At 12:38 AM 5/9/2010, you wrote:
>" My experience with D-Star repeaters is they give me a bit more >range than analog FM " > >Not the norm ..... ANALOG has more range It depends. I have witnessed many examples of D-STAR performing well on RF paths where FM would have been marginal at beast. Provided multipath is not an issue, D-STAR can outperform FM. The first experiences were on simplex, before we got our first repeater. Simplex was quite active during this period when D-STAR radios became widely available, but before any infrastructure came along (late 2007 for me). When the repeater went up, I heard contacts from areas I was _very_ familiar with, that I had never been able to get reliable signals into repeaters on the same site on bands above 6 metres. D-STAR was rock solid. Later on, some 120+ mile paths were worked over the ranges, that were a tough call on analog. These contacts were widely mentioned. D-STAR works, and in the right conditions, it works extrememyl well. However, to be fair, one does have to say that if there is significant multipath, D-STAR is the first mode to suffer, then FM is the next, and SSB survives multipath even better. 73 de VK3JED / VK3IRL http://vkradio.com
