The BrandMeister Worldwide network is used by a lot of hams worldwide. With 45 Master Servers around the world, over 4,000 repeaters, and 13,000 hotspots connected at any one time, it is by any definition a large network. As the network continues to grow in size and use, it is important to know where to go for announcements and to get support. Hence this brief post.
General Information
The BrandMeister wiki pages are a great source of information. The BM US wiki page has been recently updated. This should be the first place a user goes when they have a question. All of the support avenues listed in this post are on the the BrandMeister US wiki page. Be sure to utilize this great resource.
Announcements
For announcements about server issues and updates related to the US Master servers, subscribe to the BrandMeister USA groups.io group. This is an announcements only group, so it would be ideal to set your subscription preferences to “Individual email” unless you check it often.
Account Support
For user account support (e.g., selfcare), the best place to ask questions and get help is the BrandMeister General Support Telegram group. Lots of system admins monitor this group and can answer questions about your account. When using this group, please make sure that your post includes your callsign and CCS7 ID. And please be respectful and patient. They get a lot of requests and do their best to help everyone to be able to use the network.
US Master Server Support
The best place to get support related directly to US Master Servers (3101, 3102, 3103) is in the BrandMeister USA User Group Telegram group. If you need help with your repeater or hotspot connection to a US master, this channel is where the US admins can help you.
Support Ticket Submission
To submit a ticket for general support, go to https://support.brandmeister.network/ When you submit a ticket, select the appropriate issue (e.g., account issue, bridge request, etc) so that the ticket gets routed to the right place. For specific information on US talkgroup requests, see the main wiki page. Note that no new 5 digit talkgroups are being created/named at this time. See the details under the “Creation of Talk Groups” header on the wiki page.
Summary
There are many places to seek support for using the BrandMeister network. You will notice that I did not mention any Facebook pages. Users should consider these deprecated for support purposes. There is just too much noise and not enough signal on Facebook. Use the options listed above. But first and foremost, read the wiki pages to see if you question can be answered there.
Thanks for reading!