Posts in Category: DVDongle

Dayton 2012 Wrap-up Report 

Posted by Admin Sunday, May 20, 2012 10:45:00 PM Categories: D-RATS D-STAR DVAP DVDongle Hamfests Presentations

 

Lots of excitement about D-STAR, that’s what happened at Dayton.

 

It started on Thursday evening at Marion’s Pizza with the Dayton Amateur Radio Club sponsoring a D-STAR gathering. There were a lot of people putting faces to call signs that we talked to on a regular basis.

 

On Friday morning, we started with the DSTAR InfoCon. 3 hours of D-STAR training for those new to D-STAR led by John WB4QDX. While John held class, Ed WA4YIH opened the DSTARInfo / Georgia D-STAR booth. As the doors opened, throngs of people swarmed the building and the D-STAR booths got busy. Aside from the Icom booth in the main hall, Icom’s D-STAR booth was manned by the Trust Server Team and Dan Smith of D-RATS fame. Georgia D-STAR presented the D-STAR Info booth with a number of helpers throughout the weekend, including Jim Moen of Star*Board fame.

 

Next door we had the Internet Labs booth with the DVDongle and DVAP.

 

New to Dayton was Newfield Design and their ProHam D-STAR repeater controller and Northwest Digital Radio with their UDR56K4 radio. Both of these groups exhibited their products. They are quite interesting and will help D-STAR to the next level.

 

The main D-STAR forum on Friday filled the largest forum room and a  number of great presentations, including my own “No More Programming” presentation that shows you how easy it is to program your radio with information from DSTARInfo, and then talks about the ID-31A that comes preprogrammed from the factory!!!!

 

On Thursday evening, as had D-STAR Across America with a full room of D-STAR lunatics, whoops, I meant enthusiasts. Ray Novak, Icom America’s General Manager gave a presentation on the history of D-STAR, the reason why many of the choices were made during the design process.

 

Ken Atkisson talked about DPlusMon and DPlusReport, two tools that are invaluable to repeater administrators and net controls. David Lake gave an update on his project and along with the US Trust Server Team, showed off a prototype repeater. Not too amazing, unless you saw it. A full D-STAR repeater, including the gateway computer in a form factor that would fit inside a shoe box! We also heard from a number of other speakers throughout the evening.

 

Now many of you may have heard the Yaesu was supposed to show a new digital radio at Dayton, and they did, the FT-1D. There wasn’t much fanfare behind it, and there’s still a lot of speculation about it. What reliable sources have determined is that it is a Tier 1 DMR radio. Tier 1 DMR radios are relatively new and not sold in the US. The Tier 1 DMR radio is currently being sold in Europe as a non-licensed device, similar to the FCC FRS service. An interesting aspect is that the speaker – mic has a camera embedded in it, to allow users to send pictures. Not much else is known about the radio.

 

The one thing that was the most obvious is that there is a continued, even renewed source of enthusiasm in D-STAR. The UDR56K4 is a new paradigm in radio. AA4RC teased us with some new items coming down the road. One of the most exciting was that there were a lot of areas, previously not covered by D-STAR that have just become or soon will be covered. There was a lot of chatter about additional things in the pipeline. There was a lot of behind-the-scenes discussions going on, some hopefully leading to better collaboration behind many of the developers of D-STAR.

 

And to top it off, we found out the ID-31A sold out rather early in the weekend, evidently people are really liking the “No programming” concept of the new radio which comes from the factory preloaded with the worldwide D-STAR repeaters.

 

So don’t wait until it’s too late, go ahead and start making your plans for next year, it’s going to be exciting!

 

Ed WA4YIH

 

D-STAR DAY 

Posted by Admin Wednesday, January 11, 2012 2:05:00 PM Categories: D-RATS D-STAR DVAP DVDongle Presentations

Saturday January 28, 2012 (9am - 4pm)
Radisson Park Inn Sharon Hotel - West Middlesex, PA

D-STAR Day will be held at the Radisson Park Inn Sharon hotel in West Middlesex, PA., on Saturday January 28th, 2012. Starting at 9 AM and finishing at 4 PM.

We believe about 100 hams will attend from the local area including Pittsburgh, Youngstown, Akron/Canton, Cleveland and Erie. D-STAR Day will include presentations from Icom and other D-STAR experts. If you want to learn more about D-STAR, this is your chance.

ICOM America is excited to attend D-STAR Day. Presenting will be ICOM Division Manager - Amateur and Receiver Products - Ray Novak, N9JA. Staff from DX Engineering and Superbertha.com will be in attendance as well!

In addition to Ray Novak, N9JA – here are some of the other attendees to D-STAR Day:

  • Founder of the Georgia Statewide D Star network and D-Rats expert – John Davis, WB4QDX
  • The inventor of the DV Dongle – Robin Cutshaw, AA4RC
  • ARRL Atlantic Division Director Bill Edgar, N3LLR
  • ARRL Western Pennsylvania Section Manager – John Rodgers, N3MSE

There will also be a “field trip” for all participants to nearby (1 mile away) Amateur Radio station K3LR

 

For more information http://www.dstarday.com/

HRO Atlanta Manufacturers Day 

Posted by Admin Saturday, December 3, 2011 10:48:00 AM Categories: D-RATS D-STAR DVAP DVDongle

This past Saturday was Ham Radio Outlet - Atlanta's Manufacturers Day. HRO had representatives from many manufactures, including Icom, Yaesu, Kenwood, MFJ, Internet Labs, and Comet. Even Gordon West was there.   Gary, KN4AQ, was there filming for a future episode of Ham Nation.

Georiga D-STAR had a table at the event and a number of folks dropped by to say hello.

And of course the big event was when the D-STAR Santa dropped by.

But Santa (Patrick W4VZB)  walks away with the Grand Prize a Kenwood TS-590!

 

Take a look at some of the photos at Flickr. There's a number of your D-STAR stars in the show!

 

Here's the link to HamNation.  You can see Gordon in a D-STAR QSO with Japan, Robin talks about the DVAP at about 36:00.

 

Central Florida D-STAR Academy 

Posted by Admin Tuesday, May 17, 2011 3:38:00 PM Categories: D-RATS D-STAR DVAP DVDongle Presentations

Central Florida D-STAR Group Offers D-STAR Academy

 

The Central Florida D-STAR Group will hold a one day D-STAR Academy on July 30, 2011 at Lake Receptions in Mount Dora Florida.

This D-STARter educational experience is designed for beginners as well as more experienced D-STAR users. The goals and objectives are to present D-STAR definitions, equipment, DVAPs, Dongles, linking, high and low speed data, the ID-1, D-Rats and comprehensive training for programming the radios. There will also be presentations and demonstrations on advancements in D-STAR high speed data communications and other emergency communications techniques using D-STAR equipment. There will be time for “hands on” instructions how to program D-STAR radios without a computer.

Instruction will be provided by experts in the D-STAR field such as Ray Novak, National Amateur Marketing Manager for Icom America, Robin Cutshaw, AA4RC who has developed the Dongle and DVAP. Paul Eakin, North Florida Section Manager and others will present high speed data and other advancements in communication using D-STAR systems. The target audience for this session is emergency management, hospital administrators and the more advanced D-STAR users.

No matter what your D-STAR experience, if any, there will be a wealth of information provided so that the beginner can go home and put his/her equipment on the air and the more advanced operator can explore the new data transfer methods which will have Emergency Management application.

The cost for the D-STAR Academy will be $ 35.00 per person and that will include lunch and refreshments all during the day.

You may register for this course at our web site www.cfldsg.org . More detailed information about class schedule and instructors is also available at this site. 

We encourage amateur radio clubs to make this information available to their members and include it in their news letters.

 

Ted Luebbers K1AYZ
Central Florida D-STAR Group
5739 Bounty Circle
Tavares FL.32778
352 343 8344

DSTARInfoCon 2011 is now in the History Books 

Posted by Admin Saturday, April 23, 2011 11:21:00 PM Categories: D-RATS D-STAR DVAP DVDongle Presentations

 

About 70 folks made it to the DSTARInfoCon even with it being Easter weekend. And about 70 folks staggered away, full of all sorts of new D-STAR information. From the beginners to the advanced, there were classes to be enjoyed by everyone.

First, I'd like to thank the instructors who did this out of the goodness of their heart.

Bill Cherepy – WB4WTN John Davis – WB4QDX Rob Hoppe – KI4SBT
Chris Fowler – K4FH Ken Adkisson – WB4FAY Robin Cutshaw – AA4RC
David Lake – G4ULF Paul Eakin – KJ4G Scott Hartlage – KF4PWI
Ed Woodrick – WA4YIH Pete Loveall – AE5PL Mark Holmes - KJ4VO

And all of the participants who made the trek. I believe that we had 5 states represented!

3 of our presenters attended without being there. David, Pete, and Mark all were remote presenters, spread across the country and joining us either with D-STAR or Web Meeting.

The following is a list of classes that we had

 

Getting  Started with D-STAR Low Speed Data/DPRS Repeater Basics
Linking/Callsign Routing High Speed Data/1.2 GHz G2 Gateway/Trust Server
Programming Radios Hotspots Repeater Operation, Maintenance
Programming Radio Practice D-RATS Gateway Utilities & Add-ons
Using D-STAR DV Dongle and DVAP G4ULF Gateway Software

 

It was a full day of D-STAR. And we even had giveaways from Icom, RT Systems, and HRO.

DSTARInfoCon 2011 Announced 

Posted by Admin Saturday, March 26, 2011 11:09:00 PM Categories: D-RATS D-STAR DVAP DVDongle

DSTARInfo and Georgia D-STAR will be hosting a one-day workshop to provide information and training on all levels of D-STAR.  Classes will be organized to allow participants on all levels from new users to repeater system administrators gain knowledge about D-STAR’s digital voice and data technology.

D-STAR InfoCon will be held at Georgia Gwinnett College in Lawrenceville, Georgia, just 30 minutes northeast of downtown Atlanta. Participants can choose from informative, hands-on classes to get you started for the new D-STAR user to more advanced topics for experienced users.

 

For More Information see  DSTARInfoCon 2011

Orlando Hamcation 2011 

Posted by Admin Sunday, February 13, 2011 6:36:00 PM Categories: D-RATS D-STAR DVAP DVDongle Hamfests Presentations

As has always seem the case, there were a lot more people wanting to hear the D-STAR forum at Hamcation than there were seats available.Regrettably a number of people turned away when they saw how full the room was. Hamcation officials are trying to find a better alternative for next year.

This year's presentation were as follows:

Gwinnett Techfest 

Posted by Admin Wednesday, January 12, 2011 6:42:00 PM Categories: D-STAR DVAP DVDongle Hamfests

This year's Techfest, as always was packed full of people coming to see about the different aspects of Amateur Radio. Robin Cutshaw AA4RC and Ed Woodrick WA4YIH were on-site helping people understand D-STAR

Beta DVDongle Software Published 

Posted by Admin Saturday, August 15, 2009 5:08:00 PM Categories: D-STAR DVDongle

AA4RC has been hiding for a few weeks programming and his efforts are now being seen. DVTool, the software for the DVDongle has been rewritten to run natively on each supported platform, as opposed to running under Java. This has dramatically increased performance and is allowing the Netbook class of computers to run the software sucessfully. The software is still in beta, so there are a few bugs, but overall it is doing great! Download Here

North Florida D-STAR Academy 

Posted by Admin Sunday, February 8, 2009 5:11:00 PM Categories: D-RATS D-STAR DVAP DVDongle Presentations

150 show up to learn about D-STAR Announcement and Slide Decks

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