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D-STAR Repeater progress

W9WDX B/ IS ALIVE!!!

Now it just needs a signal so I don't have to turn on my amp and set off the neighbor's house alarm (again).

Me - "What happened??" (said like Chris Farley after knocking the door off of David Spade's Charger)
:whistle:
 
I Bet you thought..
This All would be a 2/3 week Process..

Is there Light at the end of the Tunnel Yet ?
I use on occasion the ID-1 & IC-91AD DStar units.

DStar is good once you get it figured out.
Though it can be hard to get figured out..

LOL
 
KingCobra_CDX882 said:
Is there Light at the end of the Tunnel Yet ?
Click to expand...

We're in the light... I just had a QSO with London on it using the 001C reflector.

I'd say it's time to put together a D-Star net!

Quick programming note... With W9WDX being a 5 digit call, you need to leave TWO spaces before the "B". W9WDX<space><space>B Common programming mistake...
 
The repeater is working great!

Thanks to Randy, WB0VHB who got the GM300's tuned up, which was the primary problem all along. They were off frequency enough that any D-Star signal could not be decoded. He also fixed the power-on issue - it was a pico fuse that was blown. To top it off, he was kind enough to redo my sloppy wire harness that goes between the radios and the Star*Board.

The repeater is now working on a local test pair, competing with a bunch of other stations running on the same test pair, lol. I'm using the WinDV software and can connect to any Icom or non-Icom reflector! Remote repeater and reflector control is working properly also.

I'm slowly mapping out the HT coverage of this low level repeater, and will share results as I have them.

I'll start a new thread showing off the pics of the repeater and go over the details on how it works. BTW, this Star*Board is really a neat way to get your own D-Star hotspot in place if you already have a VHF/UHF radio.
 
General Update

Here are a few updates to the original plan for the repeater and where it stands today.


  • Originally we were going to join the LA-IRC DStar system because I was under the impression that we needed to have access to an existing G2 Gateway to connect a home brew DStar repeater to the rest of the system. As I learned more about the available software for non-Icom systems, I found that this was unnecessary. The W9WDX repeater can connect to any existing reflector and any other gateway that allows direct linking.
  • The repeater is currently operating on a "test" frequency pair where it will stay until we receive coordination. I've identified a frequency pair that will work fine (closest repeater is outside W9WDX coverage area) but receiving authorization to operate there could take a while. There are a lot of local ham "politics" surrounding the 440 band coordination in Southern California, so we wait.
  • I haven't found the need to purchase a remote shut-off power strip (they're about $100) because I can shut down or reboot the repeater using DTMF or shut down the repeater software using PC remote control.
Basically, the home-brew D-Star repeater is working great covering the intended area. I expect that usage will be relatively low while it's existence spreads by word of mouth. When we receive coordination, it will be published, which should greatly increase usage by local DStar users.
 
DPRS

This past weekend I got DPRS working on the D-Star repeater! I had been trying for months to get this working and a bug report I sent to the WinDV developer helped pinpoint the problem. In a nutshell, if you want to activate DPRS on one of these homebrew repeaters, make sure you generate your APRS passcode using an UPPER CASE callsign. It made the difference between working and not working!

Not only does the repeater show up on the APRS system, any user transmitting DPRS info using DV-A mode will also be gated to APRS. Pretty cool!
 
As usual I am late to this party, but just an FYI I am also building a 440 Repeater for DStar. I am using a Kenwood TKR-820 for the repeater, the same card as you but I am using a Raspberry Pi for the computer running Linux. I'll make a post when I get it done and maybe we can link the systems for a net.

Craig, W1MSG
 
W1MSG said:
As usual I am late to this party, but just an FYI I am also building a 440 Repeater for DStar. I am using a Kenwood TKR-820 for the repeater, the same card as you but I am using a Raspberry Pi for the computer running Linux. I'll make a post when I get it done and maybe we can link the systems for a net.

Craig, W1MSG
Click to expand...

We're going to put up an XReflector running on a raspberry pi soon that the repeater will be connected to. There are only a couple of us using the repeater right now, but once you get yours up, let's set up a sked to try them all out.

Cool - two repeaters means we will soon be a "system" lol.
 
OK, so I'm not too sure about how to work D*Star. I need to figure out what call signs to program into my Icom 880 so I can connect and actually talk to someone with D*Star. What are the call signs to connect to W9WDX?
 
Well right now I am having some issues with the TKR-820. Could need a tuning and alignment but not sure.

Call sign for the repeater is KC1ACI, it is already registered with ircDDB now just waiting on the gateway registrations, then you should be able to link to it.

Link commands look like this KC1ACIBL after linking you can change back to CQCQCQ .. Just remember it will be the call sign, then 7th position will be band and 8th position will be L for link or U for unlink ..

73, Craig
 
One thing to note about these home brew D-Star repeaters is that there is not a way to link directly to them unless they are using the new StarNet functionality. As a result, the easiest way for several home brew D-Star repeaters to link is to do it through a reflector.

I'm almost finished configuring an XReflector running on a Raspberry Pi computer which we can all use to connect and communicate through with both the home brew repeaters and dongles. The plan is to have the W9WDX repeater connect to this XReflector by default unless a repeater user wants to connect to another temporarily. After an idle period, the repeater will connect back to the home XReflector.

I've called the new XReflector "XRFWDX" (hopefully they will let me keep this unconventional name ;) ). It will soon have it's permanent home after which I should be able to register it for everyone to use.
 
Was the D Star up today ?? Tried to link a few times. I was having issues on my side learning the ID-31 .. I have the Moencomm board and I can connect to Repeaters and reflectors no problems at all..

Craig

Let me know if we can schedule some testing time..
 

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