This is a total bummer. DMR-MARC has shut down realtime data-dumps. Effectively, making the N0GSG Contact Manager Tool worthless for easily updating your codeplugs automagically.
Recently there have been some philosophical discussions about how Radio IDs should be handled as the number of users continues to rise rapidly. Brandmeister and DMR-MARC appear to be at odds as to how this should be dealt with.
There are many Facebook groups openly discussing this issue right now.. and frankly the conversation is heating up. What we have here seems to be a battle between big boys and who has more power to control the DMR movement and truly establish control over standardization. Basically, if you own the toys, you have the power to take them home. That APPEARS to be what is happening with the DMR-MARC database as of April 15, 2018. Server loads have been climbing and they have decided to remove access to real-time data dumps of the database.
DMR-MARC has been the de-facto owner of the universal radio ID database, and friends, running a database server isn’t free. It takes real money to have a server and real volunteer hours to keep one running. So kudos to them for an amazing job in growing the DMR ham community. However, there has become a chasm of responsibility that no-one could have predicted.
Many software tools and DMR networks have grown to rely upon the DMR-MARC database and now we have a standoff.
Let’s hope there is a solution in the works. There’s no doubt that there are work-arounds for server load issues using APIs etc. Let’s all be optimistic and let the DMR-MARC admins know that we support their work and need them to help the entire community come to a resolution.
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