Recently, the Victorian D-Star Users Group ran a D-Star Education Day in Woodend, Victoria last weekend The event was held at the Woodend RSL and was hosted by The Macedon Ranges Amateur Radio Club.
As a presenter at the event, I found very few had any D-Star experience so we had a good audience to “educate”. The RSL was well attended and MRARC put on a great BBQ Lunch
The presenters were Richard VK3JFK, Terry VK3BMX, Ian VK3FD and Myself
Richard VK3JFK presenting on callsign routing
The agenda included -: Theoretical and Practical Demonstrations of……..
- D-Star History
- Why D-Star was NEVER proprietry
- How D-Star Radios interpret digital signals (A-D)
- Callsign Routing
- Callsign Routing Next Gen (To & From)
- Station calling, General call, Repeater, gateway & reflector (G2, IrcDDB & FreeStar)
- D-Star Bandwidth
- D-Star Bandplans
- Practicals – D-Star equipment
- DV Dongles (USB PC/Mac Plug In) Giving you D-Star Access
- DVAP ( Digital Voice Access Points)
- D-Star Hotspot ( Looking at David VK3VCS B Hotspot)
- D-Star Repeaters (Looking at VK3RWW B/A)
- Mobile 3g/4g D-Star Hotspot in a small Pelican box from Ian VK3FD’s Landcruiser
Dave VK3VCS B Hotspot from Little River an Icom IC208 analog rig running 10w D-Star integration with a DVRPTR PCB and a Raspberry PI, and an Optus 4G Dongle, lower is Ian VK3FD’s Mobile Hotspot, gives him D-Star wherever a phone signal is, no need for repeaters !!!!
This was a full day of full on D-Star, most people who came in were very intrepid about D-Star, most who left were keen to give the mode a red hot go! Greg Keegan VK3POP President of Shepparton Club and Wayne Cooke VK3XF from Cranbourne Club, came along to see what this D-Star was all about and were basically blown away with the growth of the mode, the experimentation factor and the hardware and software development within D-Star especially in the last 3 years.
World wide their are over 2000+ D-Star repeaters and it is unquantifiable the number of personal hotspots, D-VAPS and Dongles their actually are. The number of D-Star Reflectors are growing monthly and the world wide number is again unquantifiable.
The one thing is that there will always be someone on D-Star to talk to ..
Honestly, I am a HF analog mobile enthusiast and that’s a great mode, so is D-Star , it brings radio amateurs together, all over the world , it brings experimentation, access and flexibility for all…
Thanks go to Peter VK3RV, Jim VK3KA, Graeme VK3NE, Gary VK3GSG and Anneliese VK3FUZY …… for the great help with lunch
Regards,
Peter Willmott VK3TQ VP Macedon Ranges ARC
