[Dstar] DV Dongle

[Richard Hoskin]

Thanks for the positives on the DV Dongle Tony.

There are a few limitations with the dongle too.

The ones I have found so far are;

1) You need a decent speed broadband connection and reasonably fast PC to
use it. (It can suffer from latency like most VOIP)

2) It may not allow you to hear local RF communications on a D-Star repeater
as it is dependent on the configuration of the local RF users radio.

3) It does not allow you to hear local messages and announcements from the
repeaters Gateway.

4) It can cause problems and confusion for the operators on both RF and the
DV Dongle when both the RF operator and the DV Dongle operator and /or a
remote RF connected operator transmit at the same time. This will generally
cause the repeater to lock out for several minutes. In the case where you
have situation 2) and a DV Dongle operator transmitting at the same time it
can be very interesting for both parties. 

5) The DV-Dongle connections to the D-Star repeater sometimes (regularly?)
tends to drop out.

6) Connections to a D-Star Repeater from a DV Dongle are generally limited
to a small number due to the bandwidth requirements on the repeaters
broadband connection. The D-Star Repeater's primary use of it's broadband
connection is for Gateway database updates and local RF to remote RF
communications.

I've been testing the DV Dongle for a month or so now and found it a
reasonably good device however you need to be aware of it's limitations,
some of which I have mentioned above.

Cheers
Richard
VK3JFK

> -----Original Message-----
> From: dstar-bounces at lists.wia.org.au [mailto:dstar-
> bounces at lists.wia.org.au] On Behalf Of Tony Langdon
> Sent: Monday, 10 March 2008 12:12 PM
> To: Dstar Digital Radio Mail List; 'Dstar Digital Radio Mail List'
> Subject: RE: [Dstar] DV Dongle
> 
> At 11:20 AM 3/10/2008, vk2bzwestlakes wrote:
> >A week ago I placed a what I thought was silly reply to this enquiry
> hoping
> >some one would pick up and explain to those, who are nowhere near a D-
> Star
> >installation, WHAT A DV DONGLE IS AND DOES. I'm still waiting for the
> >experts to post a sensible reply.
> 
> Basically, a DV Dongle is a piece of hardware that plugs into a USB
> port and encodes and decodes AMBE formatted audio.  The DV Dongle
> also comes with a package that allows it to connect to suitably
> configured D-STAR gateways, allowing a user to work D-STAR users from
> their PC.
> 
> However, that is not all the DV Dongle can do.  With suitable
> software, it can be used to:
> 
> - Transmit/receive D-STAR using a 9600 bps capable radio (Rx only
> software exists)
> - Transmit/receive AOR DV (software for this haven't been written yet)
> - Add AMBE capabilities to other ham written software.
> 
>  From there, limited to one's imagination ;)
> 
> 73 de VK3JED
> http://vkradio.com
> 
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