Cast Device; and you can get them from the WPSD homepage.

[Note about DVMEGA: There seem to be two DVMEGA companies which confuses folks. There’s the original DVMEGA group at https://www.dvmega.nl/ who sells through authorized resellers. We work directly with these guys; and they design & produce top-quality products. This is the genuine DVMEGA company and product line.

And then there’s “DvMega LTD” from the UK who assembles and markets products such as “GENESIS Nodes”, etc. and sells direct. I/we know absolutely nothing about/don’t use “DvMega LTD/Limited” products, so you’d be on your own if you decide to try WPSD on them. From the looks of it; their hardware is basic, home-assembled commodity & readily-available components like any other home-brew or common online store hotspots (I.e. Raspberry Pi’s with rip-off/clone MMDVM_HS_Hat boards…originally designed by our friends and colleagues.)] It just so happens that they (unfortunately) use the DVMEGA name, when it is not genuine DVMEGA hardware. Caveat emptor.

Currently, we work directly with the following, most-prominent commercial hotspot vendors/manufacturers:

• DVMega (the original/official DVMega from The Netherlands)
• ZUMradio (USA)
• BridgeCom (USA)

These are the commercial hotspot vendors/manufacturers for which we build specific and custom WPSD disk images to their specifications.

If you have a different brand, etc., and it has a host computer board-type that matches any of our available disk images, it will likely work. This also applies to home-brew hotspots. The WPSD community is helpful in providing support for home-brew/home-built hotspots (see FAQ below regarding decent-quality modems you can acquire if you’d like to build your own).

At this time, we tend (and prefer) to work directly only with commercial and well-established hotspot manufacturers/vendors; and there are few really decent ones. This is because we find that their hardware and components are of high-quality and are superior to most other junk that crosses our benches & labs (as well as users’ shacks); so this provides an overall better user experience from both a software and hardware perspective.

Additionally, these commercial vendors are also the only vendors that “give back” to the WPSD and MMDVM and related projects, which helps make them better projects for everyone (“giving back” can include sponsoring, code contributions, hardware, etc.).

Other “brands” really aren’t brands/vendors at all; they’re simply pre-assembled in tiny quantities using commodity components; and use cloned/stolen modem designs (“JumboSpot” and its many copied derivatives; bad copies of DB9MAT/DF2ET/D07EN boards; bad copies of ZUM boards, etc.), which are of poorer quality and poorer reliability. Curiously, these are the “vendors/brands” who don’t proactively reach out to us, unsolicited, and work directly with us like the others have done/do. Hmmmm… I wonder why? 🤔 😉

As mentioned in a previous FAQ above, we encourage users who would like to build/assemble their own hotspots to do so! Modem boards by:

• DVMEGA (Netherlands)
• ZUMradio (USA)
• LoneStar (by N5B0C, USA)
• BI7JTA boards (China)

…are the best-quality boards that we know of, and use ourselves as developers.

You will need to research and determine how to unlock/flash/manage your modem, as there are myriad types/variants, etc. We do not develop modems nor their firmware - we simply provide the scripts to easily upgrade/flash them for you. Ergo, we do not offer modem nor firmware support, as they are not a part of WPSD software.

WPSD disk image installations do work, however, you may lose some of the superfluous TGIF Spot Nextion Display functionality. If you install WPSD on TGIF Spots with Nextion displays, and the displays don’t work the way you want, don’t complain about it or ask us about it; as their strange software hacks[^1] are not a part of WPSD.

You can always load a different and stable Nextion layout file which requires no software hacks, however. But you’re on your own with these hotspot displays.

This is by design. When the dashboard is loaded from a device with a small display, a different, “information only” dashboard is displayed… so that all of the pertinent information fits on the small display. If you want to make changes or load all of the other pages, use a computer, or tell your mobile browser to “request the desktop version of the website” (search the web on how to do that).

Not out-of-the box, and it’s unsupported; that is not what WPSD is designed to do. The dashboard is accessed via a web browser. Many browsers can “cast” to other displays (that’s what I do). Think of WPSD on a hotspot as an “appliance”; like your WiFi router/access point. Please don’t ask how to make the dashboard on HDMI work or make it operate like a “regular computer”. It was never intended or written to be used in that fashion.

No. You need a ham radio. Unless, if you have a DVMega CAST device; these are unique IP “radios”, and work out-of-the box with no rig required. The CAST is the rig.

No. Use your volume control.

WPSD and its components process data…not audio (welcome to digital voice [which is 100% data – not audio] and how the MMDVM works). Your/their rig converts the data into audio; not WPSD.

Sadly, when this question is asked, it means the user/ham lacks the fundamental and very basic understanding of Digital Voice for Amateur Radio. If you are one of those who asks this question, you really need to learn the basics immediately.

There is no user interface facility that supports this.

You don’t have to, but it’s the only supported method; as DMR “direct mode” in MMDVMHost is the “old”, legacy way. You can always manually enter the information in your MMDVMHost config file yourself. DMRGateway is the preferred, supported method.

It is strongly suggested that you thoroughly read my DMR Operation & Functionality with WPSD document.

Only duplex modems support two timeslots (1 & 2).

Simplex modems (which are most modems) only support one timeslot; which is timeslot 2.

If you switch to a duplex modem, you will need to choose the correct duplex modem from the list in the WPSD configuration page, and it will automatically enable timeslot 1 and timeslot 2.

You don’t have to. Read this section of the WPSD User Manual

Read this section of the WPSD User Manual

If you must ask, you should leave it set to private.

Not true; If you are a true repeater keeper/sysop/owner, you should be aware, or become aware of MMDVMHost’s configuration file options to make it wide-open and fully-public. I will not cover them here. You will note, that this software is mainly geared toward personal hotspot management vs. public repeater/“public hotspot” management. (Hint: SelfOnly=0)

Then roll up your sleeves and contribute the feature/code.

No. We don’t accept feature requests (rather, we accept and embrace code contributions). The WPSD team is very small (me and a few developers). We can’t possibly field feature requests for thousands of users.

The current team has no plans for this. If someone ever contributes very compelling code for this integration, we would consider it.

(We’ve seen some very hacky and poor-quality implementations of this by a few others out there in the wild, which is likely why they haven’t contributed these changes back upstream to our official project [we would reject the code in their current states].)

Cool. So go to submit code for everyone’s’ benefit. We embrace contributions/results.

WPSD is offered as-is. You would be on your own with code modifications, and we will not guide/support/help you. Here’s all the source code. Please do not ask us how to modify the code - we are not your instructors.

Since WPSD is production-quality software installed on thousands of hotspots (and repeaters) around the globe, we have to support them and keep them up-to-date.

If and when you make your own local code changes, those changes will be blown away and reset to our production software. This is by design.

We don’t support modified WPSD installations/instances, and we also don’t provide support for avoiding your own code changes from being overwritten.

The WPSD project is open source, and you can do all this yourself and you’re on your own; so please don’t ask about supporting or retaining your own local code changes.

If your software installs anywhere within “/usr/local/bin” and/or “/usr/local/sbin”, it WILL get blown away since those are core, managed WPSD software locations. I would suggest using “/opt/<name_of_software>”, as that is safe and unmanaged by WPSD.