A foldable bluetooth sidekick

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

Implementing the TM-7 plus in a roof console

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:

1. Uninstall ButtonMapper: Then your volume knob will work just fine. But you loose the ability to quickly change channels and contacts with your Program Buttons (see How to map speed dials to channels and contacts in Button mapper.)

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.

How to map speed dials to channels and contacts in Button mapper.

Tip by Phil – NROO1

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 😉