Project D-Star
19Around 2007 I started poking into DStar. I found it fascinating with all the new cool features like;
- Auto ID
- Call Routing (it knew where in the world to find you)
- Selective Calling (great since i don’t like to listen to everyone else’s QSO)
- World Wide Coverage (I could stay in touch with the guys from all continents)
- APRS
It had all the ingredients of a really cool system for event use. The problems, however, included a very expensive infrastructure (radios and repeaters), too much “control” (we see have that happened in DMR too) and radio manufactures slow in joining in on the standard. Kenwood just joined in 2017 or about 10 years too late after the vast majority of DStar believers moved on to DMR.
The home brew guys started de-featuring DStar to just another digital mode and sported Allstar, Hotspot etc. All cool digital equipment to bridge digital radios in to portions of the network, but without the core features listed above.
Additionally, the routing convention became to cumbersome for the average ham who only cares to use ham-radio for rag-chew. The good, the bad and ugly with ham-radio is that many a segment of the hobby will flourish around our friends interest. Thus, it seems like it is easy to become the lone ranger in a geographic area on the more experimental modes. DStar is an example of this. It had great potential, but only became mainstream in larger metropolitan areas for full feature operation.
As a result I have a lot of expensive DStar radio equipment used on FM analog.
On the following pages you will find notes on my 2 D-Star radios;
- Icom IC2820
- Icom ID92
These pages are still under construction and are random notes and placeholders.