The north west coast of Tasmania is set to receive D-Star in the coming weeks. Aaron, VK7AGR has an Icom 70cm repeater and G2/3 gateway on test and is destined for Installation at Table Cape in the town of Wynyard. Final preparations are underway consisting of antennas and a 5.8GHz link to provide NBN internet to the gateway.

The repeaters callsign is VK7RAC and is licensed to operate on 438.700MHz, -7MHz split.   This repeater will be a welcome addition to Tasmania’s D-Star repeaters with VK7RCR in the Lenah Valley serving the south and VK7RAC serving the North, as well as connecting Tasmania to the mainland and the World Wide D-Star community.

News from Clayton Reading VK7ZCR.
Last month’s Miena Hamfest in the Central Highlands of Tasmania was a great success. Clayton setup a D-Star table and the interest was solid all day. 150 Keen Amateur Radio Operators attended the hamfest. Clayton was assisted by Ken Sulman VK7DY. They had D-Star on air via a DVAP system, They had equipment on show and played D-Star information Videos for eager customers. Well Done guys !
P.S. Clayton is the admin of VK7RCR, a D-Star repeater that runs near Hobart in the Lenah Valley

Alright, get your head out of the sand. Stop questioning why we should do one digital mode over the other. Multimode repeaters are here. It is with great excitement that we can announce the Mackay area multimode repeater is now operational. This really is a great achievement by all the volunteers who helped this get off the ground. We encourage all other clubs to follow a similar direction and put up a multimode repeater that can fulfil the needs of just about every digital voice mode there is. There really is no excuse to not put up a digital repeater. We have been mainly testing our repeater on DSTAR and P25, and by all reports it is working great. Our setup is using a Tait TB8100, and Odroid XU4, and MMDVM modem. We also have the added bonus of a DVRPTR v1 modem also connected to the Odroid CPU. The DVRPTR v1 runs a standalone 70cm repeater and our 2m frequency runs as a multimode repeater. The modes supported on our 2m repeater are DSTAR, P25, DMR, and YAESU C4FM.

147.075MHz +600KHz

rpt 1 VK4RSA C

rpt 2 VK4RSA  G

dashboard http://jordancreek.dyndns.org:82/

VK4RBX – The Knobby, Ipswich has now been upgraded to a mmdvm based multimode repeater. DSTAR, C4FM, p25 and DMR  are all supported. DSTAR allows connection to a reflector for 10mins before timeout disconnect.

VK4RBX  C          146.7875MHz             -600KHz

This repeater is not linked to the closed DMR MARC system. The DMR side is using brandmeister network. This network supports most DMR radio’s and allows remote DMR hotspots such as dv4mini’s to connect to the 4805 reflector.

http://vk4rbx.rfcomms.com.au:82/

The primary Australian D-Star Reflector, REF003c is off air and is being rebuilt.  Please re-adjust your devices to connect to REF023C. Our secondary Australian D-Star reflector.  Please check with your local repeater or node administrator if  REF023C has been permalinked if necessary.

REF023 C is working very well by all reports

It is with great sadness we announce the passing of John Hackett LA2QAA. John was a regular from Frei Is  Norway, on reflector 3C and the Thursday D-Star net.  Johns fun and sharp wit will be missed by all who knew him.

More information will be posted on vk3.dstar.net.au      The Victorian D-Star Users Group are in the process of contacting his family in Norway