Making configuration and personalisation a bit easier: Bluetooth Keyboard to the rescue! Especially with the TM-7 plus & on the T320 where the touchscreen has a mind of its own. This foldable keyboard is easy to carry and quickly folded and stored away. Very convenient on configuration and a life saver when you use messaging on Zello.
Also when i’m in a hurry and need to configure something on the TM-7 plus that is built in in my car, this is the tool that I use to quickly change or update configuration. And when traveling this is in my to go kit for sending long mails trough the smartphone or send messages via Zello.
I bought this one several years ago on Amazon for 24 dollar and there are tons of similar brands to choose from. But this one works on my TM7-plus & T320. Developers website: perixx.com
I quickly built a charger station to fit in the trunk of my car, to charge the T199’s after using them on a job. I got a dual battery system in the back of my car so I can plug it in there. By the time I get home or arrive on the next job, they are recharged.
As said before, i’m not the most handy guy so i’m not going to win any beauty contests with this one 😁 but the main goal is functionality here! I used click velcro inside and on the back of the T199 charging stations. That kind of velcro doesn’t collect a lot of dust and is 10 times firmer than normal velcro. I can add one more charging station if a rearrange them a bit closer to each other, but 4 will do for now. On the back of the charger I added the “normal” strong velcro so I can tighten the case in the car onto carpet of the trunk.
I used the standard charging cables that came with the device, for in the car I plugged them in a multiple USB charger (witch wil be slower) at home I can plug them each into a charging socket what will speed up the process.
I gave it a quick black spray just to keep it less visible when you look trough the car window.
The Inrico TM-7 plus has a lot of advantages and for me it’s probably one of the best mobile devices out there for the moment. But is has one big issue and that is the total useless volume knob. If you dial the knob to change the volume, it just starts a life on its own. The volume flies to on end of the spectrum to the other… really awful and even dangerous in the car. Luckily there is a work around for it.
The first solution is just uninstall Button Mapper, because this is causing the issue. The second solution is by configuring the navigation buttons (Up & Down) as volume buttons via Button Mapper. (Oh the irony!)
In Button Mapper, go to option “+add more buttons” Press the “up key” on the right next to your display and confirm that you want to add it. Then select customise. The 3 button actions become active (single, double & long press) Assign to all 3 buttons actions the same Action: “Volume +” Do the same for for the “Down Key” with the Action: “Volume –“ and you’re good to go… Now you can adjust the volume settings with the up and down key.
Most T199’s have the issue that when they have been idle for a while (depends from device to device, some 20 min, some 4 hours) the PTT gives an error when pressing it.
It seems that the device gets out of its selected channel and goes back to the channel overview window (which you can’t see obviously). So when you press the PPT button Zello doesn’t know on what channel it should broadcast on, hence the error sound.
We found a solution for that by disabling every type of screen security on the T199. Configuration can be found in the link below.
If you have this issue and it’s not solved with the configuration described, please let us know. Please make sure that your device is configured exactly like in the manual, this way we can exclude other errors. Thnx!
Today we finally implemented the TM-7 plus in the interior roof console of my pick-up truck. There were a few things that I was worried about: First thing was if the roofconsole fitted the interior of my car, that sorted itself out after a quick fit. Next to that I was happy to see that the format of the TM-7 plus is DIN standard and just slides in the radio compartment as if it was made for it. That was already one thing less to worry about.
Also I was a bit worried for letting my car in the city with the Radio in plain sight. The radio is firmly fixed in the slide but can easily pulled out. We connected a special connector in the wiring that I could disconnect with 1 click en take it all out. Also I can use this to do updates or maintenance behind my computer
The last thing I worried about was something we discussed on the Zello Radio Benelux Channel, and that was how to wire the radio: before or after the ignition. Before meant that it would be always on because the TM-7 plus has no power of button (it just reboots.) Behind the ignition contact would mean that every time you turn the contact of it has to boot when you turn the ignition key on again and the TM-7 plus takes a while to boot! This is no problem if your trips last 900 miles and you don’t plan to stop for the first 450 miles. But if you’re going for groceries, it’s a whole different story!
Luckily our good friend Martin – PD0KHN, member on Zello Radio Benelux, came up with a logical solution. He suggested to wire the radio directly to the car battery and put a switch in between. The radio use will not be interfered by the state of the ignition being “on” or “of”. I discussed that idea with NR001 and some other folks on ZRB and we all agreed that this was the best solution. This is how we implemented it:
We all know that the TM-7 plus and ButtonMapper don’t have a perfect marriage. Being able to adjust the volume in the car in a safe way is very important. You can optimise the volume functionality in two ways:
2. You can map the up and down arrows to volume up and down in ButtonMapper. Important is that you map all three options (single, double & long press) to the specific function of that button. (If some one needs help with that let me know, I’ll write a short tutorial.)
Anyway. Happy me! It feels a lot better handeling this mic in the car. The speaker is next to my head so the volume doesn’t have to be loud. I don’t have to take all gear in and out every time I leave at home (I have aT320 in the bag but that is switched on when necessary when i’m out of the car.)
If you have any questions or improvements feel free to share in the comments.
Some (crazy) people (like me) still use their Network Radio as a regular telephone: use the dial pad to give mom a call or in my case I leave my smartphone at home during hikes and just take the radio with me and use it as and emergency backup if necessary.
Or hide contacts away from apps stealing your contacts information Even though we are not having any problem sharing our mobile number with all third parties, people in our phone book might have.
On my Inrico T320 the dialpad is still active, so when I press “4” on my keypad, the dialer opens and displays “4”. Pretty annoying. especially because this often happens by accident.
There’s a work around for both problems listed above:
1. Disable your phone Dialer (Contacts & Messaging)
Settings –> apps –> show system apps –>Phone –> disable
2. Install Open Contacts:
the APK can be found here. After installing you wil be ask to grant permission for app overlay 2 times, just accept it. In my case the connection with Vysor disconnected, but was resored after a USB reconnect.
Manually add your contacts or import from vCard files.
Open Contacts – Developer Description Hide contacts away from apps stealing your contacts information Even though we are not having any problem sharing our mobile number with all third parties, people in our phone book might have. We should not be sharing their contact information online. So, keep your contacts safe in a different database. This app saves contacts in its own database seperate from android contacts. This way no other app would be able to access contacts. Can be used in place of your default phone(dialer) app. It can import contacts from vCard files. So we can export Android contacts and import into this app. Maintains call log as well coz Android call log app would not be able to show name of contact. Also shows the person’s name upon recieving call
We encounterd a small issue with the Inrico T199 (and probably other screenless devices)
When your screenless device is powered on but idle it might happen that when you push the PTT button nothing happens or if you configured it like below you will hear 3 beeps (meaning error). That’s because Zello changed from specific channel to a default mode. The only thing you have to do is turn your channel knob back and forward to your chosen channel and it wil work again. We are looking for a permanent solution but this is a nice quick fix.
I’ve update this in the manual section “How to configure a screenless device”.
On mobile devices you can map the P1/2/3/4 buttons to go to a channel/contact in Zello with Button Mapper. In theory you can map any hardware button to a channel or contact except for buttons that are preoccupied by the Zello app: SOS-button, PPT , … If you still use your dialer, make sure you map the long press key and not the single press key.
Rename the channels you want to add to 01, 02 and so on …
Add the buttons in Button Mapper and for every button add the Action: “Broadcast Intent” to single tap (for CH 05 to 08 use long press)
In the field “action” add “com.dfl.knob” (without the brackets)
in the field “key:value” add “frequencyNum:XX” where XX is the number of the channel(01, 02…)
save and try
Warning: This only works in the donation version!!!
This also works with other numbers, so if you have allready setup different numbering on your account you can also map “03 ZRB to P2” or “16 Mom to P4” If you want to use the “single press” on the P1, you should config the “long press” on P1 identical to the “short press.” Otherwise it will not work with “short press” We don’t know why but that’s the work around we found 😉