[Dstar] Some guidance please

[Tony Langdon]

At 09:33 AM 9/9/2009, you wrote:

>Living in FNQ and not having, nor expecting to ever have, access to a D-Star
>repeater has caused me to look at alternatives.
>
>Am I correct in believing that if I obtain a DV-Dongle I can connect it to
>my PC (which has an ADSL connection) with the appropriate software and also
>somehow connect my non-D-Star VHF transceiver to provide an access point for
>a D-Star transceiver? And if so I can then use a D-Star transceiver to

No, the DV Dongle is basically an AMBE vocoder that attaches to your 
PC.  It's most common use is to access the D-STAR network from a PC, 
using the software that can be downloaded for the Dongle.

>access the D-Star network via this access point (conceptually similar to the
>IRLP node I used to run)?

No.  FOr this, you need a totally different piece of hardware, namely 
a Node Adapter, which connects to an FM radio (most with a 9600 
packet port will work), to provide an area of D-STAR connectivity 
(actually, DPlus, not full G2 routing).  However, David Lake G4ULF is 
working on software that can be used with the node adapter hardware 
to create a full blown D-STAR gateway (at a fraction of the 
cost!).  That software is currently undergoing extensive and detailed 
beta testing on a gateway in the UK.


>And I can then make that available to hams in the area to also access the
>D-Star network if they have a D-Star transceiver?
>
>Or am I barking up the wrong tree...

Best place to go is the following Yahoo group.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gmsk_node_adapter .

This group deals with the hardware that can be used to create what 
you're looking for.

73 de VK3JED / VK3IRL
http://vkradio.com