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Southeastern US News

D-STAR News

• GigaParts Repeater Giveaway - 17 Aug 2008
  At the D-STAR forums in Huntsville, GigaParts announced the winners of their D-STAR Repeater Giveaway. Applicants for the repeater system had to create applications and justify the placement of the system, as well promise quick implementation.
  The winner of the repeater was Georgia D-STAR who plans to place the system on a PBC tower in the Southeastern part of the state, covering Savannah and surrounding communities.

• Huntsville Hamfest - 17 Aug 2008
  Over the years, the Huntsville Hamfest has become a hotbed of D-STAR Activity. At last year's Hamfest, a number of people went through Icom's Gateway Administrator Course. As most folks know, the course is no longer offered, nor necessary.
  Two sessions were offered this year, the first by Rick Seeders,KG4PNL (Alabama Asst SM) that offered users an in-depth look at D-STAR and routing. Rick discussed how to program radios, making sure that the right information is in the RPT1, RPT2, and UR fields.
  The second session, by John Davis WB4QDX and Ed Woodrick WA4YIH provided demonstrations on linking, low speed data, high speed data, and the DVDongle. This session utilized the KJ4BDF repeater which was brought over by Ed and located in the convention center. Ed demonstrated linking the repeater to the local KI4PPF repeater as well as to REF001A.

• Japan Connecting to World 20 July 2008
  The Japan D-STAR repeaters are now connecting to the US Trust Server. This will allow for permanent communications between Japan and the remainder of the world. First reported by VK4TUX and confirmed by JK1ZRW, the Japan Repeaters are now online. A list of connected repeaters is available at http://d-star.dyndns.org/misc/Japan_repeater.pdf
  None of the advanced repeater linking or one-touch capabilities are currently available in this configuration. Contacts must be made with the /JP1YIUA type of call in the UR field. You MUST also announce what repeater and module that you are on, as One-Touch is not working. If you hear a Japan station, you will NOT be able to perform a One-Touch reply. You will have to enter the repeater and module callsign as above.
  Remember that Tokyo is at UTC +9, so, for the US, they sleep when we are awake. Contacts made from US are best done in early morning to correspond to their late evening.

• D-STAR Field Day 1 July 2008
  Check out the D-STAR Field Day Pictures

• D-STAR Site Activities - Three weeks ago we installed some activity counters to help us track site usage. The activity has been overwhelming. In those three weeks, we've had 1,000 visitors from 39 countries. The D-STAR Calculator has calculated repeater settings over 2,500 times during that period.
  We appreciate everyone stopping by and hopefully we are living up to your expectations. If you have any comments or news items for the site, please pass them along to info@DSTARINFO.com.

• DVDongle Beta Version 1.05beta4 14 June 2008
  Version 1.05beta4 of DVTool is on http://www.opendstar.org/tools for testing. The issue where you may hear more than one module on a reflector has been fixed. Also, a patch for slow speech has been included.

• D-STAR Soon to be in Orbit! 7 June 2008
  After a thorough and exhaustive review of 22 proposals that were received from universities all over Europe, ESA officials have finally selected 9 CubeSats (plus two back-ups) that will be flown during the debut of Europe’s new Vega launch vehicle in late 2008 or early 2009.
  See full Story at esa web site

• D-STAR Video - Forums at Dayton 2008
  If you missed the D-STAR forums at Dayton this year, you can relive all four hours, squeezed onto one DVD! The DVD includes the two-hour Friday Forum, and the two-hour Friday Night Event at the Drury Inn. It also has a two-minute clip of the first US/Japan D-STAR contact, which took place on Saturday at the Hamvention. (Gary KN4AQ)
  
  Check it out at: www.ARVideoNews.com.

• DVDongle Update - 1 June 2008
  Version 1.05beta3 of the DVTool application is available for testing. This will become
  the default version within the next couple of days unless major problems are found.
  There are some protocol enhancements that will allow for interacting with the data stream
  in the next  version and 1.05 has those underlying protocols supported. Versions prior to 1.05 will be retired and those versions will cease to operate due to the new protocol enhancements. As a result, it is important that we get 1.05beta3 tested by as many people as possible. (Robin Cutshaw)
  
  See the DVDongle Yahoo Group for more information
  

• D-STAR Decoder Software - 1 Jun 2008
  Just uploaded new version of D-Star decoder to files section.
  Changes:
  - Added various output modules (dongle,dvtool,UDP,files,logging) that can be combined, so
  you can listen to calls and stream it over internet and log it to disk.
  - Added differential demodulator that can decode output even from badly filtered receivers.
  Use it only only when you have problems with default one.
  - Added tool dvplayer.exe for playing .dvtool files. Simple and fast, no need to run dvtool.
  - Changed version from v0.2a to 0.3
  As always, !!READ README.TXT!! before posting to group for help. I added
  examples, so it should be clear how to use it. (Jakub Hruska )
  
  You can find the software at the D-STAR Decoder Software Yahoo Group

• Dayton Hamvention 19 May 2008

• World-Wide Net 11 May 2008
  The first worldwide D-Star net was held 2008-05-11.  The net went
  smoothly with no glitches in the reflector 001 infrastructure
  provided by Kermit, W9XA.  The new dplus and multi-gateway reflector
  code was well stress tested with no problems.
   
  We tried a new check in paradigm.  Users were called on each individual
  repeater and were instructed to key down one second with no audio to
  check in.  They were then called individually to provide first name and
  location.  All in all, it worked better than expected.
   
  Statistics for the net:  28 gateways with 61 RF check-ins, 17 DV Dongle
  check-ins.  Elapsed time was one hour and 36 minutes.
   
  Participating Repeaters
   
  DB0DF DB0TVM GB7DX K6CTX
  K6MDD K6PIT K6SOA K7RST
  KC2TGB KD8DRG KE5KAF KI4SBA
  KI4WXS KI4JUL KC7FF NJ2DG
  NM5WR VK3RWN W0OMD W3OI
  W4DOC W5HAT W6DHS W6UUU
  WD4STR WH6DHT WH6DIG WX8GRR
  DV DONGLE
  

• Update 19 April
  First G2 Multicast Net today at 12:30 EDT. You can connect via one of the nodes below. Click the link for how to program your radio. This is not the standard programming.
  K6MDD
  VA7ICM
  W4DOC
  K8LCD
  K6VO (Not in calculator)
  KD8DRG
  W5SHV
  W9ARP
  KJ4ACN
  W9CEQ
  WA7FW

• Digital Saturday - 29 March 2008
  Gwinnett ARES sponsored a series of classes on digital technologies, including D-STAR. The D-STAR Operations and D-STAR Data classes were near capacity and well received by all who attended. There were reports of at least one field trip to HRO afterwards to acquire a DVDongle.
  Due to space constraints, each class was limited to 8 participants, and each class ended up having 7-8 participants, we were at capacity. About the only issue was that our 45 minute classes were too short. We had to force each class to end, they seemed to want to go on for much longer. There was no dozing by the attendees, they were all asking questions and listening intently to all of the speakers.
• Logo Update - 29 March 2008
  The D-STAR Calculator has a new logo! The Georgia D-STAR logo has been moved to the bottom of the page.
• Site Update - 29 March 2008
  A few more updates have been made to the web site. A new section "Repeaters" have been added. This section contains the web sites associated to various D-STAR repeaters worldwide.
  The D-STAR Calculator has been given it's own home page. The home page has some tips on how to use the calculator, as well as a link to the calculator itself.
  The style sheet has been updated with the D-STAR Logo at the top pf the page and the Georgia D-STAR logo at the bottom.
• D-STAR Calculator Update - 26 March 2008
  The D-STAR Calculator has been updated to allow the specification of the default listed repeater in the URL. This allows repeater websites to have a customized link that lists their repeater first. See the D-STAR Calculator Home Page for more details.