The VK3RWN B  70cm UHF D-Star Repeater is set to be re-installed tomorrow on May 8th.   The repeater has been repaired by Icom Australia and will be re-installed by the Victorian D-Star Users Group  repeater manager Steve Reining VK3UJ. Steve reported that the faults repaired were heat related, a few dry joints etc  Steve said while VK3RWN C is the more popular repeater with locals, VK3RWN B was host to many popular nets that are programmed  to connect. For example the Sunday Night REF 1C net, ran by Connie KB0ZSG, this runs for hours on late Monday morning, and very popular with Hams all over Australia. Steve spoke to me tonight by phone,  saying he has bench checked the receiver  …and its hot…hearing data at  -127db. The transmitter is outputting 25 watts at 438.300  It will be interesting to see how it runs tomorrow night after installation   Why not tune to VK3RWN B and check it out.

The Victorian D-Star Users Group would like to thank Icom Australia, Bob Rogers of JRD Communications & Steve Reining of Westcomm for their assistance to the Victorian D-Star Users Group.

ID-RP 4000 U 70cm D-Star Repeater

A group of D-Star enthusiasts in Gippsland are forging the way ahead with D-Star and its becoming a reality for Amateur Radio operators in the Latrobe Valley Victoria

Brian VK3BBB,  Barry  VK3BDG and Gordon VK3NUG have been running hotspots in Morwell, Traralgon and Rosedale , with next step an elevated hotspot.

The boys have been looking for real estate to install the  hotspot that will service the Latrobe Valley

The big news is that  I have been informed that a D-Star Hotspot was installed at an elevated location looking over the valley recently

The Callsign is  VK3BBB B     Frequency is 438.9oo Mhz     No Offset

The hotspot has a permalink to Reflector 30C  (REF030C) for those with DVAPs,  Dongles, and other D-Star Homebrew systems

This will enable Hams from all over the world to drop in chat to Gippsland Hams and vice a versa…its all fun on D-Star

If you’re travelling and / or staying in the Latrobe  Valley  please send your location, and signal report in to us at the website

by emailing Peter    vk3tq@bigpond.com and we will forward them on

We will keep you updated with the progress in the Valley  Good Luck Fella’s and thanks for your work

Disable App Nap Feature

In OS X Mavericks, Apple introduced a new feature called App Nap. This feature was designed to cut CPU and other computer resources to power-hungry applications when those applications are not currently in use.

It’s one of several OS X features that has helped increase the battery life on Mac portables, but unfortunately, this feature isn’t without downsides. If you’re noticing that applications like DVTools don’t complete their tasks in a reasonable amount of time, or better still crash. then it could be due to resources for those apps being cut when they are backgrounded or left unattended. Following this guide will show you how to disable App Nap when theses issues arise.

f you’re noticing that only one application is having difficulties with App Nap, then you can easily disable it by locating the application in question and pressing Command + I (or choose “Get Info” from the contextual menu). In the Get Info window, check the option to “Prevent App Nap” and you’re done. App Nap will no longer affect DV Tool.   (Not all applications offer this option, but DV Tools does.)

f issues still persist with your applications and App Nap, or you don’t worry about system resources being utilized resulting in battery life issues (such as on a desktop Mac), then you may want to disable App Nap system wide on your Mac.

To disable App Nap on your Mac completely, simply open the Terminal application (located in /Applications/Utilities) and type in the following command followed by the enter key:

  defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSAppSleepDisabled -bool YES

To completely disable this feature, you will need to log out of your account, then restart your Mac.   Thanks to Erwin VK3ERW for his kind assistance with this problem , that was giving me grief for a short time over Christmas    With a 16Gb iMac had me stumped but gave the Mac hell and DVAP kept crashing   After APP NAP was shut down, DV Tools never  hiccups and stays on for WEEKS.                Job Done        Thanks Erwin  Peter VK3TQ