> > I know that with a D-star repeater, the repeater cannot have the same > > callsign as the owner's and one needs to get a frequency pair from the > > repeater council. I read over the application from the repeater > > council's site and it asks for the repeater's callsign. Should I get a > > callsign for the repeater from the fcc first, then apply with the > > repeater council? (snip) > Apply for a club call through ARRL or W5YI. Then use that call to fill > out your coordination paperwork. You will need to have a site selected > and committed before submitting your coordination.
Expanding on that: Not sure who your coordinator is - but by now they should know something about D-STAR and the requirement that D-STAR have unique callsigns. To kick off the coordination put your own or a club's callsign in - and note that you will be applying for a unique callsign for the D-STAR repeater. Apply to the FCC for the club call. Note that you will get back (almost instantly from my experience with the ARRL) a class-D callsign (2x3). If you want a vanity call - you can then apply for one; that takes a little longer. This can all happen in parallel to getting the frequency coordination and equipment. Changing a callsign on a D-STAR repeater is an extremely simple task: connect your PC to the control port and update it. BUT: if you are going to get your D-STAR controller setup with a gateway ... you will want to setup that gateway with the final callsign that you'll use on the repeater. It is NOT a trivial process to change the callsign of the gateway computer system - in effect you have to rebuild it from scratch. HTH and GL! Bob W1QA
