D-Star For Beginners (2nd Edition): Amateur Radio for Beginners, #2

By Brian Schell

A Practical, What-You-Need-to-Know Guide to Getting on D-Star.

 

D-Star is a powerful system for linking the worlds of amateur radio and the Internet. You can link your handheld radio to repeaters, individuals, or reflectors located anywhere in the world, quickly and easily. And because it's all digital, you get crystal-clear, digital sound. The book covers the setup and use of four different D-Star hardware configurations:

 

    •    DV-Dongle: A small device that lets you access the entire D-Star network from your computer. No radio is required.
    •    Icom IC-92AD Radio: A small handheld radio that is very common. The setup for most Icom radios is very similar to this, so if you have another Icom, it's easy to adapt these instructions.
    •    Icom IC-ID5100A Radio: Icom's newest (as of this writing) Mobile D-Star radio. With touchscreen input, GPS, and a repeater/reflector database, this radio is a completely new way to program your radio.
    •    DVAP: A device that combines all the other methods. Use your handheld radio to transmit to a small device on your computer that encodes your digital radio signal and transmits it through the Internet.

 

Inside you'll find step-by-step tutorials on how use your radio or dongle to:

    •    Use RT System's programming software to program the IC-92AD radio (CHIRP is similar)
    •    Use the included software and tools to program the ID5100A Radio
    •    Connect with the optional D-RATS software to send files and text messages through a computer interface
    •    Connect to local D-Star Repeaters
    •    Connect to Reflectors
    •    Link to distant repeaters
    •    Link to individuals without knowing their location
    •    Use various online tools to find frequencies, command strings, Nets, and more!

 

New in this Second Edition, Updated for 2015, you'll find: A chapter for Icom's new IC-ID5100A radio, which touch-screen programming and an internal repeater database. D-Star has never been easier! All the other chapters have been revised and expanded upon. Also new is an updated list of current reflectors, modules, and their uses.

 

This short book gives you a simple step-by-step walkthrough of all the options to set up your D-Star station using dozens of screenshots and examples. The whole process is detailed, from registering your call sign with the D-Star network to installing the DVAP or DV-Dongle software on your PC or Mac and making your first calls to individuals, ham repeaters, or reflectors.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brian Schell
• Release date: Apr 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781513047157

Brian Schell

Brian Schell is a College English Instructor who has an extensive background in Buddhism and other world religions. After spending time in Japan, he returned to America where he created the immensely popular website, Daily Buddhism. For the next several years, Schell wrote extensively on applying Buddhism to real-world topics such as War, Drugs, Tattoos, Sex, Relationships, Pet Food and yes, even Horror Movies. Twitter: @BrianSchell Facebook: http://www.Facebook.com/Brian.Schell Web: http://BrianSchell.com

Book preview

D-Star for Beginners 2nd Edition

D-Star for Beginners 2nd Edition

Brian Schell

Blue House Books

D-STAR FOR BEGINNERS

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Copyright 2015-2018 by Brian Schell. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or any portion of it in any form.

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Written and designed by: Brian Schell

[e-mail]

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Version Date: July 18, 2018.

ISBN: 1511415096

ISBN-13: 978-1511415095

Printed in the USA of America

Contents

Foreword to the Second Edition

What is D-Star?

Essentials of Using D-Star

D-Star with a Computer: DV-Dongle

Using D-Star with the Icom IC-92AD

Using D-Star with the Icom IC-ID5100A

Using D-Star with the DVAP

Raspberry Pi Interfacing

Going Forward with D-Star

Appendix A: D-Star Self-Registration

Appendix B: List of Reflectors

About the Author

Stay Up To Date!

Help Me!

Also by Brian Schell

Foreword to the Second Edition

D-Star in itself hasn’t changed since last year. It’s still an immensely popular system for ham radio operators to talk to other hams worldwide without learning code or buying huge antennas. It’s fun, it’s social, and it’s easy to use once it’s set up. As the previous edition of the book demonstrated, it’s not always easy to set a radio up for D-Star. Actually, it used to be a fairly complex procedure that made it difficult to get started. The latter half of 2014 saw the introduction of new Icom radios that vastly simplified programming and setup, making it much easier to get started.

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Second Edition Notes:

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The sections on the DV-Dongle and DVAP, other than minor editing, have not changed much. Other than the brief DVAP section on Raspberry Pi, there hasn’t been much development with these two products.

The section on the Icom IC-92AD has been revised and mostly rewritten for clarity and more examples. Sometime between the publication of the previous edition and this one, Icom has discontinued the 92AD. They are still widely available and very popular, so I have not removed the section; several of the older Icom radios use the same procedure for programming, so it still has value. Future editions will probably see at least the addition of one of the newer Icom handhelds.

I have added an entirely new section on the Icom 5100A radios. This far more modern radio is going to be the face of the future for D-Star. With a large touch screen, pre-programmed database, memories accessible by SD card, and included programming software, this new radio is quite a bit easier and more powerful than the previous generations.

And remember, the whole point of the book is to get you up and running quickly by eliminating the technical jargon and information you don’t need to begin. There’s a seemingly endless amount of technology and number of protocols and standards involved with the hardware and repeater side of D-Star, and we’re going to ignore a lot of that here. The book isn’t about setting up your own repeater; it’s about setting up your personal radio or computer. Once you’re connecting and talking on the repeaters, reflectors, and with other D-Star users, you’ll find that there’s still a lot more you can research and learn about D-Star that isn’t included here.

Enjoy learning it all, and I’ll talk to you on D-Star.

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Brian Schell, KD8OTD

[e-mail]

What is D-Star?

D-STAR (Digital Smart Technologies for Amateur Radio) is an FDMA and GMSK digital voice and data protocol specification developed in the late 1990s as the result of research by the Japan Amateur Radio League to investigate digital technologies for amateur radio. - Wikipedia

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That’s a mouthful. Basically, it’s a way of merging amateur radio and the Internet to allow a form of digital communications.

The beauty of D-Star is that it allows this communications in several ways:

Radio Only. You can use your handheld radio to connect with a local repeater that is D-Star enabled, and then use that link to talk to people elsewhere in the world.

DVAP. With a DVAP, you can plug a little dongle into your computer. Then you can use your own local handheld or base radio to transmit to the computer, which takes your voice and transfers it over the Internet to other repeaters, reflectors, and users. This is essentially the same thing as the previous option, but this works if there is no local repeater in your area.

DV-Dongle. Another very popular use of D-Star is to just plug a dongle and a microphone into your PC and talk to hams around the world through the Internet. This is very similar to using Skype or another VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) system, as no