[Dstar] D-Star Simplex

[Dave Ingram]

Hi All,

There seems to be quite a lot of discussion about the D-Star
infrastructure around the place. I for one use the repeaters rarely
since coverage is not so good at home in Brisbane (a colinear gets into
VK4RWN C fine though), but I was impressed at the 2m and 70cm coverage
around Adelaide. Some good hills make a difference. Callsign routing is
pretty nice too as an example of sophisticated switching.

I've tried to have more fun working D-Star simplex across Brisbane,
especially with D-RATS. When it comes to message passing I've found that
the repeater turn around is too slow. VK4EA and I have managed to pass
formal messages in the Queensland SES standard form (a custom one that I
made for D-RATS) for proof of principle.

My interesting in ham radio is more the 'emergency' or ad-hoc comms that
don't rely on infrastructure. I think that D-Star still has a role to
play here, along with other digital modes over HF & VHF.

I'm quite prepared to leave my IC92 on the 2m DV calling freq most
nights, so if you want to have a chat or try d-rats then please put a
call out. There's more to ham radio than just repeaters, so give simplex
a go sometime too!


Cheers,
    Dave, VK4TDI