D-Star

D-Star

W5ZDN D-Star 146.98–
(located in north Waco, TX)
Gateway Status		Register to use the
W5ZDN D-Star Gateway		Listing of
D-Star Reflector Nets
(SORRY! Gateway is not available at this time.)

D-Star Live Event
March 11, 2017
Watch Part 1 (2:57:34)
Watch Part 2 (1:08:37)

What is D-Star? Have you ever thought about how cool it would be to access the Internet from your ham radio? Or have you ever wondered if you could communicate with a friend in another city or country using a simple handheld radio? Or send a simple text message via ham radio, or know the call sign of who is on the air right now? The D-Star system is a digital system with all of those capabilities! With a D-Star capable radio you can readily do these things without using a tricky gadget or complicated facilities.
D-Star uses graphic from ICOMOur D-Star Repeater
(Click images for larger versions.)
In the rack are mounted the ID-RP2C repeater controller (top), the ID-RP2000V 2m repeater (middle), transmitting about 25 watts, and an Astron 20A power supply (bottom) providing 12VDC power.The duplexer was tuned by NU5D Steve Bosshard to 146.98/146.38 MHz. These “cans” allow the repeater to “separate” the incoming and outgoing signals, as in any repeater system.The D-Star repeater antenna is a Diamond CP22E, fed with RG-8U coax and initially installed atop this 80-ft tower, shown above visible on the top-left side of the tower in this photo. It has since been relocated to another tower near the Waco campus of Texas State Technical College (TSTC).

Our D-Star Gateway is Running!!

The W5ZDN D-Star gateway is now operational at its permanent location just north of Waco. Anyone registered on the gateway can now talk to other gateway repeaters across the globe. You can go to

https://w5zdn.dstargateway.org

and get an up-to-the-minute report on:

  • Recent check-ins on the system;
  • Reflectors our modules are connected to (we now only have the C Module which is 2M); and
  • Dongles currently connected to the gateway.

The D-Star Calculator is a great page to get the configurations settings for your radio. For example, to link the new W5ZDN repeater to the W5HAT repeater:

  1. For the source (input) repeater pick Texas, Waco W5ZDN and choose the 146.9800 (Port C) module.
  2. For the destination (output) repeater pick Texas, Bruceville W5HAT and choose the 440.6250 (Port B) module

The D-Star Calculator will provide you the radio configuration settings. For example…

Programming for linking W5ZDN Port C to repeater W5HAT Port B
  YOUR: W5HAT^^B
  RPT1: W5ZDN^^C
  RPT2: W5ZDN^^G
  Set Radio To: 146.98000 Offset -0.6000 Mhz
(Note:” ^ ” denotes a space character.)

In this example, you can then use the W5ZDN 2m D-Star repeater to talk to someone via the W5HAT 70cm repeater. Of course, with the power of D-Star, it’s more likely that you want to talk to someone farther away than the W5HAT repeater. The calculator will help you connect to any other repeater in the world that’s also connected to a D-Star gateway!

Also note that the DPRS (Digital Position Reporting System) feature that operates similar to APRS—just over the D-Star network. For example, visit the jFindu Locator to locate our W5ZDN D-Star repeater and see a list of those who have used it.

W5ZDN D-Star links:

Other D-Star links: