Dayton Hamvention

19 May 2008 

To start off the Hamvention, Greg Sarratt, W4OZK, presented a forum on D-STAR. The forum included presentations by Greg, Jim McClellan (N5MIJ), Ron Shaffer (W4VM), and Robin Cutshaw (AA4RC). At one point it was mentioned that over 240 people were in the audience, there were very few seats empty and a number of people standing.

It became evident on Friday that Dayton was the center of what might have been one of the first D-STAR DX pileups. All through the day we could hear call signs from across the world calling individuals and CQ on the repeater. There were a number of non-English QSOs occurring. For those o you who called and did not get a response, chalk it up to the pile up. At times there were 3-4 non-local people calling on the repeater. Maybe next year we will be connected to a reflector so that everyone can hear the pileup.

For the Friday evening gathering, Jim McClellan and a slew of others presented the current state of the system, as well as a number of awards for those who have helped progress the state of D-STAR. In addition, Satoshi announced that, after a ceremony on Saturday morning, that Japan will be connected to the K5TIT Trust server and that communications between Japan and other countries would be possible.

D-STAR at the Hamvention

There were a number of booths that cater to D-STAR enthusiasts at the Hamvention. The DSTARUSERS.org group and Icom had D-STAR only booths. TX/RX showed their D-STAR duplexers. And of course D-STAR was in both of the Icom booths, and HRO, and AES, and every other Ham Radio Store that had a booth.

There were no new D-STAR radios at the show. Unless you count Satoshi's FT-817! Pretty interesting seeing a FT-817 with D-STAR emblazoned on it.

On Saturday morning, the 440.6 repeater on the site mysteriously disappeared to the Dayton users. That's because unbeknown to most, the repeater was moved up 10 kHz for the first contact with Japan. So, until about 11 AM, most of the local (except those watching the first QSO) thought the repeater had gone off of the air.
But those of you who weren't at the arena did not know that the repeater had been moved and kept trying to call stations. During the middle of a QSO in Japanese, the CQ of a UK or San Francisco station would just pop in.

Saturday morning at 9:30 EDT, the first contact was made with Japan by Maureen (KD7QDZ) of Icom. Maureen indicated that the JARL had required that the first contact with Japan must be made by a US Amateur that spoke Japanese. So while the first few conversations were "Greek to me", they finally switched into English and we were all able to understand. The first contact was on the Tokyo repeater and then she moved to the Nagoya and finally to the Osaka repeaters. Don't forget that there is a little time change, so while it was morning EDT, it was very late in Japan.

We were also honored by the presence of Satoshi (7M3TJZ/AD6GZ), the creator of the interface that allows any radio with a 9600 baud Packet Port to be a D-STAR radio. We heard him talking on an FT-817 over the W5DIT repeater during the show, and yes, it sounded and looked just like any Icom D-STAR radio, except that it was a Yaesu! Here, he is demonstrating the device in the www.DSTARUSERS.org booth.

And finally on Saturday afternoon at about 2:30 PM, I was listening and heard a call from JL7HHS on the K5DIT repeater. After a little bit of work, I finally made contact, one I believe that was the first non-Icom contact with Japan.

While we were talking to our visitors from Icom Japan, they indicated that Japan currently has 15 repeaters. I'm sure we'll eventually get all of the information, but here's the first list of repeaters accessible from the K5TIT trust server connected systems.

JP1YIW Mod A - Tokyo
JP2YGI Mod A - Nagoya
JP3YHJ Mod A - Osaka

Remember, there is a time delay and a language gap. Make sure that you speak so that non-native speaker can understand you. Also make sure that you indicate the repeater that they will need to use to get back to you.

Update - The manner in which we are connected does not allow for one-touch returns. This will require the actual modules to be programmed in the UR Call field.

Memories

ARVN:Amateur Radio//Video News videotaped both the Friday afternoon forum and Friday evening seminar. A DVD set will be available in a few weeks (hopefully by the end of May) for a reasonable price.

Ed Woodrick WA4YIH 

Good D-STAR DX!