DCI - cBridge - The Bridge Talkgroup

The "Bridge" talkgroup was the first TG created by DCI/TRBO-6 on June 12, 2012 in an effort to bring all the c-Bridges onto a single talkgroup in the very early days of the c-Bridge.

It is to be considered a general "ragchew talkgroup" if anyone has an interest in it's current intended purpose. The Bridge has evolved into a worldwide talkgroup since it's cross connection to the Brandmeister platform when once it was restricted to the North American continent only by c-Bridge convention and based on its GSM country code of 310.

A Brandmeister connection was added on February 19, 2016 and is full time via DMRX and Brandmeister server 3102. The Bridge talkgroup has has been an under utilized talkgroup in past few years due to the many new c-Bridges and many more talkgroups created since 2012. The bridging efforts in the past year personified by Brandmeister currently, enable P-25, DSTAR, Fusion and DMR to be cross confectioned digitally. While still very early in the BM efforts, the promise is great and DCI feels that a long time, under utilized c-Bridge talkgroup brought together, benefits both the established c-Bridge community as well as the growing Brandmeister community. No other DCI talkgroups are cross-connected though new talkgroups are likely to spring from these efforts to cross connect the various digital platforms.

The Bridge talkgroup originally provided c-Bridge administrators and system managers another option for a wide-area talkgroup without tying up the mainstream wide-area talkgroups (back then there were only 3 big talkgroups). While c-Bridge administrators make the decision to add the talkgroup feed, repeaters on your IPSC Managers are welcome to make use of the talkgroup. In other words, this talkgroup is not meant to be restricted to only repeater managers but for all users, either full time or part time (PTT).

The rest of this page is now legacy information and may be stale.

Known c-Bridges carrying the "Bridge"

DCI - Washington St	SF Trbo - California	K0USY - Kansas (now SmPTT)
AZ-TRBONET - Arizona	GeorgiaDMR - Georgia	Hawaii Trbo
NorCal - California	DMR-IL - Illinois	MIT - Massachusetts
Area-Repeater-Group - CA	KT0L - Colorado	CAN-TRBO - Quebec Canada
DMR-MARC-IL - Illinois	PRN-Network - So. Carolina	BC TRBO - British Columbia, CAN
LonestarNet - Texas	Ohio Central Digital - Ohio	W0PM - Missouri
IT-DMR - Italy	K4USD Network - Georgia	CHRG - California
Click on a c-Bridge name to Email that c-Bridge administrator for more details on their implementation of the "Bridge" TG

The "Bridge" Talkgroup is carried by the above c-Bridges and likely a few more via "re-feeds". The Talkgroup ID is 3100 and all you need is a Conference Center connection to your c-Bridge. If you have a c-Bridge and wish to join in on the feed, please contact DCI at: DCI@trbo.org. If you are a user or repeater owner on these c-Bridges, you should check with the c-Bridge admin to learn which of their IPSC networks and timeslots are fed this talkgroup.

The advantages of having a "Bridge" style talkgroup are several:

Connections in place already for full or part-time use between multiple c-Bridges on the fly
Complete independence from the national TG's (Comm 1, DCI 1, North America, etc) normal traffic
CPM approach rather than CCC, better failover protection if a c-Bridge goes down
No membership, conditions, restrictions or politics (as in DCI/TRBO-6, DMR-MARC, etc)
Regional communications and/or interconnection for hamfests, public service, weather, etc.
Ability to bind your other talkgroups to the "Bridge" for temporary connections to other networks not otherwise available.
Additional learning experience in managing the use of the c-Bridge Conference Center connections, "Super Groups", the new Scheduler and understanding the limitations and advantages of adding multiple talkgroups to a single time-slot.
Discussions of c-Bridge specific issues, ideas or problems as well as any linking projects or new bridging products of interest to the Amateur community.

The "Bridge" talkgroup idea bloomed from the Statewide talkgroup rollouts in mid 2012 and have been springing up since. Originally we envisioned linking the statewides but that soon was shelved as it would busy out each states independent use. This required a new talkgroup and the c-Bridge to drive the routing of the talkgroup to minimize the timeslot busies. Each c-Bridge operator has total freedom on how they carry the "Bridge" feed and may come and go as they wish. There is no commitment required though we'd appreciate it if you would let us know if you are permanently disconnecting from the feed. If another c-Bridge is providing your c-Bridge the feed, let us know as we are trying to keep a loose list of those participating in the "Bridge" project.

The c-Bridge administrator is free to map the "Bridge" feed to any talkgroup, timeslot or any of their network managers as appropriate though we suggest that you use 3100 and call it "the Bridge" in some form so that it is easily implemented both when referenced and programmed. So if you are interested in finding out exactly where the feed appears on any particular c-Bridge, please contact the c-Bridge administrator directly, just click on the c-Bridge name in the table above.

We would encourage users to add the Bridge TG to their Rx Groups and/or Scan lists so as to be able to passively monitor for activity, much the same as is already done for your main and local talkgroups. But even if you choose not to do this, having the connection in place enables a coordinated QSY to the Bridge when the national or International talkgroups are busy, down or otherwise unavailable .

If you need help in adding this Conference Connection, check out our Super Groups page. If you want to see some tips, check out our c-Bridge Tips page.

If you are being fed the "Bridge" Talkgroup by other than DCI, please let us know so we can add your c-Bridge in the table above.

Kudos to Jeff W0NWA for helping to coin the name. A "triple entendre" actually; short for c-Bridge, Sirius "the Bridge" music channel and bridging the Ham DMR organizations.