Batboard

I have been reading about D-star and various other digital formats and I am interested in doing some experimenting with this.

Now D-star I get the inpression that this is similar to IP Mobile Net in that you have a voice unit (although I am not sure what digital format they use) and you can also get high speed wireless data from it. Am I correct in this assumption?

Just out of curiosity what are most hams out there using I get the impression that things like Apco and P25 (not sure if they are the same thing this is all new to me) are being used more than D-star.

Thanks guys
73

First awesome avatar there, as you can see I am a family guy fan myself.

Second, from what I have called Icom and talked to them D-Star is meant to be a high speed (who's def.???) backbone for passing data and voice around to different sites and repeaters etc...

D-Star was develop over in Japan (J.A.R.L. - Japan Amateur Radio League) as like in the US bandwidth is becoming crowded. According to Icom it was designed so that mulitple clubs/org. could use the same system but each have there own repeater, data site, etc....

Now as for the mobile it does do data as well as voice in digital mode. It is only in the 1.2 GHz band at this time. Once again according to Icom they plan to rollout more bands but first want to see how it is going to go over before throwing more R&D dollars at it.

D-Star runs on a digital format of AMBE compared to our format used here at current of IMBE. They said that was a common format of digital used by JARL so that is why they went with that format.

Icom is very helpful in talking and discussing the new D-Star set-up if you get them when they are not to busy so give them a call and ask away.


As for the type of digital most hams are using I would have to say, and someone can agree or dis-agree, that it seems to be IMBE with an APCO25 flavored twist. I know that some people have played with the Alinco digital of GMSK and all I have heard was very very poor reports in audio quality and clarity. Also the equipment is hard to operate to switch between digital and analog on the Alinco's.

My feelings (and once again these are my own feelings and thoughts) you will see more and more hams adopting and using the IMBE APCO25 flavor format as the market is getting more and more sat. with Astro Sabers as the new kid in town is the XTS series.

In closing I truely due feel the ARRL should step up to the plate and say even though amateur radio is about experimentation and furthering the amateur community we think this should be the prefered format for digital VOICE communications. But asking them to do that is like asking them to say hey PSK31 is better then Packet KISS protocol etc...

As amateur we will have to set our own ideals and visions from here. I know over by the twin cities there is a repeater listed as digital with a 9600 buad rate but unknown format IMBE, etc....

Good luck and bizzzzzhissssshhhhhhhhhh, sorry I ended in digital.