Ron, There are many reasons. The biggest is probably that when repeaters are linked, users on all repeaters can talk to each other. It is quite common for systems that are connected to reflectors, particularly REF001C or REF030C to have conversations with people from all across the world. We have conversations from Atlanta to London all of the time. Or Atlanta to Japan. In a lot of areas, when a D-STAR repeater goes online, there aren't many users with the capability, so you get into a chicken and egg type of thing. No one buys a radio because there's no one to talk to. When you link this "local" repeater to some of the reflectors, all of the sudden there's plenty of people to talk to. Steve has already mentioned the APRS type position reporting. There's also the last heard list at www.DSTARUsers.org<http://www.DSTARUsers.org> that shows everyone who keys down.
There really is a lot of reasons, but in general, it opens the local community up to the remainder of the world. Want to see just how widespread D-STAR is, connect to REF030B during Dayton, or look at the status page http://ref030.dstargateway.org/ and see how many repeaters from all over the world are connected into the Dayton Party Line! Last year we average 50+ repeaters at all times during the weekend. Ed WA4YIH From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of rOn Sent: Wednesday, May 05, 2010 8:10 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [DSTAR_DIGITAL] DSTAR newcomer I am new to DSTAR and need some enlightenment. Other than temporary EMCOMM ops why would anyone want to connect DSTAR to the internet? I need facts not attacks. rOn
