Pi-Star, WPSD or DVMega: what to choose for DMRhub

Chats are full of questions like "which is better — Pi-Star, WPSD or DVMega?". The wording itself is misleading: these are things from different layers. Pi-Star and WPSD are hotspot software (a ready-made OS image for the Raspberry Pi). DVMega is a brand of radio modem, that is, the hardware that actually transmits over the air. Putting them in the same line-up is like asking "which is better: Windows, Linux or a sound card?". Let's lay it all out and tie it straight to DMRhub practice.

Two different layers: the modem and the hotspot OS

Any personal hotspot is a "sandwich" of two parts:

• The radio modem — a small board with a transceiver that turns a digital stream into a radio signal and back. This includes MMDVM_HS boards, ZUMspot and DVMega. This is hardware.
• The hotspot OS — a system on a single-board computer (most often a Raspberry Pi) that controls the modem, runs the dashboard and connects to the network over the internet. This is Pi-Star and WPSD. This is software.

In other words, the same DVMega modem runs under Pi-Star or WPSD. They are not competitors with one another, but adjacent floors of the same structure.

DVMega: what kind of hardware is it

DVMega is a Dutch brand of radio modems. The classic board has two key components inside: a GMSK modem on a CMX589 chip and an ATmega microcontroller that talks to the single-board computer. It supports D-STAR, DMR, YSF (C4FM), P25 and NXDN; the typical output power of the hotspot version is around 10 mW. There are single- and dual-band versions, as well as shields for the Arduino.

One important nuance: the DVMega architecture (a dedicated modem chip + ATmega) differs from the more common boards today — MMDVM_HS / ZUMspot — where everything runs on an STM32F103 microcontroller with MMDVM firmware. Both designs produce a working hotspot; they are simply different engineering approaches. For DMRhub there is no fundamental difference — the board just needs to be detected correctly by the system.

What DVMega works with

• Raspberry Pi + Pi-Star or WPSD — the most common scenario: the modem sits on the GPIO or in USB, and the board type is selected in the system settings.
• BlueDV (Android/Windows) — DVMega can also be run without a full hotspot OS, via the BlueDV app (over Bluetooth with the BlueStack stack, or over the network through ser2net).

Remember this as a marker of competence: if someone says "I installed DVMega instead of Pi-Star", they are confusing something. DVMega is installed together with Pi-Star/WPSD, not instead of it.

Pi-Star: the veteran of the genre

Pi-Star is historically the best-known hotspot image. A huge user base, a mountain of guides, forums and videos. It supports DMR, D-STAR, YSF, NXDN, P25 and cross-mode bridges. It runs fine even on weak hardware such as the Pi Zero W — that is still its strong point for compact and portable builds.

The downside is the pace of development. Active development of Pi-Star has effectively stalled: there were no notable updates between February 2024 and March 2025. Since the spring of 2025 the project has shown signs of life, but the previous momentum is gone. For a static home hotspot this is not a death sentence — the image is stable and works for thousands of operators. But people no longer come here for new features.

WPSD: the active successor

WPSD (the W0CHP project) is a "next-gen" dashboard and distribution that grew out of Pi-Star's ideas. It supports all of Pi-Star's modes plus M17 and POCSAG paging. The main difference is the development model: WPSD is a rolling-release, meaning constant, frequent updates pushed "on the fly", without classic versioned releases (instead of release notes there is a built-in changelog).

• A modern responsive dashboard with a live activity panel and a real-time caller screen.
• Instant Mode Manager — pause modes on the fly (for example, mute D-STAR so it doesn't interrupt P25).
• For DMR it uses only DMRGateway — this is the standard way to keep several DMR networks running at once.
• It likes more powerful hardware: it shines best on a Pi 3/4 or x86, and on really weak boards it is heavier than the lightweight Pi-Star.

How this relates to DMRhub

DMRhub is its own DMR network with its own master server. Any of the platforms listed can connect to an arbitrary DMR master, which means to ours as well. The principle is always the same: in the DMR settings you enter the address of the DMRhub master, your private hotspot ID (from the 10,000,000+ block) and the password, select the modem type, set the Color Code and slot — and the hotspot appears on the network.

The difference is in the effort. On "plain" Pi-Star/WPSD this means manually configuring the dashboard: entering the master, ID, password and modes, getting the frequency and calibration right. Make a mistake in one field and there's no link — then you go hunting for the typo.

1. Flash the Raspberry Pi with an image (Pi-Star or WPSD).
2. Open the web dashboard and select the modem type (DVMega / MMDVM_HS / ZUMspot).
3. In the DMR section, enter the DMRhub master, hotspot ID and password.
4. Set the frequency, Color Code and slot, and calibrate if needed.