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Reviews For: Nano-Spot

Category: Interfaces, Radio to computer, amp, rotor, coax switch, internet

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Review Summary For : Nano-Spot
Reviews: 7MSRP: 299
Description:
Micro-Node.com's D-STAR, C4FM, DMR, C4FM-to-DMR and P25 hot
spot. Uses Pi-Star software and has WiFi and a 440MHz radio
built in.
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.micro-node.com/index.shtml
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0073.6
K7NG Rating: 2022-09-12
Excellent piece of hardware Time Owned: more than 12 months.
My intent in getting a Nano-Spot is for mobile use. There aren't any DMR or D-Star repeaters nearby so using my 4G phone as a Wi-Fi hotspot and connecting the Nano-Spot to the world via LTE will do as a substitute.

The Nano-Spot is a very small, very nicely arranged, rugged box... It contains a MMDVM, a Pi-Zero clone, and associated support circuitry. Pi-Star is the operating application. It runs off 12V and the folks at Micro-Node told me the box is intended to work off vehicle power so just fabricating or buying an appropriate car power socket to the coaxial power jack on the Nano-Spot should get it powered for you. It comes with an AC wall-wart and a 5V to 12V converter cord that plugs into a suitable USB port of a PC or in your vehicle, if you have USB's, but no car power cord.

The manual is essentially a Pi-Star startup guide. If you follow the manual precisely you should have no trouble at all getting the Nano-Spot up and running in a short time. Here is the hitch, and what follows is not in any way denigrating the Nano-Spot but is a cautionary tale.
I had been playing with the Nano-Spot in my house, enjoying both D-Star and DMR operation, and being impressed with how easy it was to make changes to the Nano-Spot configuration via Pi-Star. I had made a change necessitating an upload from my PC to the Nano-Spot and during the upload, my Wi-Fi network hiccupped... The Nano-Spot never came out of the upload mode and I wasn't able to get it to pass traffic any longer, though I did manage to get back to the Pi-Star window on my PC with a power-off restart. Because nothing was working like it had just a few minutes before, and being an old-school guy... "When in doubt, do a factory reset and start over"... *** DON'T DO THAT!*** It wasn't apparent to me that the Nano-Spot does not arrive in 'factory default' condition. It has been soft-configured so that it WILL start up easily, and by doing the full reset, I put myself in a situation I could not recover from.
A phone call to Micro-Node, and a half-hour of their valuable time got me back to where I wanted to be. (This also speaks well of their customer support).

IMHO (I say again: IMHO) the manual (available online, printed copy doesn't come with the unit) really should orient the user beyond the (excellent) startup guide level. Had there been a little more information available to me I might not have had to make that call to MicroNode. Similarly, unless you spend hours digging around the Web, there isn't a peep from the manufacturer about what supply voltage the Nano-Spot uses, nor how much current it draws, or even what size of power socket it has.

The unit itself it superb, if a little pricey. I would recommend it, and in fact will probably buy another one.
------------------------------------------------------
2022 review update:
Micro-Node has ceased operations and the owner apparently cannot be contacted.

When Pi-Star 4.0 came out, the Nano-Spot had problems working properly so it was necessary to stick with 3.x. As much as I liked the little Nano-Spot, time and technology has moved on, so my Nano-Spot now gathers dust. Perhaps there will be a way to revive it someday.
VA7DGP Rating: 2020-08-03
Love it. I've used from the first day I got it. Time Owned: more than 12 months.
This Nano-Spot device runs 24/7. It's been dropped from its birch while I route around for coax and wires for my radios. This thing is still ticking
VE3RD Rating: 2020-07-27
Nano-Spot No Longer Supported Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have had a Micro-Node Nano-Spot for a couple of years. It was my first hotspot of 4 and was very impressed with it. The main reason I got it was that it was the first available with built in wifi and it ran on 8-16vdc

I have since added a simplex jumbo spot, a duplex jumbo spot, and a TGIFSPOT

I have it running on pi-star 3.4.17 and it can not now upgraded to 4.1.2 with my others. The dashboard is current at 20200706

It is a very stable system and I still love it, even though it can no longer be upgraded.
K2EPM Rating: 2020-03-21
Can't get it to work Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
Looks like a great product, You Tube videos looked great, never got it to work....hard to set up for newbies... now they went out of business.
W5GNB Rating: 2018-09-04
It WORKS ~~ Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
This little box works Great for D-Star and DMR which I have primarily used it for. Very nicely built and compact. It is a bit complicated for the first time user to get the wireless internet address installed but if you follow the instructions Closely, you should be OK... Phone support was EXCELLENT ~~~~
A bit Pricey at $299 but what the heck, you can't take it with you !!
KA9CQL Rating: 2018-04-10
Decent, Just Works! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Just like Drano(tm), "it just works". You're not going to find much about the device on the Internet, other than how to order it. The GUI is open source, the configuration is "complicated", and no one has a guide to what it all means.

On the plus side, it's small, handy, and simply works to connect you to the DMR, YSF or D-Star (or all!) network of your chosing, provided you understand exactly what you need to tell it.

If you don't know, then you're probably not going to get it to work without a few support emails.
K9OJ Rating: 2018-04-05
Update to My Nano-Spot Review Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I have been using the Nano-Spot with Yaesu System Fusion (YSF), D-STAR, DMR and P25 for a couple of weeks now. It works great but I'm concerned over the lack of kernel and MMDVM firmware updates.

The Nano-Spot uses custom kernel and MMDVM firmware. It's been stuck on Linux kernel 3.4.13 and MMDVM 1.0.0 while my generic Jumbo Spot is running 4.9.35 and 1.3.3. Supposedly Micro-Node.com is going to release updates but I can't get an email confirmation from them. Just something to consider when looking at the $299 Nano-Spot.